hello once again.
I know these kind of questions were probably asked before but,

1. considering the wild wild west of the internet and current state of music, can local or global laws can ACTUALLY protect your music in case someone decides to "copy"/steal a melody from you?
There are many cases of such kind - how can copyright laws protect someone?....

2. how can a website like spotify, deezer etc can actually recognize a track made with cracked DAW or some illegal samples?

3. when does samples considered "illegal" or legal? is it ok for someone to record for example some vocal or sound fx from a tv show or a movie? when is it ok and when not?
many artists sample stuff from each other, some of them are famous...when is it ok and when not?

thanks

 

Correct.

Yee-haw.

Laws are not for protection, they are rules. A good lock is for protection, but burglary is forbidden (rule/law). No plaintiff [not sure if this word is appropriate], no lawsuit.

They can't.

If you bought them (or have the permission to use them), they're legit, if not, not.

This depends heavily on the circumstances and countries.

If the original artist (or a company) owns the copyright for it, it's forbidden but, as I already said, no plaintiff, no lawsuit.


These informations are supplied without liability.

 

Last edited: Jun 16, 2019

any other thoughts?

 

nope, not atm Avenger got it covered.

 

Well, some sample creation companies claim they embed watermarks inside their samples (inaudible data that can be decoded with the appropriate software). Even if from a technical standpoint that's doable (this is what science call steganography when working on pictures), that would still be quite tricky to analyse back one specific track to find this fingerprint in it, provided that it is melted with layers and layers of other sounds, and has been processed several times (eq, compression, mixing and mastering bus effects, reverb, other special effects, and so on).

That's of course a bit different if one can recognize an actual melody or sample in the track just by listening to it. As stated above, even in that case, complaints would only happen if the track happens to be a success, thus having to pay some royalties would then not be as problematic ;-) There has been some releases that have been removed due to copyright infringements, but they sill lay out on the decks as bootlegs, perhaps providing more buzz for the artist than they would have had the release not been removed !

Lorenzo

 

There are some recent examples I can give you that might help.
Madonna recently won a copyright case, defending her track "Vogue", which used a sample of audio -- a brass hit -- from another artist.
"The 9th Circuit Court affirmed today that a quarter-second sample used by Madonna didn't infringe the copyright of the original artist."

Another curious example:
The musician "Pogo".
Pogo - Boy & Bear (youtube dot com/watch?v=sy4IhE-KAEg)
The artist Pogo has sampled many Disney movie vocals, and created his own music with them, and profits off them. Disney finally decided to take a "hands off" approach to suing people for using Disney's content. That's because thousands of young girls singing along to "Let it Go" from the movie "Frozen" and posting it to YouTube would have their videos forcibly taken down for copyright infringement. Disney decided it wouldn't be a good image for the company, and finally just let people have at their content.

From what I understand, there is no such thing as "global laws". There are countries in Africa that don't even have functioning governments.

 

On one hand this is correct, on the other hand
https://www.rightsdirect.com/international-copyright-basics/

 

so, basically, if you're rich/famous/buzzed or hyped etc/whatever your chances of ripping off samples and getting away with it are greater? lolz

 

"1. considering the wild wild west of the internet and current state of music, can local or global laws can ACTUALLY protect your music in case someone decides to "copy"/steal a melody from you?"

How can you know that your melody is yours and you are not re-composing something that is already in the public domain ?(many classical composers have like 300+ compositions etc - Telemann alone is known for writing like 3000 compositions!). The chances that you can come with an original motive or melody in 4/4 time, using standard Western scales (good that ethnic music is being recorded only in the last like 2 centuries or we would have the same problem with even non-standard scales and meters) are like 0%, wow.

 

@sms2000 Coming to a forum such as this asking for legal advice is not the smartest idea ... unless one of the members answering your questions is a lawyer. The last thing you want is to be misled. That is bound to happen. A couple of months ago I was reading some threads here that dealt with some of your concerns, and which seemed to be written by a lawyer. Even there was a lot of conflicting statements by members as to sampling, copyrights. Later, I will try to find the links or maybe another member can point you there. Regardless of what you read here, I will recommend that you contact a lawyer that specializes in entertainment law in the jurisdiction where you live. That is the person that can answer your questions, and lead you in the right direction. At a minimum, you should go to sister site, grab and read one or more of the publications that deal with entertainment law and copyrights. That is what I have done. A much better idea than asking legal questions here.

 

well, i was once thinking about selling some of my stuff but never really did it, and probably won't. just asking for the sake of interesting i guess

 

More reason to talk to a lawyer that specializes in entertainment/copyright law.

 

Lol, suing somebody for 250 ms sample. Famous or not, that's just sad.

 

Err, no, I don't think so, who's saying this?

 

Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law, love is the law, love under will..

 

bruh, the tittle of this thread literally describes my life

 

The sample in “Madonna - Vogue” was from Salsoul Orchestra
(min 5:03)

(I apologize for the off topic, I'm a sample addict)