![]() ![]() In addition, the original artist ends up getting a percentage of the new song’s earnings. To sample a song, you need permission from the copyright holders (Miller, 2021). It can lead to artists losing millions of dollars if the case is taken to court. On the other hand, if not handled correctly, sampling can be messy – even if artists unintentionally plagiarize. This allows artists to be extremely creative and pay homage to those that inspire them. In her song “My Strange Addiction”, Billie Eilish uses the audio from an episode of The Office as the opening lines. Taylor Swift did this with her song “London Boy.” In this song, she takes a portion of an Idris Elba interview where he shares date ideas (Bonner, 2019). Artists can also do this with audio clips from movies, television shows, or interviews. To avoid any issues with plagiarism, Mika credits Stephen Schwartz as a songwriter (StageTube, 2013). Most notably, the lyrics give an opposing point of view from the Broadway version. Mika also did this with his 2012 hit, “Popular Song.” The song, which features Ariana Grande, samples “Popular” from the Broadway show, Wicked. ![]() He asked his producer to create a new song based on the chord progression, percussion, and bass riff. King’s “Stand By Me.” Shortly after releasing his song, Kingston stated he got inspired when he heard King’s song for the first time ever (Gray, 2007). A great example of this is Sean Kingston’s “Beautiful Girls.” This song samples Ben E. This allows artists to be creative and re-imagine songs in brand new ways. Often confused for interpolation, which will be touched upon shortly, sampling is when artists take portions of pre-existing songs and insert them into their own original work (Miller, 2021). One way artists tend to avoid copyright is through sampling. It showed that the law recognized melodies as copyrighted material, regardless of lyrics. This case set the precedent for other music copyright cases. Still, the music was the same, so he was found guilty. He also claimed that he did not know the song was copyrighted in the first place. Snowden argued, however, that he was not infringing on copyright because he changed the lyrics (Tasev, 2021). Millett had a copyright on a song called “The Cot Beneath the Hill…” Snowden was sued by Millett because he re-published the song. One of the first ever lawsuits over music copyright was a case called Millett vs. It’s become very hard to share the music we love and even use it for educational purposes. Laws have since changed and, today, songs that are published after December 31st, 2002 will not become public domain until 70 years after the artist dies (Scheid, 2020). Later, in 1909, a revision to the US Copyright Act allowed for a 56 year protection for any form of art, including music. It was only in 1831 that musical compositions became protected under copyright laws in the United States (Little, 2001). Instead, they looked at lyrics and melodies printed on sheet music. In court, people didn’t listen to songs and compare them. Originally, copyright for music only focused on the physical aspects of songs (Tasev, 2021). In 1777, the Statute of Anne was finally expanded to also include the copyright of music (Little, 2001). This led to the production and distribution of sheet music. When operas started to become super popular, audiences desired to learn how to play the music they heard on their own (Carroll, 2005). The statute meant that copyright for books were protected by the government instead of being under common law (Little, 2001). The first copyright law was called the Statute of Anne in 1710. Copyright eventually came about due to licensing grants that were given to guilds that were publishing books in England. It didn’t initially apply to music, but rather, it was used for the publication and redistribution of books. Prior to the creation of copyright laws, there was something called a printing privilege, or a printing license (Carroll, 2005). In doing so, an artist can take inspiration from others, but they do risk being called “lazy” and “unoriginal.”īefore we get into instances of sampling and interpolation, it’s important to first dive into the history of music copyright laws. These two techniques involve utilizing aspects of pre-existing songs in a brand new way. There are, however, two techniques that many artists take advantage of in order to avoid being sued: sampling and interpolation. Musicians must tread lightly or they’ll end up paying some hefty fines. (Note: The clips I’ve included have a start and end time so that you can easily identify the parts that are sampled or interpolated.)Ĭopyright in music is incredibly hard to navigate. ![]()
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