Message
Re: [Logic_Cafe] Re: Lawsuits (was M-Audio 88Pro
2004-12-30 by GAmoore@aol.com
In a message dated 12/30/04 9:11:45 AM, fernstudio@... writes:
If they let someone take a piece of one of their songs,
there is nothing stopping anyone else from doing the same.
There have been a lot of songs that sampled others. For example, the Beastie Boys ripped a piece of Van Halen's "Jamie's Crying" - I don't know what happened in that case, but I read an interview with Eddie Van Halen where he was listening to the radio and suddenly heard that song and called his lawyer. The most blatant rip off was Puff P Daddy Diddy's rip off of Sting's Every Breath You Take. I have seen one dance music book which has an entire page or two of various songs which have been sampled ... often disco songs from the 1970's for their drum loops. I just don't know where this stands legally or financially, and I don't do it myself at all, but its definitely done by some.
The Vervepipe
has not. Sure it was them that thought of using it and not the Stones
but they were not the ones who came up with the riff to begin with.
I wonder if the Stones even wrote that riff. It doesn't sound like their work. I wonder if they had a "George Martin" type of guy write it and not get credit - just as George Martin actually did write a lot of string parts for Beatle songs and never got any songwriting credit - although he did some instrumentals on the Yellow Submarine soundtrack that filled out the 5 or 6 Beatle songs to make it an album.
I wonder what you guys think of the opposite situation where Elvis or Madonna get a hold of a great song from an unknown songwriter, then say "OK I want to change one word of the lyrics, and then get half the songwriter's royalties" - and the starving songwriter agrees because half of a million dollars is more than 100% of nothing.
and released. You sold only 50 copies of your CD and did not even
cover your expenses on making it. Someone got a hold of one of those
copies and wrote a song that sold 10 million copies. The riff went
throughout the entire song and they never got permission from you to
use it. Do you think now that, because you don't have tons of money,
you are entitled to at least some of the proceeds? The law has to work
for everyone and not discriminate based on wealth (rich or poor).
I still think that there should be some sort of equitable settlement based on the value of the riff to the song. In this case it was very valuable. So lets say the Stones get half and the Vervepipe get half. The Stones would be more than adequately compensated than if they had agreed in advance.
Lets take this situation to more ridiculous extreme. Say you sampled one drum hit from Madonna, and included that on your greatest pop song that made 10 million. Would it be fair for Madonna to demand all the money and you get nothing?