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 Timbaland stealing music from the Demoscene
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Silas Rye
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Joined: 27 Apr 2004
Location: South Carolina, USA
PostPosted: Sun Jan 14 2007 21:18    
Timbaland stealing music from the Demoscene
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youtube video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4KX7SkDe4Q

as posted to /. by gloom

"In 2000 the Finnish demoscene musician Janne Suni (also known as 'Tempest') won the Oldskool Music Competition at the Assembly demoparty with his four-channel Amiga .MOD entitled 'Acid Jazzed Evening.' A Commodore 64 musician called 'grg' remade the song on the C64 (using the infamous SID soundchip); it is this that was stolen. The producer's name is Timbaland and he is one of the hottest names in American music these days. The track in question is called 'Do it' and it is featured on the Nelly Furtado album 'Loose' on the Geffen label. Getting nowhere with Geffen, the demoscene has now risen to the aid of Tempest, first by creating a stir at SomethingAwful (files downloadable from the forum), then at Digg.com, then on YouTube, with a video demonstrating the blatant ripoff. Being an online-posting musician myself — what rights do I have if this should ever happen to me, and what can be done to raise awareness about such things?"
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G3ronimo
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Joined: 27 Dec 2005
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 14 2007 23:03    
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This kinda stuff should be taken seriously >< that guy has to go down ><


www.soundsector.net
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Sunbuster
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Joined: 05 May 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15 2007 10:38    
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On the other hand, if you've put the material on the internet at some point without any kind of license attached to it (such as a Creative Commons license for instance), then I doubt you'll have anything that holds in court. The only way I see Tempest getting anything from this is if that Timbaland character admits to copying the material.
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D Vibe
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Joined: 04 May 2003
Location: Sweden
PostPosted: Mon Jan 15 2007 14:50    
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That's the problem. In the demoscene there's always been some kind of honour code that you shouldn't use material other demo scene members done without their permission. If you did, you would be disrespected and get bad reputation in the scene community. Though, there was really never any issue about copyrights.

Now when internet has grown, people can find these tunes everywhere and then abuse them for their own stuffs, since they've never been in to the scene, and don't have that kind of respect.

And since these modules aren't really copyrighted, if else not written (which was in rare cases), you can actually do this legally.

Haven't heard the tune in question yet, will do that when I get home from work.. Smile

Greets/Daniel


https://www.dvibe.se
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Franklin van Uden
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Joined: 26 Apr 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15 2007 18:47    
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In addition he used the track (Acid Jazzed Evening, the original mod version by janne) in 2005 in a bundle of ringtones before he used it on 'Do it'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV2fTEeP6GM

But it's nothing new, hip-hop/house producers 'steal' stuff every day .. to shame that the original artist gets not credits at all ... (royalties is a different case since the original is uploaded in 2000 without any rights attached).

Zombie Nation's 'Kernkraft 400' covered David Whittaker's Lazy Jones (subtrack21) but according to NME Whittaker did actually receive money for it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0vYmXIrmUI

An older 'grip-off' is the MTV-hit You've Got My Love where Bastian sampled the drums off Jeroen Tel and Reyn Ouwehand's old C-64 song Rubicon:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IybQTPm6igE&eurl=


Music ... is endless ... Work in progress ...

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TOffe
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Joined: 04 May 2003
Location: nomad
PostPosted: Mon Jan 15 2007 20:02    
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Franklin van Uden wrote:

But it's nothing new, hip-hop/house producers 'steal' stuff every day


Hmm lets not get like that. It's a huge diffrence between sampling and stealing like this. This is "supposedly" theft, and this is sampling:
http://www.archive.org/details/mia049
Just don't want to see sampling be draged in the dust just because of Timbaland does someting that is so diffrent from sampling.


http://www.sonitusmusic.com
http://www.myspace.com/meltic

"You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note." -Doug Floyd
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Franklin van Uden
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15 2007 21:09    
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TOffe wrote:
Franklin van Uden wrote:

But it's nothing new, hip-hop/house producers 'steal' stuff every day


Hmm lets not get like that. It's a huge diffrence between sampling and stealing like this. This is "supposedly" theft, and this is sampling:
http://www.archive.org/details/mia049
Just don't want to see sampling be draged in the dust just because of Timbaland does someting that is so diffrent from sampling.


First of all i don't say it is okay to take/sample ppl's work without at least give the original artist some credit Wink

IMO stealing is when the whole track is used in its original state, timbaland took large portions of the original and hide it away after some hip hop beat, i think it is sampling, but nevertheless it is at least very lame to take something from the internet , earn tons with it and don't even mention the original artist and take full credit for the production which isn't his obviously ...


Music ... is endless ... Work in progress ...

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Frazze
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Joined: 12 Apr 2004
Location: Lund, Sweden
PostPosted: Mon Jan 15 2007 21:35    
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Franklin van Uden wrote:
TOffe wrote:
Franklin van Uden wrote:

But it's nothing new, hip-hop/house producers 'steal' stuff every day


Hmm lets not get like that. It's a huge diffrence between sampling and stealing like this. This is "supposedly" theft, and this is sampling:
http://www.archive.org/details/mia049
Just don't want to see sampling be draged in the dust just because of Timbaland does someting that is so diffrent from sampling.


First of all i don't say it is okay to take/sample ppl's work without at least give the original artist some credit Wink

IMO stealing is when the whole track is used in its original state, timbaland took large portions of the original and hide it away after some hip hop beat, i think it is sampling, but nevertheless it is at least very lame to take something from the internet , earn tons with it and don't even mention the original artist and take full credit for the production which isn't his obviously ...


I agree on that it's credit to the original artist that counts. Also I think you should have the decency to contact the artist (if posible) before making money of it.


http://www.last.fm/music/8ism
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D Vibe
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Joined: 04 May 2003
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15 2007 22:42    
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.. plus giving both Tempest and GRG two fat pay cheques.

(GRG for the production he sampled from)

/Daniel


https://www.dvibe.se
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D Vibe
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15 2007 22:44    
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Have you seen this one btw?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV2fTEeP6GM

Timbaland used the module as a whole piece and put a hiphop beat over it to produce a ring signal, which he then sold and earned a lot of money from.

This was back in 2005 already.


https://www.dvibe.se
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TOffe
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15 2007 23:03    
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Franklin van Uden wrote:

First of all i don't say it is okay to take/sample ppl's work without at least give the original artist some credit Wink

IMO stealing is when the whole track is used in its original state, timbaland took large portions of the original and hide it away after some hip hop beat,


I agree with you up to here.

Franklin van Uden wrote:

i think it is sampling,

It is this that I can't agree with. What Timbaland did is not sampling it's just plain stealing if the facts are true. I mean it's whole peices of music. Not just a sec long sample we are talking about.

Franklin van Uden wrote:

but nevertheless it is at least very lame to take something from the internet , earn tons with it and don't even mention the original artist and take full credit for the production which isn't his obviously ...


It's not only lame but should be punished with whipping pianostrings. It may be that I misunderstood you and we both think the same thing. All I am saying is that sampling is not what Timbaland did. And when hiphop artists sample something longer it's 99% of the time vocals that are credited and easily heard.


http://www.sonitusmusic.com
http://www.myspace.com/meltic

"You don't get harmony when everybody sings the same note." -Doug Floyd
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Franklin van Uden
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Joined: 26 Apr 2005
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 15 2007 23:54    
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Toffe we both agree with eachother on the main fact that timbaland sucks from now Very Happy (maybe he did before for a lot of ppl) so we are on the same line here Laughing


Music ... is endless ... Work in progress ...

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TNK / ATK project
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Joined: 13 May 2003
Location: Village-Neuf, France (Dont's search on the map, it's tiny...)
PostPosted: Tue Jan 16 2007 00:37    
Re: Timbaland stealing music from the Demoscene
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Silas Rye wrote:
Being an online-posting musician myself — what rights do I have if this should ever happen to me


Basically, if it's your creation, not only should the producers ask you for the right to use your music but also they must pay you the copyrights for it.

Posting your music online does not remove any right you have on your music.

However :

- The big labels have probably better lawyers than you do.

- In a copyright theft case, you have to prove you're the original author. This can be done by several ways (copyright registrations,...) but is necessary. I know the case of a musician in Belgium (non tracker based) who wrote a track, published it online, got his works ripped of by some big name, and when he wanted to get his money back, the big name sued him for infringing on the rights of the song he in fact stole from the small name !

As far as what concerns my own songs, they are all registered by the SACEM, the french author's rights society that can be compared to GEMA (Germany), STIM (Sweden), TEOSTO (Finland) or ASCAP (USA). This ensures me that if I were in such a case, I would have the elements to prove I'm the original composer.

Silas Rye wrote:
and what can be done to raise awareness about such things?"


Exactly what you did : Spread the word !

However, this also shows the hit potential some demoscene stuff has. This doesn't mean we should let us get ripped of, but that we could use the hit potential we have (not just in music, think about the great videos some groups with great designs could create!) to spread the 'demoscene attitude' within the showbizz world.

Besides this, while in his case the fact both tracks perfectly match (last part of the video) and thus proves the rip, some tracks can have similarites with existing ones without being rip offs, simply because hit-sounding music like Tempest's song follow basic music patterns that often repeat themselves.

I'm sure that, except if you're into something very very very special, we all could find in our own productions stuff that are similar to other's productions, without being rip offs
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Martin
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Joined: 05 May 2003
Location: Norway
PostPosted: Tue Jan 16 2007 16:58    
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Sunbuster wrote:
On the other hand, if you've put the material on the internet at some point without any kind of license attached to it (such as a Creative Commons license for instance), then I doubt you'll have anything that holds in court. The only way I see Tempest getting anything from this is if that Timbaland character admits to copying the material.


Are you sure about this? I thought you were protected by copyright laws as long as you put your name or handle on it.


~ http://martin.madtracker.net ~
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TNK / ATK project
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 16 2007 22:23    
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Martin wrote:

Are you sure about this? I thought you were protected by copyright laws as long as you put your name or handle on it.


Any kind of artwork is copyrighted by default, just by the act of creation itself. No need to registrate anything here.

Creative commons are just there to describe what rights you keep and what rights you give away or more basically how you intend to use the copyright you're holding. By default, if no license is attached, the same laws that govern all intellectual property are in action

(This BTW means that unless you write clearly that one can download your song for free, you could sue anyone downloading your song, even if you posted it all around the web... geee, I hope that if I once make it not all the sceners will want their share of $$$, because with all the scene stuff I leeched from scene.org & co, I'm guilty as hell!)

However, registration or the self-sent / never opened letter is handy when it comes to proving that you are the real creator of an artwork. In tempest's case, if Timbaland and/or his lawyers did a good copyright registration job (And I think they did), Tempest could even be sued for... ripping Timbaland's great Nelly Furtado music in his shameless rip called 'Acid Jazzed evening' !

(Altough, as he won the ASM 2000 oldschool music compo with his track, he should have around 4000 witnesses that could prove the anteriority of his works and thus beat Timbaland in a lawsuit)
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