[rumori] The Sample Clearance Fund: A proposal

Nicola Battista [rumori] The Sample Clearance Fund: A proposal
Wed, 26 Aug 1998 19:55:33 +0200 (00904182933, 3.0.32.19980826195256.00a02800ATbox1.tin.it)


At 16.36 26/08/98 -0700, Bob Booster wrote:

>>if you take a recognizable beat fragment and then use it in your piece as
>>beat material that depends on the fact that you recognize it's source,
that's

>>not OK (by this standard "Hippychick" is not acceptable because it uses a
>>"How Soon is Now" sample for the same kind of musical material as it's
>>original usage - chordal theme material - and get's it's creative "juice"
>>from the fact that you recognize the sample, virtually untransformed).

just like in the too many times mentioned Puff Daddy track...


>>if you take an entire piece unchanged and add bits of something else that
>>turns it from a piece of dance music into a piece of dense mush (like taking
>>a bit of Wagner and overlaying it with the Hitler Nurenburg speech, 4 layers
>>of bees buzzing, 2700 thunder claps, and the Muppets album played backwards
>>through a stomp box), that's OK.

my standard (and as Bob did I want to puctualize that this is just MY own
standard... and you don't need to agree :)) would be that if have modified
everything so much that you can't recognize the original source, then it is
OK - where as Bob said OK = no need to pay (or ask permission, I'd add) to
use those samples.
I (maybe I forgot to mention it in the original message) was referring to
samples, huge or microscopic that are RECOGNIZABLE and can therefore cause
legal troubles.
I've done some unsolicited remixes last year and more recently... and the
original performers listened to the results. Sometimes even they could
hardly recognize their own stuff in my work. In that case if I had done
those for money and to release them on my own, I wouldnt have needed
permission.
Uhmm. This remix thing just made me think to something else, so I will
write a separate message about it.

Bob added

>>if you put a slice of something musical into a new piece where you are just
>>"touching" it's reference briefly in the piece, that's OK (in other words, I
>>would say "Bomb the Bass" or "Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" is
>>fine). repetitive references to the same reference starts to become a
theme,

>>and then it's not OK.

if your standard says that repetitive references are not ok, then most
commercially released stuff that has samples is not ok. In the Bomb The
Bass track we are talking about the phrase "Beat dis" is used as a hookline, a sort of "theme" as you say (it even gives the title to the track). Other elements in the track appear only once and then disappear.
Others, seem to be used to make a sort of "song structure". A voice saying "Everybody in street get-get-get-get get down to the funky beat" and "Shaft" wah-wah guitars for example. Shaft bits especially recur thoughout all the song.


>>taking 20 pages of someone's book on The Wells of Ireland, and sticking it
>>unattributed into your book on features of Irish architecture is not OK.
>>Putting those same 20 pages unattributed into the middle of your book on the
>>social patterns of the Yanomani indians of Brazil is OK. Doesn't make any
>>sense, and therefore it becomes art.

hehe kewl, and very situationist :) but of course, IMHO, still dangerous if
the original publisher the Wells of Ireland book notices it.


>>Wondering if this is of any use. You guys are up late in Italy...

uhmm heh yesterday I've been almost all day in front of a pc doing a
translation... and replying to emails in the middle. I should get a life. :P

P.S. for Steev: if nothing goes wrong my pc will finish downloading those
mp3 from Detritus in the next few minutes. Then I will probably comment on
those... :)


bye,
Nicola (Dj Batman) Battista
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