question about glitch and copyright stuff

[Mr. Tunes]

yeah that was a little harsh of hoffy but i understand where he's coming from cause i was at a conference on publishing a few weeks ago and someone kept asking repetitive questions in this nature. but bernhardtjeff really is entitled to info from everyone on the subject as it's a very important one these days.

i think the important part for you, the artist, to realize how far your music is going to be released. you know, most records are really clear of any sort of legal trouble and it's certain points where it all crosses over. for example, the indie group that all of a sudden is licenced into some major TV commercial campaign and now people are paying attention to their music. i've heard of waveform scanners i personally dont believe in their ability to catch anything. and then look at that controversy with sample cds like the Amen break.

i think it's also important for people to understand the difference between Mechanical Rights, Performance Rights and then there's Sync Rights later on. If you sample a piece of the Grateful Dead from their commercially released hit single Touch of Grey, the studio version, you might find their publishers come after you for abusing their Mechanical Right. If you sampled a piece of their live show version, it's very possible no one would care since this is more or less taken from the hands of the songwriters and performers more than it is involved with the record company that released the phonograph record - of course prior to Jerry's wife being such a miserable woman. Also if you perform the Grateful Dead song yourself and sample it, prior to this controversy, you'd also likely not find any serious trouble. of course we're talking about one of the most lax bands in history up until now. dont try this at home! and i'm sure if your song with Grateful Content in it hit it big they'd definitely want to have a chat with you, no question!

someone correct me if i'm wrong i'm still learning the ins and outs of publishing and sampling.

[tiggeroo]

If it's 'unrecognizable', why not just use something else instead? In this day and age with the ability to emulate everything, I don't see the point in sampling other people's material anyway. Mashing's different, I suppose.

#2, I never liked The Dead in the first place, so they can take their whole library and shove it up you know where.

[bernhardtjeff]

yeah, i know i framed it in terms of a question about me doing something, but i was really just wondering if people like oval have gotten permission for all the bits they use. i should have made that clearer. i wasn't trying to find out what i can "get away with" or anything. i was just reading where he says he has an archive of thousands of little bits and immediately thought, "with all the copyright stuff going on these days, how does he get away with this?"

[nuisance sonore]

Nobody's bothered to take the result of somebody's work for commercial purpose without his or her consent? I mean from a moral standpoint, forget about the law for a minute. I mean if it's for fun and hobby just go ahead, but for a commercial project that one will make money off it's something I could never bring myself to do and I can't fathom how anybody could justify it. It's just sound? It's easy to do? Good, make your own then I say.

[bernhardtjeff]

I mean from a moral standpoint, forget about the law for a minute.

your morals are up to you, so i don't wanna get into a thing about your morals, but keep in mind that if everyone shared the same morals, there wouldn't be a need for the law, so it's pretty useless to say "forget about the law for a minute" because then you're setting yourself up for a debate that will inevitably lead back to someone saying "well, there should be a law for this because you guys have no morals"! ironical, isn't it?

I mean if it's for fun and hobby just go ahead, but for a commercial project that one will make money off it's something I could never bring myself to do and I can't fathom how anybody could justify it. It's just sound? It's easy to do? Good, make your own then I say.

well you can fathom how someone could justify it (assuming that people really do give "it's just sound" and "it's easy to do" as reasons for justifying these things). you just don't agree that their justifications are valid and have produced a reason why you don't agree.

[Amberience]

It's not just sound.

[DWb]

Nobody's bothered to take the result of somebody's work for commercial purpose without his or her consent? I mean from a moral standpoint, forget about the law for a minute. I mean if it's for fun and hobby just go ahead, but for a commercial project that one will make money off it's something I could never bring myself to do and I can't fathom how anybody could justify it.

Erm, because I've (hypothetically) put a vast amount of time, effort and creativity into producing a piece of music which happens to use as one of its sources of sound something that someone else recorded. It's not like I'm saying 'here, buy my copy of *whatever* rather than the version sold by the original artist.' I don't feel any more debt to the original musician than I would to the person who built my guitar.

[GaryG]

a) I personally wouldn't want to stoke the ego of some major label 'artist' by sampling their stuff, if I want audio fragments to manipulate then I'm creative enough (hee) to make my own from sounds around me.

however:

b) context is everything and if the source of the sounds is important (like Jeremy Boyles 'songs from the guitar solos') then obviously you've got to sample them... just be prepared for a lawsuit if it's still recognizable or a 'significant' portion. Then release it free on the web and move on to something else.

.g

[GaryG]

I don't feel any more debt to the original musician than I would to the person who built my guitar.

amen.

[kritikon]

If it's 'unrecognizable', why not just use something else instead? In this day and age with the ability to emulate everything, I don't see the point in sampling other people's material anyway. Mashing's different, I suppose.

I wholeheartedly agree. If it's only small snippets that are so small that they're unrecognizable - get off your f**king arse and create your own sound sources. It ain't difficult. There's no excuse for using those small samples apart from bone bleedin'-idleness. It automatically negates any legal issues too.

Yeah, you might get away with sampling others' work, but like it or not, it's illegal for commercial use without prior consent. If you get caught, then tough titty and deal with the aggro that you could have saved by spending a handful of minutes making your own sounds. I don't feel any sympathy whatsoever for absolutely anyone who got screwed by lawyers in sampling cases. There is ALWAYS another option to make a sound.

[Amberience]

So I can assume you've never sampled anyone Kritikon?
I can assume you've never used a software sampler's included Piano patch or string patch? I can assume you find the idea of using Sampletank to be abhorent yes? After all, there's no excuse for not buying a piano and doing all that sampling work yourself. NO EXCUSE!

In fact, why limit it to samples... I can assume you never use synth presets huh? Because y'know... there's no excuse for using presets when you can create your own.

C'mon man.. it's really not that hard to understand. Using short snippets of sound from others work equates to using it in ways it was not intended.

I wouldn't mind, you can have your opinion. But don't be so f**king high-horsey about it.

[DWb]

I wholeheartedly agree. If it's only small snippets that are so small that they're unrecognizable - get off your fkucing arse and create your own sound sources. It ain't difficult. There's no excuse for using those small samples apart from bone bleedin'-idleness.

Errr, yes there is.

Using samples gives you intertextuality and reference. You can get a range of different vocal characters. You can get a range of different instrumental characters, come to that. The fraction of a second will have the 'sound' of a whole other recording setup - we're only used to hearing the sound of one studio at a time, so this gives you a slight jar. I might not have the time or money to buy and record a gong, a trumpet and a harpsichord just because I want to use a 0.1 second sample of each. I might like the sound of the old vinyl recording. Something in the sound of the sample might inspire me, rather than vice versa. Using a sample rather than trying to recreate it gives me more time to work on other elements of the composition.

And finally, there are a whole lot of things that we do because we're idle. We buy bread rather than baking our own. We have cars with power steering, or bikes with well pumped up tyres. We put our bags down if we're standing around for any period of time. Noone has produced a compelling moral argument against any of these, just as noone has produced a compelling moral argument against using extremely short samples, so I'll continue to do that too.

[DWb]

After all, there's no excuse for not buying a piano and doing all that sampling work yourself. NO EXCUSE!

Buy a piano! You mean you don't make your own?

Laziness, pure laziness. Youth of today...

[Klemperer]

slightly or more off-topic here, but I remember the story of a german well-known band "Die fantastischen Vier" who had, rather unknown then, sampled some seconds from another artist and not "cleared" the piece. Then they were rich and famous, and along came a kind of guru of the postmodernist-artscene- in Germany, a Diederich Diedrichsen, and was proud he had found the snippet and cried STOLEN STOLEN.

I always have to laugh hearing this again, as the man is a professor now, and his philosophy like the pretty dominant one in the "scene" states that everything is just a text from a text from a text from a copy from a text from a sample which is a text which is a copy from a...

Now back to your thread...

[kritikon]

So I can assume you've never sampled anyone Kritikon?
I can assume you've never used a software sampler's included Piano patch or string patch? I can assume you find the idea of using Sampletank to be abhorent yes? After all, there's no excuse for not buying a piano and doing all that sampling work yourself. NO EXCUSE!

In fact, why limit it to samples... I can assume you never use synth presets huh? Because y'know... there's no excuse for using presets when you can create your own.

That's just twaddle.
Sample sets included with samplers would be cleared already. CD samples should be cleared if they're to be used commercially - in which case, there obviously isn't a problem. Synth presets are not illegal - surely you know that?
If you use samples that aren't cleared, you take your risks and live with them.

And you're damned right...I've never commercially used uncleared samples. Yes, I've used samples, but I made sure they were cleared for use. For personal use it's not an issue, but commercially...yeah I'll put my money where my mouth is. I've used drumloop samples thaty haven't been cleared - so what I did was extract the groove, used bits of that and replaced with my own drum hits or samples that were OK to use. Which is legal and I'm not going to get my arse sued for it.

And actually, yes I do make all of my own synth patches, I don't use sampling that much, and I tend to make my own samples from my own sources. The ones that aren't my own are cleared. Happy?
And it doesn't kill me to do it either.