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It is you who does not understand what he (the author of TFA) is talking about (admittedly he's not being very clear). He's using "sampling" as it's used in the
by brazzy 14y ago
It is you who does not understand what he (the author of TFA) is talking about (admittedly he's not being very clear). He's using "sampling" as it's used in the DJ and electronic music scene, to mean "include part of one commercial piece of music in another commercial piece of music".
And he's absolutely right: that's not "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching [..], scholarship, or research", so it does not fall under fair use, and the length and nature of the sample is completely irrelevant.
- chris_wot 14y agoI think he's being clear. He wrote: "So let’s set the record straight. You cannot legally sample music without clearance. It begins and ends there. If someone were to take a tiny clip of one of my songs, pitch it down to 10% speed, reverse it, and slam 8 minutes of echo on it, I could sue their pants off (not that I would, or even be able to detect such a thing)." He's saying this under all circumstances. Note that you can create works for commercial purposes for teaching. If course, the statute states that this will be taken into consideration. Now don't get me wrong, fair use is a nebulous thing. You'll most likely not fall under fair use provisions in most circumstances. It's not always clear what a court will decide, so I agree - if you sample, best to get permission! But making sweeping statements that something is not and will never be covered under fair use is wrong.
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- mmcnickle 14y agoAs much as I dislike arguing semantics, the resolution of this comes down to the definition of "sample". For what it's worth, I read it to mean for the use in commercial works.
- chris_wot 14y agoAnd yet it can still be valid to have a sample in a commercial work under fair use.
- gabemart 14y ago>And he's absolutely right: that's not "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching [..], scholarship, or research", so it does not fall under fair use, and the length and nature of the sample is completely irrelevant. That's simply untrue. Firstly, there is a concept in copyright law called de minimis that potentially defends this kind of sampling in cases where it is so small it does not reproduce the original work in a substantial fashion (e.g. [1] in which copyrighted photos used in the background of a commercial film without permission were ruled to be de minimis and not infringing). This would not apply in every case of sampling, but would depend upon the length and substantiality of the sample used. Secondly, such a sample could arguably be used under the parody fair use exemption. Something being released commercially does not preclude it being a parody. [1] Sandoval v. New Line Cinema Corp., 147 F.3d 215 (2nd Cir., 1998)
- dalore 14y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeport_Music,_Inc._v._Dimension_Films http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeport_Music,_Inc._v._Dimen... > Court of Appeals rejects de minimis defense to claim for copyright infringement of a sound recording.
- kragen 14y agoThere are any number of commercial copyright infringements that are protected by fair use under US law. However, there's a Sixth Circuit case from 2005 that bears on sampling in particular, essentially eliminating the de minimis defense for sampling: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeport_Music,_Inc._v._Dimension_Films http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgeport_Music,_Inc._v._Dimen...
- rprasad 14y agoSampling is a different type of use subject to mandatory licensing laws peculiar to the music industry. There are analogous laws in the Europe, but they are not as permissive as the U.S. laws.