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Isn't this just the riff sampling thing? So depending on the output you could be infringing. Like how Vanilla Ice "stole" Queen's bass line. https://en.wikip

Isn't this just the riff sampling thing? So depending on the output you could be infringing. Like how Vanilla Ice "stole" Queen's bass line. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(music) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sampling_(music)

dcow 4y ago
Which is ridiculous. You can't copyright 8 notes of music. This is the festering disease we need to rid ourselves of.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  Well, now I'm disappointed. I was going to point to this TED talk (https://www.ted.com/talks/damien_riehl_copyrighting_all_the_melodies_to_avoid_accidental_infringement https://www.ted.com/talks/damien_riehl_copyrighting_all_the_...) but it appears to have been removed as the video no longer loads for me. However, this (https://www.ted.com/talks/damien_riehl_why_all_melodies_should_be_free_for_musicians_to_use https://www.ted.com/talks/damien_riehl_why_all_melodies_shou...) appears to be an abridged version of the same talk. The disappointing bit: I say it's an abridged version because I distinctly remember him talking about how he actually claimed copyright for all 8-note melodies under a permissive license, which I can't find in the one that actually loads. He "brute forced" every 8-note melody with a program, saved them to a disk and claimed copyright under (I believe) the MIT license. (I can see legal issues with doing that, of course, so it's not hard to imagine possibly why the video was replaced with a different one.)
- an_ko 4y ago
  Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin have all the melodies on a hard drive. (More info in this Adam Neely video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfXn_ecH5Rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfXn_ecH5Rw and the TED talk linked in a nearby comment.) So depending on a court's kinda arbitrary definition of creativity on any given day, all of them may or may not be copyrighted already. An infringement being accidental also doesn't seem to stop copyright holders from successfully suing people. I think this means you could technically be successfully sued for dropping some bricks on a piano, since no matter where they land, the action constitutes a public performance of a copyrighted work. Fun stuff.
  - dcow 4y ago
    Which is most certainly not the original intention of copyright, if we are to even give the concept credence. I'm of the opinion that the entire system of western copyright law is absolutely broken. You definitely can't infringe on copyright by dropping bricks on a piano, in the world with a flourishing creative arts scene, anyway. Something went terribly wrong. PS: I also second the Adam Neely video. I was actually wondering if someone would link it (:
  - damienriehl 4y ago
    Thanks for your note about our project! To learn more about the ~471 billion melodies we created — then copyrighted — then put in the public domain (to protect songwriter "you stole my melody" defendants), more information is here: http://allthemusic.info/faqs/ http://allthemusic.info/faqs/
- geoelectric 4y ago
  Robin Thicke wasn't exactly a sympathy-inspiring celebrity, but the Blurred Lines case was another egregious example. As someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, I also really wish we'd gotten the explosion of almost completely sample-based music we were starting to see with bands like the Beastie Boys, the KLF, and Pop Will Eat Itself. The Biz Markie sampling case basically shitcanned an entire nascent subgenre.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
    This comment made me want to listen to "Can I Kick It?" by A Tribe Called Quest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-uV8TGjaGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-uV8TGjaGU Which sampled the guitar melody from Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6fayQBm9w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6fayQBm9w And the "Rebel Fanfare" from the Star Wars Theme composed by John Williams. https://youtu.be/_D0ZQPqeJkk?t=278 https://youtu.be/_D0ZQPqeJkk?t=278 Which sampled this part of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Paul Dukas. (Okay, not quite but it's easy to guess the inspiration.) https://youtu.be/wneUNq_Ndbw?t=495 https://youtu.be/wneUNq_Ndbw?t=495
    - geoelectric 4y ago
      I didn’t realize until I thought back over music history and the Biz Markie case that hip hop’s East Coast “jazz and chill” phase that TTQ, De La Soul, and other Native Tongues artists brought to the table probably resulted directly from samples going away. Without samples and sequencing being the primary production technique, suddenly real instrumentation and organic musicality became the thing. Hip hop started building on covered riffs and musical passages more than straight up samples (I’m guessing the licensing was easier). That also gave us Check Your Head from Beasties, as the follow up to the pioneer sample-laden album Paul’s Boutique, where they famously played their own instruments again and became even more popular. The Native Tongues scene also gave us Prince Paul/Dr. Octagon, which gave us Deltron 3030 and Dan the Automator, which gave us Gorillaz, which… There really was a lot I suspect would’ve gone quite differently without that court case.
- kevingadd 4y ago
  What's the threshold you can copyright? 9 notes? 16? Why is that the threshold and not 8? I may not agree that it should be 8, but I don't see any rigorous or well-reasoned model here to explain why "you can copyright 8 notes" is a festering disease when it seems like people are not reasoning through why something should or shouldn't be copyrightable.

dcow 4y ago

Which is ridiculous. You can't copyright 8 notes of music. This is the festering disease we need to rid ourselves of.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
Well, now I'm disappointed. I was going to point to this TED talk (https://www.ted.com/talks/damien_riehl_copyrighting_all_the_melodies_to_avoid_accidental_infringement https://www.ted.com/talks/damien_riehl_copyrighting_all_the_...) but it appears to have been removed as the video no longer loads for me. However, this (https://www.ted.com/talks/damien_riehl_why_all_melodies_should_be_free_for_musicians_to_use https://www.ted.com/talks/damien_riehl_why_all_melodies_shou...) appears to be an abridged version of the same talk. The disappointing bit: I say it's an abridged version because I distinctly remember him talking about how he actually claimed copyright for all 8-note melodies under a permissive license, which I can't find in the one that actually loads. He "brute forced" every 8-note melody with a program, saved them to a disk and claimed copyright under (I believe) the MIT license. (I can see legal issues with doing that, of course, so it's not hard to imagine possibly why the video was replaced with a different one.)
an_ko 4y ago
Damien Riehl and Noah Rubin have all the melodies on a hard drive. (More info in this Adam Neely video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfXn_ecH5Rw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfXn_ecH5Rw and the TED talk linked in a nearby comment.) So depending on a court's kinda arbitrary definition of creativity on any given day, all of them may or may not be copyrighted already. An infringement being accidental also doesn't seem to stop copyright holders from successfully suing people. I think this means you could technically be successfully sued for dropping some bricks on a piano, since no matter where they land, the action constitutes a public performance of a copyrighted work. Fun stuff.
- dcow 4y ago
  Which is most certainly not the original intention of copyright, if we are to even give the concept credence. I'm of the opinion that the entire system of western copyright law is absolutely broken. You definitely can't infringe on copyright by dropping bricks on a piano, in the world with a flourishing creative arts scene, anyway. Something went terribly wrong. PS: I also second the Adam Neely video. I was actually wondering if someone would link it (:
- damienriehl 4y ago
  Thanks for your note about our project! To learn more about the ~471 billion melodies we created — then copyrighted — then put in the public domain (to protect songwriter "you stole my melody" defendants), more information is here: http://allthemusic.info/faqs/ http://allthemusic.info/faqs/
geoelectric 4y ago
Robin Thicke wasn't exactly a sympathy-inspiring celebrity, but the Blurred Lines case was another egregious example. As someone who grew up in the 80s and 90s, I also really wish we'd gotten the explosion of almost completely sample-based music we were starting to see with bands like the Beastie Boys, the KLF, and Pop Will Eat Itself. The Biz Markie sampling case basically shitcanned an entire nascent subgenre.
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 4y ago
  This comment made me want to listen to "Can I Kick It?" by A Tribe Called Quest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-uV8TGjaGU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D-uV8TGjaGU Which sampled the guitar melody from Lou Reed's "Walk On The Wild Side." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6fayQBm9w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oG6fayQBm9w And the "Rebel Fanfare" from the Star Wars Theme composed by John Williams. https://youtu.be/_D0ZQPqeJkk?t=278 https://youtu.be/_D0ZQPqeJkk?t=278 Which sampled this part of "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" by Paul Dukas. (Okay, not quite but it's easy to guess the inspiration.) https://youtu.be/wneUNq_Ndbw?t=495 https://youtu.be/wneUNq_Ndbw?t=495
  - geoelectric 4y ago
    I didn’t realize until I thought back over music history and the Biz Markie case that hip hop’s East Coast “jazz and chill” phase that TTQ, De La Soul, and other Native Tongues artists brought to the table probably resulted directly from samples going away. Without samples and sequencing being the primary production technique, suddenly real instrumentation and organic musicality became the thing. Hip hop started building on covered riffs and musical passages more than straight up samples (I’m guessing the licensing was easier). That also gave us Check Your Head from Beasties, as the follow up to the pioneer sample-laden album Paul’s Boutique, where they famously played their own instruments again and became even more popular. The Native Tongues scene also gave us Prince Paul/Dr. Octagon, which gave us Deltron 3030 and Dan the Automator, which gave us Gorillaz, which… There really was a lot I suspect would’ve gone quite differently without that court case.
kevingadd 4y ago
What's the threshold you can copyright? 9 notes? 16? Why is that the threshold and not 8? I may not agree that it should be 8, but I don't see any rigorous or well-reasoned model here to explain why "you can copyright 8 notes" is a festering disease when it seems like people are not reasoning through why something should or shouldn't be copyrightable.