Sample Troll Sues (And Loses) Over Sample Of A Song It Claims Sampled Its Song

from the follow-that? dept

We've written a few times about Bridgeport Music, which has been called a "sample troll". The small company claims ownership of numerous copyrights on songs written by George Clinton -- about which George Clinton claims the main guy at Bridgeport forged Clinton's signature to obtain. Bridgeport is largely responsible for many of the lawsuits you hear about these days concerning "samples" being used in music, as it effectively convinced the Sixth Circuit Court that there was no fair use when it came to samples, and any sample requires royalty payments. However, in its latest lawsuit, it may have even overstepped those boundaries. William Patry points us to the details that show the lengths to which Bridgeport will go to try to squeeze money out of songs it may not even really own the rights to. The case involves a Snoop Dogg song that apparently used a sample of an old Clinton tune (something that Clinton encourages (video clip)). But, that's not the problem. The problem appears to be that two other musicians later sampled the Snoop Dogg tune (not the Clinton tune), and therefore Bridgeport is now claiming that Universal Music (who owns a small fraction of the rights associated with the Snoop Dogg tune) owes it money for licensing a song that had a sample that may or may not have been owned by Bridgeport. Luckily, the courts have tossed out the suit, noting that Bridgeport's evidence is incredibly weak.

Either way, just the fact that Bridgeport thinks it has a claim shows to what ridiculous lengths people are taking copyright laws these days. To recap: Bridgeport may or may not own the copyrights to some George Clinton songs (Clinton himself claims that Bridgeport does not own those rights and forged signatures to pretend it does). However, Bridgeport is suing Universal Music who owns a tiny fraction of the rights for a Snoop Dogg song which may or may not have sampled a tiny portion of a George Clinton song, and, in turn had a small section of the Snoop Dogg song sampled by two other musicians. The connection here between the two parties involved in the lawsuit is so distant that the idea that copyrights even play a remote part here is laughable. Unfortunately, though, that is the length to which companies will go these days thanks to our overly broad copyright laws.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: samples, snoop dogg
Companies: bridgeport music, universal music


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2007 @ 8:26pm

    At what point do we stop referring to these people as "trolls" and start calling them what they are: "opportunists" with the law on their side.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2007 @ 10:21pm

    Holy. Balls.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 26 Nov 2007 @ 10:31pm

    so form the sounds of it if i can get a copyright on the note C i can sue all music companies because they used that note

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 27 Nov 2007 @ 2:09am

    Copyright theft funds Islamic terrorism

    If Bridgeport loses the fight, your babies WILL DIE! We should start calling it Copyright Murder!

    You wouldn't kill a small puppy?
    You wouldn't stab a pensioner?
    Then why do you download music?
    Downloading music kills small cute puppies and old age pensioners!

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Lawrence D'Oliveiro, 27 Nov 2007 @ 2:28am

    Clinton's signature?

    Did anyone witness the supposed signing of the rights by Clinton over to Bridgeport? Also, when Bridgeport brings suit against someone, couldn't the respondent bring Clinton in to testify that he never signed over the rights? In fact, why hasn't this already been done?

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.