50 Cent Sued Over Infringing Sample; When Will Hip-Hop's Stars Speak Up About Copyright?

from the now-would-be-a-good-time dept

The folks at dajaz1, who know better than anyone how copyright stifles culture and free speech, send in the news that Robert Poindexter of The Persuaders is suing 50 Cent for copyright infringement over a sample on a free album he released in 2009. This is likely to end in settlement, with a payout to Poindexter, because 50 Cent isn't offering any defense beyond the fact that the album was free. Unfortunately, this carries little to no legal weight. The courts have been unkind to sampled music over the years, as detailed in the excerpt we posted (part 1 and part 2) from this month's book club feature, Copyfraud. But, as dajaz1 explains quite clearly, sampling and remixing on free albums and mixtapes has always been an essential part of hip-hop, and is even embraced by labels:

This has been happening for many years on mixtapes and it’s quite common so 50′s attitude on this not shocking. Its the same attitude of every artist in urban music and it’s been like that from jump. In fact that’s why mixtapes are given away for free and not sold commercially. To put a bar code on a tape or sell it commercially violates many laws, but to give it away for free under the guise of “promotional use” has been the name of the game for decades and largely considered ok. This type of stuff is why these labels suddenly calling websites like us “rogue” for releasing them or trying to shut people down or put them in jail for making, releasing, or offering them for download has always been ridiculous. The attitude 50 is taking here is the same one every urban artist operates under and the promotional department of the major labels have been looking the other way on for years. Hell the major labels have been active participants. If you can’t clear the song you throw it out on a mixtape, or for free to radio mixshows and the blogs/internet as a freestyle/remix. Every major label artist that has made it in the rap genre has utilized these tactics so a loss in this case could be devastating not only to rap as a genre but the labels as well.

This is just another example of how copyright is totally out of sync with reality. This kind of activity is indispensable to culture, and it doesn't stop no matter what the law says—but it does get stifled, and driven underground, which is the opposite of what copyright is supposed to accomplish. As the chapter we posted from Copyfraud notes, several albums that are widely considered to be classics and important moments in music history (like Paul's Boutique or It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back) would be almost impossible to legally release today. Meanwhile, highly acclaimed mashups like The Grey Album are praised by the musicians whose work has been mashed, but are technically illegal and exist only as bootlegs by the grace (read: fear of bad publicity) of the record labels.

The big question is: can artists like 50 Cent do something about this? Hip-hop is one of the most popular and influential genres of music in the world, and its superstars command huge audiences. Most hip-hop fans don't realize that the genre is a legal minefield that exists because most artists cross their fingers and ignore the law entirely, while a rich few pay obscene royalties and settlement fees. Someone like 50 Cent is in the perfect position to raise more awareness of broken copyright law, and I hope that this attack on the lifeblood of hip-hop culture spurs him to do so.

Filed Under: 50 cent, book club, copyfraud, dajaz1, mixtape, sampling

Copyfraud: Techdirt Book Club Selection For April, Part Two

from the page-turner dept

Last week, we introduced this month's selection in the new Techdirt Book Club— Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law by law professor Jason Mazzone—and posted the first half of Chapter 3, which deals with Samples and Mashups and touches on some important moments in the history of copyright law (and hip-hop). Today we've got the second half of that chapter, which looks at the ongoing effects of the laws in this area on things like The Grey Album and the mashups of Girl Talk, and notes how it would be almost impossible to make an album like The Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique today.

We'll be having our discussion with the author towards the end of the month, so there's still plenty of time to pick up a copy of the book. You can find it at Amazon in hardcover or ebook form (those are both affiliate links, so we get a tiny cut if you buy via them) or get it from lots of other sources. It's also available to check out from many libraries. Stanford University Press also has some ebook rental options. If you don't read the book but still want to participate in the discussion, you can still ask questions based on this sample chapter, as well as Jason's original paper on Copyfraud. He was also recently on the Surprisingly Free podcast discussing the book.

For now, enjoy the rest of Chapter 3! Don't forget to read the first half.

Filed Under: beastie boys, book club, copyfraud, girl talk, jason mazzone, mashup, sampling

The Insane Chain Of Sampling Rights: How A Folk Song Collector Became A 'Co-Author' On A Jay-Z Song

from the ah-the-ridiculousness-of-copyright-law dept

A bunch of folks have been sending over Ethan Hein's brilliant step-by-step explanation of how Alan Lomax is credited as a co-author on a Jay-Z song. You have to read the whole thing, which includes video explanations, and this wonderful chart: But that graphic alone doesn't do the full story justice. Lomax has nothing to do with Jay-Z's song... at all. Lomax went around "collecting" recordings of various folks songs, including recording some prisoners at Parchman Farm singing a traditional worksong. But since he recorded it, he got the copyright on the recording (though he shouldn't have one on the composition). That worksong, "Rosie," was used as the basis of the song "Inside, Looking Out" by The Animals, which was then covered by Grand Funk Railroad. KRS-One sampled a single guitar riff from the GFR song in his hit "Sound of da Police" (woop! woop!). Notice, at this point, that nothing from the original Lomax song in any way is in the KRS-One song. No matter. Still need to get the license apparently. Then we finally get to Jay-Z, who sampled the line "Watch out, we run New York!" from the KRS-One song in his song "Takeover." Now we're even further removed from Lomax (or the original song). Jay-Z sampled just the vocal -- not the music (which already had nothing to do with Lomax's recording). But... hey, thanks to copyright laws, guess who Jay-Z had to credit and pay? Yeah.

As Hein points out:

The copyright maze is no obstacle to Jay-Z — he has the money, lawyers and connections to clear whatever he wants. But what about up-and-coming or unheard-of artists? What if they want to use samples? Should the most vital art form of our time be the exclusive province of forty-year-old multimillionaires? And grateful as I am to Alan Lomax for recording and disseminating so much great folk music, I remain baffled as to why he was allowed to copyright it. Our creative heritage deserves better stewardship than our current laws provide.

Honestly, I think there's a strong argument that Lomax shouldn't be in this chain at all. He possibly could have held the copyright on the sound recording (though, even there, there's a question of whether or not the singer's have a stronger claim), but not the composition. And as soon as we get to the Animals version (just one step removed) we're no longer dealing with the original sound recording, but just the composition, over which Lomax has no legitimate claim. The fact that the claim stuck and has carried on down through this insane chain really is quite amazing and a testament to just how screwed up the world of clearing samples has become today.

Filed Under: alan lomax, copyright, jay-z, sampling

George Clinton Explains How Bridgeport Allegedly Faked Documents To Get His Music Rights

from the cut-and-paste,-yo dept

We recently wrote about George Clinton speaking out about Bridgeport Music, the copyright troll that Clinton alleges forged paperwork to get the rights to Clinton's works, and then went on a rampage suing hundreds of (mainly hip hop) artists for sampling Clinton's work (something Clinton is in favor of allowing). As we noted, we were a little disappointed in the lack of clarity from Clinton on the details, but more of the picture is coming out, thanks first to a comment by people associated with Clinton, claiming:

Bridgeport claims ownership to the majority of P-Funk's music by using a forged document from 1983 dealing with the transfer of the Malbiz catalog of songs. Armen Boladian has admitted in court that he signed George's name, changed wording of the contract w/o notification, and practiced these same tactics on numerous other documents. Essentially Bridgeport acquired the music through theft, coercion, blackmail & other highly dubious actions.

Clinton has also put up a new video that appears to show Armen Boladian being deposed concerning these issues, implying strongly that he altered documents (the edits make it difficult to confirm the full accuracy of the questions Boladian is answering -- but assuming the edits are accurate, that's the picture the video paints). Both the comment and the video suggest that Clinton is working on a RICO lawsuit against Boladian/Bridgeport. The video also suggests additional backroom dealings between record labels and Bridgeport, to avoid paying artists. Unfortunately, yet again the details of what Clinton is accusing the labels of is quite murky, but hopefully we'll get more details soon.

Of course, all of this seems to highlight the sheer insanity of "ownership" around "rights" in a song. You can't see it. You can't hold it. You can't block it off. The "rights" are fictions. They're whatever is on a piece of paper, and people can edit and change the paper. That's not property. It's an imaginary figment.

Filed Under: armen boladian, copyright, george clinton, hiphop, lil wayne, music, sampling
Companies: bridgeport

George Clinton Takes On Sample Troll Bridgeport Music Again: The DNA Of Hip Hop Has Been Hijacked

from the copyright-trolls dept

For many years, we've covered the odd situation between Bridgeport Music and George Clinton. The history there is highly disputed, but somewhere along the line, Bridgeport Music (apparently a one-man shop by a guy named Armen Boladian) "acquired" the rights to a bunch of George Clinton songs. Clinton claims that Boladian "stole" them and forged his signature on various documents. There are other versions of the story that involve questionable actions by agents, lawyers and record labels. Either way, about a decade ago, Boladian noticed that tons of hip hop songs sampled Clinton songs, and he dug up every single example he could find and sued them all -- filing hundreds of lawsuits. Some resulted in legal victories, including an absolutely dreadfully ridiculous ruling in the 6th Circuit, Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, which involved an almost totally unrecognizable 2-second sample of a Funkadelic tune that had the pitch changed. The district court reasonably found no copyright violation, but the appeals court, in a ruling that shocked many copyright scholars, stated that any copy was a violation: "Get a license or do not sample. We do not see this as stifling creativity in any significant way."

Either way, George Clinton and Bridgeport have battled it out before, with Clinton agreeing to testify on behalf of certain artists sued by Bridgeport in the past. Clinton claims that Bridgeport dropped the cases every time he did that. Last week, Bridgeport sued Lil Wayne over a George Clinton sample, and Clinton is apparently not at all happy about it, putting out the following video where he calls the whole thing "bullshit" (in two languages! so slightly NSFW): The video also highlights some of Clinton's past dealings with Bridgeport and suggests that Clinton is getting involved in the fight. In the video, he states:

The DNA of hip hop has been hijacked, leaving many artists across generations in needless hardship.

Unfortunately, in all the years following Bridgeport and George Clinton, I have to admit that Clinton is anything but clear and detailed in explaining what happened or even what's going on today. The same is true of the current video which doesn't go into much detail. And while it points people to Clinton's blog Funkprobosci to "help stop" Bridgeport, there really isn't that much additional infromation. There is an FAQ, which has some info, but is again confusing and not particularly detailed. It would be great if there were a more complete and detailed explanation of (1) how Bridgeport got Clinton's music (2) the existing legal challenges between Clinton and Bridgeport, and (3) what Clinton is trying to do now.

Filed Under: copyright, george clinton, hiphop, lil wayne, music, sampling
Companies: bridgeport, cash music

George Clinton Sues Black Eyed Peas; Apparently He No Longer Thinks Sampling Is 'Cool'

from the all-about-the-cash dept

A few years back, we pointed to this wonderful interview with funk legend George Clinton (and the second half is with hip hop legend Hank Shocklee, which makes it even more interesting), all about music sampling, where Clinton claims sampling's "cool" and "good." He says "it's a whole new music -- a new way of making music." And he says that it helps young people learn how to make and play music as well as learn important skills like how to use a computer. He talks about how glad he was when hip hop artists started making records with samples. The interviewer points out that in many cases Clinton wouldn't get paid for those samples and he notes that it's okay because, in the long run, he'd figure out how to make money from it. In fact, he notes that the rise of hip hop using many of his samples revived interest in his band leading them to get back out on the road and to make money touring again. He even put out some records specifically for sampling. He does talk about how, if someone makes money, he expects them to share some of the proceeds and how he prefers that bands clear samples beforehand, but he seems to think that these things can all be worked out pretty easily. Towards the end of the interview, he notes that licenses should be "pennies" per song to make it reasonable, and that "it's blackmail the way it is now."

Perhaps he's changed his mind when it comes to a band like the Black Eyed Peas, as he's apparently suing the band for sampling one of his tunes. I believe that report misstates previous lawsuits by saying they involved Clinton, when they were actually done by Bridgeport Music -- a company that Clinton has claimed forged his signature to claim rights to his music. This report suggests that Clinton himself is now following in Bridgeport's footsteps though (Bridgeport has become famous for suing a ton of musicians demanding a ton of money for samples). Another report on the lawsuit says that Clinton is accusing someone (yet again) of forging his signature to say that this license was cleared.

In the end, once again, this is disappointing that rather than focusing on making cool and unique new music, people are focusing on going to court and fighting over who should be able to put up a toll booth on new music.

Filed Under: black eyed peas, copyright, george clinton, p-funk, sampling

Snoop Dogg Sued By Famed Jazz Artist For Sampling

from the fo-shizzle-my-copyrizzle dept

One of the key things that you recognize as you look more closely at how intellectual property is used, the reality is often quite different than the "theory." The theory is that intellectual property is most important for those up and coming artists who need the "protection" to have the incentive to create and to build up support. The reality is often that the up and comers ignore copyright law because it makes little sense to them and often gets in the way of what they're trying to do. Those who rely on copyright as a crutch are often those who have already been successful, and are looking for ways to squeeze more out of their previous success (and to slow down upstarts and competitors). We recently talked about how up-and-coming jazz musicians were struggling because copyright law was getting in the way of their ability to build on the works of others -- as their jazz forefathers had done from the beginning of the jazz era forward.

And now it appears that some jazz greats, who relied on just the same ability to build on the works of others, are now using copyright law to try to stop other artists from building on their own works. Michael Henderson, a bandmate of Miles Davis, and an incredibly influential jazz musician is now suing Snoop Dogg for sampling.

The legal battles over sampling have gone on for years, with some really, really terrible rulings on the books (basically, look for any lawsuit involving Bridgeport). Notably, Henderson appears to have brought this lawsuit in the 6th Circuit, where the Bridgeport v. Dimension Films bizarrely declared that there was no "de minimis" defense to sampling music. It would be nice to see a court decision recognizing that sampling isn't illegal, but we're unlikely to see that any time soon...

Filed Under: copyright, michael henderson, sampling, snoop dogg

Yes, Authors Have Copyright Issues With Quoting Others As Well

from the the-sampling-problem-is-back dept

We were recently writing about how there seems to be a massive double standard when it comes to "sampling" in books vs. music. But that was really only focused on fiction books. When it comes to non-fiction, it appears the story is a bit more complicated. Author Marc Aronson recently took to the pages of the NY Times to complain about how copyright is massively stifling non-fiction works, due to the difficulty of getting permission:

The hope of nonfiction is to connect readers to something outside the book: the past, a discovery, a social issue. To do this, authors need to draw on pre-existing words and images.

Unless we nonfiction writers are lucky and hit a public-domain mother lode, we have to pay for the right to use just about anything -- from a single line of a song to any part of a poem; from the vast archives of the world's art (now managed by gimlet-eyed venture capitalists) to the historical images that serve as profit centers for museums and academic libraries.

The amount we pay depends on where and how the material is used. In fact, the very first question a rights holder asks is "What are you going to do with my baby" Which countries do you plan to sell in? What languages? Over what period of time? How large will the image be in your book?

Much of his concern is how these costs will multiply in an age of ebooks, but it seems like a serious enough issue from the start. Just the fact that authors who are discussing and building on the works of others are being blocked due to copyright is hugely problematic. In this context, it hardly sounds like the new works would act as substitutes for the old works at all -- but could actually drive more interest in those original works. It's difficult to see why or how copyright policy makes sense in these cases.

Filed Under: authors, copyright, quoting, sampling

Why Copyright Criminals Filmmakers Won't Get Sued? Because They'd Win

from the again dept

Last year we had a post, based on a post by Peter Friedman, suggesting a big reason why Girl Talk hadn't been sued for creating entirely sample-based music was because there was a good chance that Girl Talk/Gregg Gillis would win that lawsuit, and establish a clear fair use right in sampling. Now, with the more recent discussion about the legality of the documentary Copyright Criminals, Friedman is making the same point again: suggesting that the filmmakers won't get sued, because they would likely win, and redraw the boundaries of the law on music sampling and fair use:

But if McLeod is willing to fight a lawsuit -- and I think he is -- the recording industry won't sue him. The existing precedents requiring licensing of every single recorded sample would be overturned, and the record industry would [have] lost the appearance created by these precedents, an appearance that makes the vast, vast majority of samplers pay license fees for their samples. It's better business for the industry to let the occasional brave and creative soul feel as if he's getting away with something than to have the industry's precious -- and ill-founded -- legal precedents put at genuine risk.

Of course, there's a separate argument, that has been made by Copycense, that race actually plays a role in this. The musicians who have been sued over sampling tend to be black. Gillis is not:

Gillis hasn't been arrested or sued because his socioeconomic status fits what the mainstream wants to see when it talks about this issue. Gillis' bio reads well for mainstream public relations purposes -- he is white, middle-class, and educated -- and his basic story (fell in love with music and sampling while studying science at a renown institution of higher learning) is All-American. For establishment folks like Congressman Mike Doyle (D-PA), who represents the district in which Gillis resides and has testified before Congress on Gillis' behalf, Gillis' story presents a squeaky clean image of American innovation -- and decidedly not sepia-toned humans toiling against misery in dark, sweaty, basements or ghetto community rooms where sampling and hip hop culture were born out of the need to get by with less.

On that note, while the movie Copyright Criminals features a mix of artists of different races, many are black. However, the main fillmmakers behind the film, Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod, are both white. I have no idea how much of a role this actually plays in the decisions about who to sue over sampling, in music, but if race really does play into it, that would be a shame.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright criminals, fair use, girl talk, sampling

Blank Media 'Pirate Tax' Used To Fund New 'Pirate' Album

from the giving-back dept

Many countries have a "blank media levy," which is basically a tax on any kind of blank media on the assumption that some percentage of the blank media bought is used to make unauthorized copies of music. This is pretty ridiculous for a variety of reasons -- most notably the assumption that everyone is breaking the law and needs to pay a tax to a single industry that is unwilling (though not unable) to adjust its business model. However, in Sweden, one musician who started receiving his "royalties" from such a blank media levy was so offended by the concept that he decided the only way to pay the money back was to use the money to fund a new "Pirate Album" using samples and clips from other musicians, put together to make totally new songs -- and then release the whole thing on The Pirate Bay. He's using the album to highlight how ridiculous it is to forbid others from making new derivative creative works built on the works of others. If only more musicians would realize that all creativity is built on the works of those who came before, and pretending that the line stops with you is a mistake.

Filed Under: media levy, pirate tax, sampling, sweden