Sampling-dilemma (no solution offered here).

["Thomas W¿hni" <hovard@online.no>]

Hello folks , I`d like to offer my toughts of the subject. Since I live in 
Norway I`m not really familliar with the bands and organisations you`ve 
mentioned , so this is more in the "philosophic" alley.

The law on sampling is unclear and ambivalent. It states that you can 
sample anything  given that you create a NEW , INDEPENDENT and ORIGINAL 
work. Further it states that if noone can recognize what you`ve sampled , 
then you`ve broken no copyright.  Pretty vague , huh?

What can be copyrighted? Noone can the copyright chordprogressions , 
meters , grooves , rythmns , keys , riffs , licks  etc. etc. You can 
copyright a combination of these , as in a song. Pick up a fake book and 
check out "All of me". It`s a basic song , with a chord progression and a 
melody. That`s all. If you reharmonize the chords and add passing-chords 
or substitute on chord for another but keep the melody; you`re still 
playing "All of me". If you change the melody but keep the chords you`re 
not playing the same song anymore. In this case it seems to me that melody 
is the only thing that can be copyrighted. 

BUT.  But once you record it ? What then? If you play all your Wes or 
Benson licks on top of the chords , do you own them? If you  record the 
voicings of Johhny Smith or the harmonocs of Tal Farlow , do you own them? 
No , of course not. But you own the recording. You own the sound. The 
writers of "All of me" own the melody you`re playing , but you own the 
recording of  yourself playing it. 

It seems to me that SOUND is the keyword here. Not just the sound of the 
instrument but the groove/feel , the spirit. The orginality of your 
playing. If you sample a couple of bars "Funky Drummer" ,the James Brown 
tune,  you are taking the spirit ,groove and sound of that particular 
drummer and using it to boost your own thing. This is , in my opinion , a 
copyright infringement. If you add reverb or chorus to the sample you`re 
still using HIS thing. 

But if you alter the sound/feel/groove of the sample? If you chop the beat 
up , move the bits around and speed it up to make a jungle groove? Then 
you`ve moved away from the drummer`s own creation and used it to make your 
own. You have simply used his stuff as
starting point ,  like a soundsource. Just like you might have used a mdid 
channel 10 on a GM machine. Only you`re not using individual drumsounds , 
you`re using individual pieces of drumgrooves.

A "sample-ologist" might be able to trace this "jungle-groove" you made , 
and tell that it`s from "Funky Drummer" and sue your ass off. But this 
means that the sound itself is copyrighted. That the combination of 
mic-placement , the room in the studio , the eq`ing , the outboard effects 
and the drums that produced the sound are "owned" by James Brown. If this 
is true then the drummer who played the beat can never record it again 
under the same sircumstances. If he got the same sound he did on Brown`s 
record he would be stealing from "da man". 

So I think the complex problem of "copyright" should be approached in a 
intuitive way. Not with spectral analyses or technical "back tracing"  but 
with a musical approach. If the samples are merely building blocks , and 
not complete structures in the musical piece then I think it`s OK.

Anyways , I see now that the point I was building up to has eluded me. I`m 
not really shure what I`m trying to say here...........Just airing my 
thoughts on the subject. 

Now if you guys would just pretend to discuss my post for a couple of days 
maybe I wouldn`t feel so darn dumb. :-)

Yours , Thomas W

Feel free to check out my web-site:
http://www.geocities.com/Eureka/Promenade/1628/