Power to the people - right on.
Another online protest, and this one I am behind 100%. As I mentioned rather vehemently here, the ruling against NWA for violating copyright in the use of a three-note UNIDENTIFIABLE sample from Funkadelic's "Get Off Your Ass and Jam" is a disaster.
Downhill Battle agrees and is staging a very clever protest:
- Last week the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that any sampled music must have authorization even if a reasonable person could not recognize the origin of the clip. In protest of this ruling, which reversed a lower court decision and severely limits sampling rights, musician Michael Bell-Smith and music activism organization Downhill Battle will launch "3 Notes and Runnin''.
3 Notes and Runnin' is an online music compilation that will directly disobey--and point out the error in--the Appeals court ruling that even unrecognizable samples are illegal. The compilation will consist of songs made entirely from the 1.5 second Parliament Funkadelic sample that was at issue in the court ruling.
Several respected sample-based musicians have committed to making pieces for the contest, and an open call for submissions was announced today, along with an initial song made by Michael Bell-Smith, a musician and visual artist whose other work can be found at http://burncopy.com/cc
"The songs submitted are all going to sound different; every musician knows you can use any sample in infinitely different ways," said Bell-Smith, "At a certain point, the result is new and entirely different from the source material."
"Some musicians argue for restricting sampling on the basis that the 'personality' of their creation should not be used in ways they don't control," said Downhill Battle's Holmes Wilson, "We think that's capricious, but it has a certain logic. This court ruling, on the other hand, goes way beyond that: even unrecognizable samples that don't carry an ounce of the original musicians' personality are treated like property to be bought and sold."
Article comments
1 - Jim Carruthers
Just wondering, if I put this riff on my answering machine message would those fukctards at Bridgeport come after me?
I imagine these vultures wouldn't want to go after answering machines and voicemail, but if you make a clip, put it on voicemail as well.
2 - Eric Olsen
my guess is they wouldn't much care about noncommercial use - do you charge people to call you?
3 - Jim Carruthers
The narrow interpretation by the court doesn't deal with commerciality. It deals with _all_ use of a sound sample. According to the court, any use of a sound sample for any purpose without a license is illegal.
4 - Eric Olsen
It's a civil violation of copyright, which isn't the same as "illegal," but you are right that it would technically be a violation of that. I was speaking from a practical standpoint.
5 - Jim Carruthers
Or as it's known in the biz, "where's there's a hit, there's a writ".
But I think those fuckers at Bridgeport (who have never paid George Clinton for his Funkadelic records and the sample in question) would go after answering machines if they thought they could get money out of it.
6 - Eric Olsen
I'm sure you are correct about that