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Re: Re: L O ****ing LLLLL!
| quote: | Originally posted by DjStephenWiley
Well, I'm going to answer your questions purely from a licensing and label standpoint and I'll touch a bit on my feelings regarding it all.
It really comes down to one simple thing. There is not enough money (thus care) to go ahead filing lawsuits when things like this happen. There are a multitude of reasons because of this. The two most daunting are the fact that music sales are the worst they have ever been in the history of music (when taking population into account). The second most daunting task is these violations cross international borders. I'm sorry, but nobody is going to hire an international lawyer and go to whatever country to sue for damages on a track that probably won't even produce 4 figures.
Is it "lame" ? Yes, but that is the way the cookie crumbles. I can tell you I am personally working on releasing an REM remix of "everybody hurts" - I ripped the acapella from cover vocal done on a random karoake website and had one of my artists remix it for the label. I requested, multiple times, to at least discuss the possibility of doing it the official way with REM and their respective label and I never even got a response. Even EMI responded when I contacted them about obtaining a license to release a remix of Empire of the Sun's "Rule The World" track.
Everything is shady these days. There are thousands and possibly millions of MIDI's out there and people are stealing them left and right and often not making any changes or just a few subtle ones. Now you've got Melodyne with DNA which is really going to make this even worse.
I personally love the guitar in Aerosmith's "Dream On" - There is no midi for it, so I just popped it open in Melodyne, opened up the DNA, did a little editing, and bam I had the melody for the song. On top of that, I sampled the guitar so it sounds identical while giving me the flexibility to work with MIDI. Don't worry, I'm not releasing a stolen melody from "Dream On" - It's just a personal remix.
Hopefully this will help shine light on why this is possible. Contracts don't mean anything anymore. What I've been told by multiple well respected people in this business (I asked around A LOT regarding the REM remix) is that unless you're making a lot of money, nobody is going to give a shit.
And, to just be particular, there is a website you can go to where you can "register" for using the melody of another track. You cannot use ANY elements from the track, but you can legally use the melody (You have to pay a mechanical fee which is 7 or 8 cents per sale)
And, don't forget that 99% of EDM artists don't bother to formally copyright their music (I would recommend Peer Music based out of LA) so even if they did decide to fly around the world filing lawsuits, they wouldn't win them!
Is it all shady, and somewhat "lame" ? Absolutely.....but there's really not much we can do about it except frown upon those who do it, continue to call them out, and withdraw any and all support for the "artist"
I don't have a problem with Blake Jarrell doing a cover of a Police tune (he did a great job) and I don't have a problem with Kenneth Thomas doing a cover of "Wish you were here" which was another great job. They were projects with a lot of work put into them and for the most part relied on original production talent. I don't have a problem with that.
Stealing a melody flat out and thumbing your noise at the dance community along with disrepecting the artists of those melodies is beyond unacceptable. Hopefully producers, and more importantly listeners/clubbers/labels, will start to have some integrity and stop supporting artists who do this. (Especially multiple offenders)
Tiesto and his label have not received one red cent from me in the past 7 years. It's hard for me to sit here and say that because I am close with an artist that Tiesto is very close to, and I don't want that to interfere with my relationship, but what Tiesto has done and continues to do is unacceptable, lame, and should be frowned upon by all in the dance community.
Hope some of this helps to clear up the picture. If there is anything else you've got on your mind post it. I like to help the forum out as much as I can since I get so much help with production and I rarely can ever give help back. This is one thing that I actually know a bit about. |
Yeah I know there's nothing that can be done it just is hilarious that the clown hasn't learned his lesson despite it happening numerous times.
I also barred Tiesto when I went to his show locally almost a year ago. I honestly wanted to sue him. He was redlining of course; and it was a small system. Myself and all of my group (around ten people) all had pretty severe hearing damage for up to a week. I had never had that happen before. I know he was redlining because there was heavy distortion even on vocals! It sounded so bad. On top of that he was doing his thing where he does no eq'ing in his transitions at all. Whole track in, whole track out, roffl. He was playing an nrg set and it was just horrific. I vowed never to play a Tiesto production again. I don't mind buyin a track from his label or a remix that someone did of a track of his but I will never play that retard fuck again.
I know everyone knows he does this; so why has someone up high not gone public? Because Tiesto has such a huge fan base?
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