Who writes the song?

[Emerald Tablet]

ASCAP

artist significantly cooler as prince ?

i mean erm ...now he`s called prince again
someone cooler as prince would o.c. be someone / thing biggererererer as GOD

[Ford Prefect]

What's the difference between a DJ and a "producer" these days? What gives producer/DJs the right to stand behind turntables and pretend to be gods? Every little bit someone does that ends up as a distinct product is work, but what to call it? Who knows...Some do their work at home; some on stage...That's why I don't get the DJ thing...they pose...You can't exactly stand on stage with a laptop and shake your ass unless you're Kraftwerk...
You could nitpick it down to, "oh Bob sampled those Taiko drums so he wrote the song?" or "I used Bob's mic. to record George's mom snoring and then I..."
If, in the old days, all you had to do was loan an artist a piece of gear to get your name on their credits as a coproducer...Should people list credit to a point of insanity?
Should Germans get money for every Frankfurter and Hamburger sold around the world?...hmmmm

[shamann]

And if you look at the sheet music for any of these songs, or look at the credits for any recording you will see the composer listed, not Michael Jackson. Their interests have been protected and that is why Jackson paid millions in advance for the rights to those songs. It was a business deal. The Beatles were upset because they never considered revenue that could be earned by licensing their songs for advertising. Revolution was a big part of a shoe campaign, and that is when The Beatles objected to the deal they happily made a few years earlier.

Actually, what I've heard to be the version of events is kind of both sad and odd. Sir Paul and Michael Jackson became friends, around the time they did that song together (Say Say Say?). Paul turned Michael on to the heavy duty financial rewards to be found in the world of music publishing.

A few years later, the Beatles catalogue comes up for auction. The two leading bidders are Paul and Michael, Mr. Jackson outbids, and the two are no longer friends. Sir Paul has stated his feelings publically.

But that's irrelevant. My point is not who gets credit and who's angry with whom, yada.

My point is that the creator and the legally recognized owner are two seperate things. Andy Warhol signed thousands of prints, rarely making them himself. But he's known as their creator, it's his name on the placard.

I sense a sort of disdain in the initial question for any one who mixes premade loops. But I think it's a false assumption to consider the act of creating anything more than simply a banal act, void of any moral hierarchy. All the other stuff, who's more worthy, etc, is a social matter seperate from the artistic act.

Cheers,
Steve

[Emerald Tablet]

...That's why I don't get the DJ thing...they pose...

strike a pose

yeah i never understood it either
but when i think about it
it`s always the combination of elements
when we are talking house music here (i have no time to name every genre derived from it) the good dj`s build up
and again it`s the combination of records which makes a dj a good dj

than again the realy good dj`s know how to build a new song from "scratch"

[Rabid]

It is not disdain in the initial question but a desire for clarity. As I said in my follow up, using loops of a drummer is no better or no worse then hiring that drummer for a studio session. But there are differences.

If you hire a drummer they give you customized work and get a credit. If the song goes gold then they get a gold CD to hand on the wall. If you get acid loops you can do a bit of customizing yourself. You may have to give the Acid loop package credit on the CD info but it stops there.

At this point things are pretty clear for me. But when you add more and more parts from Acid loops or purchased MIDI phrases the work seems to shift to a production. If I create the next big dance hit using Acid loops and packages arps, what is going to stop someone from duplicating it? If an artist creates a painting they have protection against someone painting a forgery. If musicians get together and create a song, they also have protection. But does that protection stop if you move from putting individual notes together for a song to using packaged rhythms, pads and melodies?

Robert

[Ford Prefect]

If musicians get together and create a song, they also have protection. But does that protection stop if you move from putting individual notes together for a song to using packaged rhythms, pads and melodies?

Robert

No...just like remixes are protected...those are reassembled parts...but how specifically do you want to define "duplicate"?...

[Rabid]

Well, I don't really know. Music production has changed more in the past 5 years than any other time in history. Maybe in the past 3 years. It is not just one area that drives this change.

* You no longer have to practice an instrument for hundreds of hours to produce good music.

* You no longer have to rely on a group of musicians to produce good music. You can go at it alone.

* You no longer have to build songs note at a time.

* You no longer have to invest $1000's in instruments, effects and mastering equipment to produce good music.

* You no longer have to depend on a major record company to get your music heard.

In the past people knew that Led Zep was ripping riffs from old blues players and turning them into songs. Now things have changed. People are distributing riffs, rhythms and other parts for multiple artists to use. So while individuals are making more music without use of a group, there is also a world wide collaboration happening. If you use BFD patterns then you are essentially collaborating with the drummer that recorded those MIDI loops, and you are not the only one.

It's not bad, just different. I wonder if the legal and financial structure is able to accommodate the new "production based" (for lack of a better phrase) creativity.

Robert

[shamann]

If I create the next big dance hit using Acid loops and packages arps, what is going to stop someone from duplicating it? If an artist creates a painting they have protection against someone painting a forgery. If musicians get together and create a song, they also have protection. But does that protection stop if you move from putting individual notes together for a song to using packaged rhythms, pads and melodies?

The way a license is structured will determine.

So for instance, if someone were to take a song that had been made from readymade loop CDs and then turn it into a second song, unless the song's license allowed it, they'd be violating copyright. But if they took the samples from the loop CD, that would entitle them to the use of the sound from the CD (not the song).

But how do you tell the two apart? Beats me, if someone were to just use others's sounds. It's unlikely that anyone would care about a song that was nothing but raw, unprocessed loops from a sample CD. That stuff usually sounds like the source material that it is. Pretty dull stuff just to string them together. That said, much of copyright is situational. One party has to prove damages. You'd have to show how the song that was strung together was somehow unique and then ripped off. Usually straightforward, given that loops are mostly used in the context of a greater whole, and rarely used as the sole composition.

The Streets are being sued for the exact same situation, by some guy who once used a loop CD now used by the Streets. Doubt it will pan out for the guy.

It's situations like this that show that most copyright law is just a lawyer's game. Copyright was meant to provide limited exclusive rights to enable you to benefit from your work and to foster the creation of more. It wasn't meant to protect ownership to the exclusion of all others in perpetuity.

If you put something into the public, it's difficult to prove that it then does not become part of the public. The social agreement should be that that one piece of the public should be protected for a limited time to help benefit its creator, acknowledging the social benefit of the creation. But implicit in that agreement is that nothing can be protected forever. That's why I'm a firm supporter of open-source models and the Creative Commons - they acknowledge these social forces. That, and you can't steal a gift.

Cheers,
Steve

[Shane Sanders]

I recall that Zappa was mostly concerned with people sampling his sounds that he made on his own with the understood intention of having them represent him as as distinct mind/creator. They were his labor, and as such he didn't want competing musicians to dilute his originality. This seems reasonable to me. Had he allowed it, I think some compensation would be due, and this is the supposed system that's in place now? Do I have that right? I'm sketchy on how far one has to go to get permission these days.

On the other hand, art is such a nebulous and evolving process, that we now have a very post-modern approach in electronic music where taking a slice of someone elses work and repurposing it radically can also be artistic. But in the end, if all one does is repurpose the labor of others, it might work for a while, yet ultimately leave that artist in second-tier statsu as far as originality and breadth goes. I'd rather just tweak things myself for the most part, but then I'm striving to be genuinely creative on every level that I can muster up the energy for. I'm sure many will agree.

But I don't begrudge someone the desire to take a killer breakbeat or a riff and make something cool out of it. The result may not have lasting value, though. But that is totally subjective.

[Sascha Franck]

For that matter, if someone puts together a major hit from purchased loops and patterns, is there any reason someone else could not put together the exact same arrangement and release it?

This is a VERY interesting question and I doubt there's a satisfying answer to it.
Fortunately (at least so far) the scenario is rather hypothetic (but maybe we're getting closer for such things to happen).

[TristezaOrange]

One of the Beach Boys, wasn't it?

Robert

Bruce Johnston or something.

[Emerald Tablet]

I recall that Zappa was mostly concerned with people sampling his sounds that he made on his own with the understood intention of having them represent him as as distinct mind/creator. They were his labor, and as such he didn't want competing musicians to dilute his originality. This seems reasonable to me. Had he allowed it, I think some compensation would be due, and this is the supposed system that's in place now? Do I have that right? I'm sketchy on how far one has to go to get permission these days.

On the other hand, art is such a nebulous and evolving process, that we now have a very post-modern approach in electronic music where taking a slice of someone elses work and repurposing it radically can also be artistic. But in the end, if all one does is repurpose the labor of others, it might work for a while, yet ultimately leave that artist in second-tier statsu as far as originality and breadth goes. I'd rather just tweak things myself for the most part, but then I'm striving to be genuinely creative on every level that I can muster up the energy for. I'm sure many will agree.

But I don't begrudge someone the desire to take a killer breakbeat or a riff and make something cool out of it. The result may not have lasting value, though. But that is totally subjective.

made me think about the following :

where does copying end and culture start
if someone raps or sings like s.o. else you could say
he coppied a style or say he is part of a movement in which certain people express in a certain way.

I don't begrudge someone the desire to take a killer breakbeat or a riff and make something cool out of it.

yeah and if he would audiotomidi the riff and apply it to his own instrumentation would that still be a ripp - what is the breakline in which using technology becomes a artform of it`s own.

[vurt]

For that matter, if someone puts together a major hit from purchased loops and patterns, is there any reason someone else could not put together the exact same arrangement and release it?

This is a VERY interesting question and I doubt there's a satisfying answer to it.
Fortunately (at least so far) the scenario is rather hypothetic (but maybe we're getting closer for such things to happen).

the streets new single apparently uses some loops from a sample cd,some lad was trying to sue them as hed rel;eased a track a year or so ago using the same loop

[Emerald Tablet]

[shamann]

I wonder if the legal and financial structure is able to accommodate the new "production based" (for lack of a better phrase) creativity.

That's a good question. So far, it hasn't looked good, as a lot of the big companies (read: the ones with the most lawyers) have railed against allowing the market to change with digital technology.

Consider John Oswald. I remember when Plunderphonics first came out, the big companies were fuming, and they shut him down to a large degree (if you've never heard it, you can download the whole thing at his site).

But the fundamental point of the record remains valid. Why isn't there a legal provision for audio citation? There is a well-established quotation mechanism for printed media, why not recorded media? Instead, everything got called "sampling" and was somehow deemed illegal/immoral.

Or consider hip hop. Someone posted a link here a while back to an interview with Public Enemy. It pointed out that the major labels have turned hip hop into big business, based largely on the grassroots success of hip hop in the 80s, but have made it near impossible to do what the old DJs did because of all the royalty schemes. If hip hop were to start today, most of the albums from that time could not be made, they'd either all be considered illegal or too expensive to make.

I'd rather have the music than the industry, but I know that's a heretical point of view to many.

Cheers,
Steve