Hey all, I decided to post this in this subforum, as i think it will get the most attention (mod feel free to move it if it's not in the right subforum)

After reading some recent threads and talking to other producers about various issues regarding copyright infringement, I figured it'd be a good idea to discuss with you all about how a lot of this stuff works, as I am not completely sure.

I'm sure many of you have heard releases that sound very similar to other previous releases and think, "couldn't they get in trouble for stealing another artist's melodies?" I can't think of any trance examples off of the top of my head, but I've definately heard blatant stolen melodies before. An example in pop is Gwen Stefani's rip off of the "If I were a rich man" from the movie Fiddler on the Roof. Is stealing a melody grounds to get you in trouble? If I write a melody, am I the rightful owner of that? Is there process to claim a melody as mine once i've written it to prevent it being stolen or is it just assumed?

Another topic is sampling. You've all heard of bootlegs, where somebody takes a classic or popular song and does some sort of 4x4 club remix to it? I've seen many bootlegs released, does that put the artist in danger of being sued for using a sample from an original song without permission, or does it usually pass by the radar most of the times... Drum n Bass artists has used all sorts of hip hop samples for very famous artists in their tracks, Tyler C's done a recent song sampling Electric Light Orchestra, and I know Maor's done a remix of one of Marley's tracks. What's the official process on how to get a track to be legally okay to prevent any copyright disputs or cases? I can I do a bootleg without getting negative attention from the original artists?

I'd like to hear what you guys think and present any questions of your own on the subject. I think this is a very relevant topic to most of the producers here, who have ever thought of remixing or bootlegging a track before.

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Oops i produce dubstep now.

NumberNin6 / Ethereal / Orana Project / Greenlight

interesting thread.

im not sure how melodies work.. i was told somewhere that a melody may be used providing it is not identical for more than 15 seconds... so in affect system f's out of the blue could only be copied melody wise to a certain degree. i think it is largely down to the sucess of the track that a new track is copying..

system f - out of the blue is a very complex melody and a copycat would be blatant. but more simple melodies are less likely to be noticed and less likely to cause a stir. i think it is largely down to how the whole track sounds compaired to the other. not just the melodies.

as far as copyrighting a melody is concerned it is very hard. copyright is more usable with lyrics. and whole tracks. a really groundbreaking melody that has been copyrighted to you will be harder to use by another person than a less groundbreaking one.


audio samples are different. if the track is massively sucessful then it will be harder to contact the copyright holder to ask for permission to use the sample. it is mainly down to the money involved.... if you will be earning a fortune then the copyright owner will want more money for the rights. if it is limited pressing of 3000 then most wont care and will possibly allow for free.

really bootlegs dont earn much money imo. so have a blind eye turned towards them. though i have heared that hard to find records were recently busted for selling bootlegs and illegal represses!

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I don't know about the bootlegs made by amateur Djs, but the ones that are released, I'm sure they get licenses in order to release those.
Same for trance tracks made out of Movie Soundtracks, they get licenses to use the melodies of those.

You can use someone else's melody grounds if the original artist gives you permission to do it, and well, most artists are friends with other artisrs , so they can get that easily.

But yeah, No license or no permission can get you sued.

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Der Mystik's Music

It is very Simple

You remix something from tiesto to post it here or to spin it in your dj sets for small partys or radio stations. Not one person really cares. Sueing cost more money most likely than gaining from it.

once you try to sell this remix for your own gain, then We will use the weapon copyright.

However i suppose this topic has been made due the staticblue and kopi issue.

I remixed like 5 tunes from Sunquest and each time i asked he provided me a big and filled midi file.

This states, that Ron wants me to remix And there for there should be no problem.

Imo if you make an original song and you hand out midis and then some people remix it, but you forcing them not to promote is fuking bull

If you love your work , don't share it then. If it's label buisness, LET THE LABEL that represents you share the work to the remixer. because only then you can say : hey it, it wasn't me.

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quote:

Originally posted by Octanesyco Greetings. My name is Casey. You can call me Moose. -Moose

so those that are releasing bootlegs without permission are taking a risk in doing that...


however, if you're using someone else's melody... when does it become a legal issues? i've read before that chord progressions cannot be copyrighted by artists because there are only so many chord progressions that exist. like so many trance basslines and chords follow the same progression (v iii i, or vi, iv, i if i'm not mistaken)

so isn't it subjective when a melody is stolen (say, if the artist didn't do it intentionally)... and even if it was stolen, does the original have to be a signed piece of work, or no?


And in the case of jon vs. kopi, does kopi have the right to withhold jon's track from being shared (understanding that it IS kopi's melody) even if it is a remix?


comments so far have been great! very insightful

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NumberNin6 / Ethereal / Orana Project / Greenlight

Ok, I think the problem would be ripping the entire concept of a track, of course, no one can copyright a chord progression, no one can copy right a 4/4 kick drum, and no one can copyright certain individual melody, but what you copyright is the concept I mean, all the melody ideas put together to form a song, and if someone uses the same concept, lets say, the same pad melodies, same lead melodies, same bassline sequence, maybe the same guitar melody riff of th same song, then is clear that what he is trying to do, is disrespect the original artist who came up with the concept.

In the Kopi/Blue case, I know when the competition ended many people shared their remixes in the board, be it Kami's or Dual Shinto or Book of Water. But that is because the original author who owns the remixes done in the competition or out of it, gave permission to share them, and is up to him to end that permission at any time especially if the original has been signed and scheduled for release. Like I wouldn't like at all, if someone shared their remix of Romance before this one is actually released in the first place.

However, what Static Blue can do, is to promote his remix through his own sets if he is a Dj, there he can revealed his work, not shared the live set tho, but he can stream his song, it wouldn't hurt Kopi, it wouldn't hurt Istmo Music and it wouldn't hurt Static Blue.

But personally, if someone tells me not to share the track, and gives me a good reason for it, I wouldn't. Good example is a remix that I did for Red Force Recordings of Static Blue & Amurai - After the Sunrise, it didn't pass , they asked me not to share it til the release is out, and I'm still keeping it.

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Der Mystik's Music

If you love.. your work.. shouldnt you then áctually sháre it without making a fuss? the more people that hear the better Id say.. ??

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quote:

Originally posted by Takkra If you love.. your work.. shouldnt you then áctually sháre it without making a fuss? the more people that hear the better Id say.. ??

that's fine provided it's not all over the net before the scheduled release date of the label.

of course a little exposure, in a liveset or sample, never hurt any producer... or has it?

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Copyright in essence means if you use another's track, be that melody, chord progression or samples, then you need permission to use it. In practice however the lines are blurred of course and it mostly comes down to what Massive84 said, if you are going to make money from it, then expect interest from the original artist; otherwise it's likely to slip under the radar.
As far as melody / chord progressions go, I've signed up for the Australian Performing Rights Association, which has a large FAQ about copyright. It was interesting in this document that they mentioned that chord progressions were the key part of a tune and that copyright applied mainly to them. It seems to me that the law was written mainly for rock music and that in rock music the progressions are more important than say in trance, where progressions are commonplace but the melodies make them stand out.
Regarding remixes, in my dealings with record companies I've seen that an artist tends to sign a contract stating that if somebody remixes a signed tune, then the record company gets to have first rights at releasing the remix. There are exceptions of course, but it makes sense as far as the record label goes, since they have a vested interest in a tune and its remixes as that means promotion for the tune itself.

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Monsoon - Astrosurf

quote:

Originally posted by Takkra If you love.. your work.. shouldnt you then áctually sháre it without making a fuss? the more people that hear the better Id say.. ??

The issue is not that, if you see, half of my productions are a free download you can go to my download link and to my space where I have a full album as a free download, plus another tunes, the issues comes when you sign up a contract, and the label ask you to dont share remixes from the tune you got signed up with them or they will cancel the contract, so static asked me if he could share his remix, the one I offered him to sign up to another label after the first label cancelled all, but he told me he though it was not good enought, so I said, ok, np, will sign up bebop remix then, static and I had an argument later, and after all the discussion he told me if he could share the remix, I said to him, with friends, etc is fine, but not in public forums where the label could see it and got ous in trouble, but static ignored me and made it personal.
I will not discuss or to get you involved into our argument, as I said before, I only can check out my mail on weekends because I am in a tour and during the week it is imposible for me to get into the internet because my schedule, so whatever it hapens over this forum, flame, etc over the next days it's out of my control and time.
If you guys have any question, send it to my google email:
People thinks because they do a remix of tiesto or someone else and post it in a forum, is cool because they are not gaining money from it, the real thing it is the copyright does not allow you to do that, you do it for free or you do it for money, but the thing is no one cares, I mean, do you think tiesto manager or BMI will be checking out forums to see if someone is sharing a remix someone did of tiesto? No, but in the bad case they find it out, you can get in trouble, because even when you are not gaining money from this remix the copyright is from tiesto or the artist and you cannot do nothing with it without the producer permission, label license.
Anyway, I gotta go, need to prepare my setúp, any question send it here instead send PM over here plz:

[email protected]

Update:

I spoke with the label and asked them permission for static to share this remix up and they said it is fine, I just want to let something clear, it is not someone posting a remix of one of my tunes the issue, the matter it is to do it without my permission, above all when I said no, now that the label is cool with this because the version they signed up it is tribal techno and not Trance, static has my permission to share it up over TA and friends.
The end.
Now, see you next weekend if I have some free time, cheers.

Kopi =o.

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Last edited by kopi_luwak on Jun-04-2006 at 23:52

quote:

Originally posted by pho mo As far as melody / chord progressions go, I've signed up for the Australian Performing Rights Association, which has a large FAQ about copyright. It was interesting in this document that they mentioned that chord progressions were the key part of a tune and that copyright applied mainly to them. It seems to me that the law was written mainly for rock music and that in rock music the progressions are more important than say in trance, where progressions are commonplace but the melodies make them stand out.

I'm very surprised to see that... usually in rock, i'd expect a repeat in chord progressions (especially punk)... hmmmm

it's a good thing kopi posted about the contract that was signed... that makes it much more clear as to why the post was taken down



great comments guys!

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NumberNin6 / Ethereal / Orana Project / Greenlight

some good stuff here, i'll see if i can add some more.

in regards to the static blue vs kopi case, i don't know the specifics. but the main key is that if an agreement was reached, no remixes should be shared. however, if none was reached, there really should be no reason why someone can't share a remix/bootleg ONLY if purely for the use of promotion and not for compensation. (i will admit i am not positive on this but i think it holds correct)

as for the case of copyright itself....laws vary in different countries but from what I've learned (mostly in the United States), you cannot copyright a simple chord progression. This is simply because chord progressions have been used all throughout the history of music and it is near impossible to prove who was the first to come up with a ii-V-I or whatever. HOWEVER, it is possible to copyright a melody, given that is extends beyond a simple three note variation or a 5 note extended variation (i need to check up on this).

(edit: this is increasingly difficult since most melodies are based on the chord progression which cannot be proven to be unique. i.e. if you play a melody based on the notes of the chord, you will have difficulty proving it is unique and your's)

it gets increasingly more complex in electronic music since so much of it is loop-based. that is where what some others here have said holds true. the concept of the track is then copyrighted in that the combination of sounds becomes the copyright and not necessarily the melody.

all this may be best explained with actual cases. In a music copyright case, you have to prove that 1) you have ownership of the song (laws of how to copyright vary here), 2) you have to prove that your song was created BEFORE the other person's song, and 3) that the melody/concept of your song is unique to that song.

1) and 2) are more straight-forward....3) is where it gets tricky. if you compare a lot of similar songs, it will seem like they sound the same...but if you break it down to a musical level, you can convince a jury "beyond reasonable doubt" that they are different. i.e. while the first four notes of the melody are the same...the fifth one is different. that is sufficient to prove that the songs are different. (laws vary again, i have no clue exactly what the threshold is) OR, similarly if you find the same melody in a song OLDER then both the songs being tried, the case is null and void.

case in point, (and btw, all the above was learned in music business lecture classes at NYU with Lawrence Ferrara, a musicologist who defends Eminem in copyright cases) go read his books, explains a lot)...someone accused Eminem of copying their song but the case was thrown out since the "melody" being copied was already used in a 16th century opera, a jazz ballet from the 60s, etc. In this instance, the melody is not the copyright therefore no case exists. Eminem still holds the copyright for his song in regards to the arrangement of tracks.

gets even more complicated when you start bringing into court laws on copyrights of old songs being null and void after a number of years. But as with most lawsuits....its a matter of how it is defended (or attacked) that makes or breaks the case.

sorry for the long reply but hope this helps as with anything tho, your own research will be best. each countries' copyright laws can vary...as with international copyright laws.

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Last edited by b i n k u n on Jun-05-2006 at 08:22