Copyright: Its penalties of a user and impact on the music industry
By Henry Mateo, Marcos Ortigoza and Kaitlin De Luna
Now what is copyright? Copyright gained popularity in the 1900s.With the copyright law being established in 1976. This Law permits the right to copy another artist’s work without their permission. Therefore, if the artist does not grant permission to another artist in sampling or using their work. Then, legal actions are taken and a judge in court becomes the meditator. This can result in million dollars of fines which is why artists are more careful with any and all samples used in their songs. Asking and granted permission is the key to a possible mess of a copyright infringement lawsuit and royalties. You may be asking yourself what are royalties? Well… as stated before they are the literal price an artist may pay for using copyrighted work in their own songs. This royalty charge varies depending on the song and it’s net revenue. Not only do royalties get paid to the artist but to the producers as well. So it is important for artists to avoid this at all costs.
Pulling samples from other artists, even beats alone has always been a controversial territory. Back when the Hip Hop industry was just becoming popular and gaining their name sampling wasn’t too big a deal. At least no one made such a big deal about it or was as concerned until Gilbert O’Sullivan came around. One of the precedent cases in copyright infringement was in 1991 between Biz Markie’s song “Alone Again” and Gilbert O’Sullivan’s song “Alone Again(Naturally).” Biz Markie had used a few bars and a bit of O’Sullivan’s hook in his own song which ended up costing him $250,000. But, Biz Markie hasn’t been the only rapper to end up facing the legal consequences and fees of copyright. This case was the beginning of copyright infringement and technicalities that would rearrange the Hip Hop industry. Now Biz Markie may have had to face the legal fees but he made sure he got the last say. After all that unfolded he came out with a song called “All Samples Cleared!” This song may not have gotten at the attention as others but it sure did make a statement.
Another lawsuit that became prominent and interesting was in 1994 against the 2 Live Crew for their song “Pretty Woman.” They were being sued for using Roy Orbison’s beats and instrumentals from his song “Oh Pretty Woman’’by Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. In their version they took the song and wrapped rather offensive lyrics on top of the original track. They did make an effort to ask for permission to use the song but were denied. So, this lawsuit ended up making it to the Supreme court. Where in a turn of events was ruled in favor of the 2 Live Crew since it was claimed to be a “parody” purely meant for comedic purposes. This outcome like the one mentioned before was very much important in “parodies” to come. This created a technicality to be played for songs that were strictly parodies of the original song. Not only will this technicality be useful to future atrist in copy right liabilities but, 2 Live Crew didn’t end up paying a single penny for their parody and escaped millions of dollars in royalities. They some how manages to find a loop hole.
“2 Live Crew will be 2 Live Crew”- 2 Live Crew
Parodies like these became a way for artist to work around copy right infringement. As they mentioned in the interview they were doing it for fun with no ill intentions of ruining or messing with the original songs message. Therefore, artist who only wish to make a parody for fun or theatrics are clear and free of any law suits. But, only parodies are the exception to this no other cases. So, artist still need to be aware of samples being used. For this is the slight loop hole no one saw coming that only goes so far.
Another example is in the case involving De La Soul’s “Transmitting Live From Mars” and Turtles’ 1969 song “You showed me.” This is a fascinating case because this one was closer to the start of sampling and copyright infringement. Copyright wasn’t much of a deal for De La Soul before as they would constantly sample older songs in their own songs. However, this sampling without proper permission caught up to them as they were taken to court by members of Turtles. The original cost was said to be 2.5 million dollars but reports suggest the members of Turtles settled with 1.7 million. Similarly to the other cases mentioned this changed the dynamic of sampling songs for older hip hop groups that would unconsciously sample songs all the time without thinking twice of asking for permission for use. Hip Hop artist learned to become more cautious.Be creative but take precautions.
It is well known that majority if not all artists when coming up with a new song to push to their fans consider what sample they will use in the song if they add any. Sometimes this process isn’t as easy as it may appear and deals may go south resulting in various repercussions which can go to the extent of legal battles. The music industry of today has made it very clear how easy it can be for an artist to get caught up in these legal entanglements, Kendrick Lamar being no stranger to this. In a Pitchfork article from 2014, it was reported musicians Eric Reed and Willie Jones III, were suing Kendrick Lamar for a minimum of $1million and all royalties over his 2010 hit record “Rigamortis”, a record off one of Lamar’s albums, Section.80 . According to them they believed that Kendrick went beyond using a mere sample and entirely stole their song without crediting them for their work on the original track, “The Thorn”. Pitchfork reported the pair saying “The Thorn’ isn’t merely part of “Rigamortis” … IT IS ‘Rigamortis.” In recent years musical artist Lil Nas X has also faced legal issues regarding sample clearances with the songs “Rodeo” and “Carry On”. While both artists were met with the same dilemma Lil Nas X faced a much harder burden in the form of a $25million lawsuit over the song “Carry On”.
While many lawsuits within the music industry have come from justified examples of some artists taking unauthorized samples and using them on songs they profit off. There are some examples where these legal claims over sample use in another person’s song is overturned.
An example of this is 50 cent’s massive dispute with rick ross over his use of 50’s massive hit “In the Club”. The 50’s team argued that Ross was using his then popularity as a means to gain traction for his personal gain/ profit. After the long and grueling feud 50 ultimately lost the case citing that the tack actually did not belong to 50 and instead belonged to his previous record label so he had no real legal right to make the decision on whether the song was under fair use or not. Events like these demonstrate how while sample clearances are very tedious to get around in some events it is very much possible to get past it like rick ross did. This wouldn’t be the only legal entanglement 50 would be involved in. In another event 50 cent was sued over a small portion of the same song he fought Rick Ross over “In da Club” by a former member of the 2live crew, frontman Lu. This dispute in particular demonstrated that while the copyright system does regulate the fair use of sampling in the music it actually branches out into the lyrics of a song. According to Lu 50 stole the opening line he used in his massive hit. Ultimately the case was thrown out because the judge determined that they were not alike and it was not enough to fully be backed by the copyright law.
While copyright restrictions are set in place in order to protect artists from profiting off the hard work of there’s without paying the recognition, it does raise concerns for when it should or shouldn’t be used. For instance late rapper Mac Miller was hit with a $10million lawsuit by Lord Finesse for Mac’s use of “Hip 2 Da Game ” samples on his song “Kool Aid and Frozen Pizza”. The situation in question was made a big deal because while the situation was ultimately dealt with out of court, the music video was ultimately forced to be taken down because of the implications. These situations really drill the point how creative can artists be and what methods could they use while building their career because with situations like these where songs early on in an artist’s career get flagged for copyright they also limit what smaller artists can do in order to pave their careers. Many newer artists tend to use popular songs as remixes but if the copyright system were to limit that it would serve as a major hindrance in a new artist’s career.
Taking it back to sampling, when did they gain popularity? Sampling began in the early 1960’s but didn’t peak until digital technology helped expand its function. Until developing on turntables in the early 1980’s when DJ’s would take their two discs and create a new sound. When many saw Djs sampling another artist or DJ, it created a new narrative of the song. If you were to attend a party in the Bronx you were guaranteed to hear the DJ Cool Herc’s album entirely made up of samples. It was back then when sampling wasn’t much of an issue and many artists were happy that their music influenced these new types of music. This of a time where music felt like a community, DJ’s sharing their love for the music that helped influence their taste and sound. DJ’s would use music from all types of genres touching on discol, rock, pop, and funk music. It wasn’t looked upon as theft, now known as copyright, but rather tribute to the artist.
This also created a new pavement for MC’s to rap over the DJ’s masterpiece. According to Tracklib, data had shown that Hip Hop was the largest genre in sampling, recording at 32%. Most samples are taken from the mid-1900’s finding it hard to identify if the song was sampled or not by Gen Z. That being said sampling hasn’t been this popular since the beginning of the the early 1980’s. Although, in recent years copyright has been a serious impact on artists costing them to use samples; In 2019, the hit song of the year “Old town road” by lil nas x was sampled from ‘Ghost IV’ by the nine inch nails. Yes lil nas x did have some legal trouble but it doesn’t go without saying that most modern music is produced sampling others music. Importantly, artists/ labels are protected by copyright law and a sample user must be granted permission in order to sample the owner’s melody, rhythm or bar.
Although copyright can cause head aching problems, there are ways to avoid being hit with a large fee. Let’s just start off by saying that it is a false statement when told that a sample user can use an existing song in their music as long as it’s under 15 seconds. The considered user cannot sample a song without permission from the copyright owner. In order to use a sample piece of a song, the considered sample user must first contact the label, if the royalties are owned by the label, and the songwriter. It is important to note that the user must have TWO different permissions in order to be allowed to use an existing sample in their music. The first license being the usage of the master recording and the second license being the usage of the underlying composition. However, it is often difficult to locate the owner of the copyright because many labels are under a larger label. If the user is granted the permission to sample the song in their music they must follow the terms, if given by the copyright owner, of the sample. Not only must they follow the copyright owner’s terms but must have to pay tremendous fees; including clearance fee, revenue fee and a “rollover fee.” An average percentage cost a copyright owner might ask for is about 15% — 50% of the revenue made by the sample user. On top of that a “rollover fee” which is determined by the amount of CD’s and downloads sold. These are costs that must be paid even before the sample user’s song is public and after sales. This should automatically want the user to simply avoid sampling. And if the user chooses to disagree with the terms given by the copyright owner then the user has no choice but to use their creativity differently or remove the sample from their music if it has already been recorded. The second option of avoiding a large fee is to just not use any sampling of any kind and uniquely create your own music.
Copy right law suits will always be an issue for an artist choosing to use samples in their music. It learning how to work through those so no legal actions end being taken that’s the real struggle. Artists can still be creative and use samples in their works but will precaution. One false move and that pocket is gonna be hurting.
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