i actually feel the vanilla ice thing was bad enough to be considered a ripoff, since that bassline was the key part to both "under pressure" and "ice ice baby" and was left virtually identical.. there's a funny clip of david bowie (who co-wrote and sang on "under pressure") with him talking about people thinking he was covering vanilla ice while he was playing live that puts that one in perspective
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Arad, Romania
baudtack wrote:
Alpine wrote:true, but they'd be happier than if you were making money off of them
How is it making money "off of them" if it's your work? The idea that you should some how own the vibrations of the air is crazy to me. Recordings? Yes. Written scores? Yes. If you say that no one can make a cover without my permission, where does it end? What about a chord progression that I write? Do you owe me money for that?
Your argument is incomprehensible because it can apply to virtually anything. By your logic, nobody owns anything, not even themselves because fundamentally we don't really ever create anything.
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Toronto, Ontario, Canada
e.s.c. wrote:
though i believe personally that anything sampled in a way that completely re-contextualizes it should count as fair use
Under US law you are certainly able to argue fair use in the context of a remix. Unfortunately, fair use is dealt with on a case to case basis and unless it's a very black and white situation it's likely to go the direction of whomever's lawyers wear the more expensive suits. In practice that means that, plaintiff or defendant, the guy with the big label wins over the indie artist.
baudtack wrote:
Yes. If you say that no one can make a cover without my permission, where does it end?
Covers don't require permission. You simply need to apply in advance for a compulsory cover license and pay your royalties as required. The original artist might hate it but they have no choice in the matter.
qb wrote:
^ haha
All I want to say is this: don't be a dick by selling these covers\remixes you're making. I've seen that many chiptune musicians and even labels do this and I think it is a contemptible thing to do. My first release is going to be a compilation of remixes and covers, but it will be completely free as it should be.
If you properly obtain a compulsory license and pay your royalties then what's so bad about selling covers? One of the great parts of music and art is building upon the culture that's come before you.
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IL, US
yeah, winning fair use cases is rare for the defendant, explaining the difference between it and plagarism to lay-people is a difficult task to say the least.. just look at the negativland/u2 case, should have been clear fair use AND covered under satire/parody protections, they still lost because they couldnt afford lawyers as good as island records' lawyers
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Arad, Romania
I'm talking about cases where people pay no royalties and they don't ask for permission.
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Douglas, Wyoming
Delek wrote:
if(your_song-target_song>25%)return remix;
else return cover;
well said
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qb wrote:
baudtack wrote:How is it making money "off of them" if it's your work? The idea that you should some how own the vibrations of the air is crazy to me. Recordings? Yes. Written scores? Yes. If you say that no one can make a cover without my permission, where does it end? What about a chord progression that I write? Do you owe me money for that?
Your argument is incomprehensible because it can apply to virtually anything. By your logic, nobody owns anything, not even themselves because fundamentally we don't really ever create anything.
I'm not sure how you extrapolate "no one owns anything" from me explicitly saying that it's reasonable to copyright recordings and scores but not vibrations in the air, which is essentially what you hold a copyright on for songs. Regardless, I think we're probably done here.
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jefftheworld wrote:
Covers don't require permission. You simply need to apply in advance for a compulsory cover license and pay your royalties as required. The original artist might hate it but they have no choice in the matter.
You're correct. My intent was "owe me money" or "owe the licence holder money" Thanks for the clarification.
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UK, Leicester
baudtack wrote:
Alpine wrote:true, but they'd be happier than if you were making money off of them
How is it making money "off of them" if it's your work? The idea that you should some how own the vibrations of the air is crazy to me. Recordings? Yes. Written scores? Yes. If you say that no one can make a cover without my permission, where does it end? What about a chord progression that I write? Do you owe me money for that?
I mean qpb's already summed up what I was going to say, but I'll say it anyway. There's a difference between using a chord progression and releasing something that someone else has made using that chord progression. We all know that the dude from Oasis gets hella narked about anyone using the same progression, but he can't do anything about it. However, if I was going to do a cover of Wonderwall and sell it for money, then he has every right to be angry. It's fine to use elements of someone else's music in your own, but at least do something creative with it, Greenday's Basket Case is one of my favourite songs, and even though the chord progression is pretty much ripped straight from Pachelbel's Canon, there's enough of a difference in the tracks to say that it isn't a cover or remix.
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Alpine wrote:
baudtack wrote:How is it making money "off of them" if it's your work? The idea that you should some how own the vibrations of the air is crazy to me. Recordings? Yes. Written scores? Yes. If you say that no one can make a cover without my permission, where does it end? What about a chord progression that I write? Do you owe me money for that?
I mean qpb's already summed up what I was going to say, but I'll say it anyway. There's a difference between using a chord progression and releasing something that someone else has made using that chord progression. We all know that the dude from Oasis gets hella narked about anyone using the same progression, but he can't do anything about it. However, if I was going to do a cover of Wonderwall and sell it for money, then he has every right to be angry. It's fine to use elements of someone else's music in your own, but at least do something creative with it, Greenday's Basket Case is one of my favourite songs, and even though the chord progression is pretty much ripped straight from Pachelbel's Canon, there's enough of a difference in the tracks to say that it isn't a cover or remix.
Having a right to be angry, which I disagree that he does frankly, isn't the same as should be able to hold copyright on. I mean chord progressions as ridiculous extreme.
The rational behind behind copyright is to give a content creator limited term rights over a work so that they are incentivized monetarily to create the work in the first place, but still limited so that society as a whole can benefit from building off their work. Without getting into the insanity that is the infinitely renewable copyright (I'm looking at you Mickey and George Lucas), having a copyright over recordings does exactly that thing. Going beyond that to have the copyright include the song itself goes far beyond, imho, the point of copyright law. It in fact, does some of the opposite by stiffing the creativity of others. Unless you have money, which I suppose is about par for the course.
EDIT: To address what you said about doing something creative, I completely agree. I just don't think we should have to legislate that. There is a chiptune artist that I won't mention, that kind of bugs me because the covers they create are just flat xerox's of the original songs. I don't like that. I just don't think they should be stopped from doing that because they lack the funds to pay for it.
Last edited by baudtack (Aug 12, 2014 10:34 pm)
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You cant copyright a chord progression, only melody and lyrics. Its the melody and the lyrics of WONDERWALL that make it belong to oasis, not the chord progression. If it was possible, led zepplin wouldve be screwed by all the blues artists they aped.
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Arad, Romania
baudtack wrote:
qb wrote:Your argument is incomprehensible because it can apply to virtually anything. By your logic, nobody owns anything, not even themselves because fundamentally we don't really ever create anything.
I'm not sure how you extrapolate "no one owns anything" from me explicitly saying that it's reasonable to copyright recordings and scores but not vibrations in the air, which is essentially what you hold a copyright on for songs. Regardless, I think we're probably done here.
What exactly do you mean by "vibrations in the air"?
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qb wrote:
What exactly do you mean by "vibrations in the air"?
Sound. It's just the air vibrating in a particular pattern and pushing on your ear drum.
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San Diego, CA
something about new media theory
quote from simulacra and simulation
Last edited by spacetownsavior (Aug 13, 2014 3:37 am)
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Granada, Spain
Dont worry guys, i dont think that Spice Girls and Knife Party will listen to the EP 