The Musicians Behind One of the Most Sampled Songs in History Finally Got Paid

https://thump.vice.com/en_uk/article/the-musicians-behind-one-of-the-most-sampled-songs-in-history-finally-got-paid

by ZeljkoS • 11 years ago

49 16 11 years ago

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gluelogic2• 11 years ago

This is a very informative video on the "Amen break" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac

I am sure most readers have heard it somewhere. It really is ubiquitous.

DiabloD3• 11 years ago

I watch this documentary every few years because of how well put together it is. The fact that it, itself, is being played on a record is awesome.

steve19• 11 years ago

Can someone explain why the artist cannot sue everyone who sampled the track? Seems like plenty of lawyers who would happily take it on given the recent successful lawsuits? [0]

Does their limited sampling not constitute copyright infringement or is the ownership/creation disputed?

[0] http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/robin-thicke-and-phar...

gluelogic2• 11 years ago

I imagine the difficulty lies in the fact that it has simply been sampled so frequently and over such a long period of time that the case would not be easy to win and incredibly expensive to prosecute.

sehugg• 11 years ago

(I'm not a lawyer... this is not legal advice... etc)

But I think he probably could try it if he wanted to. There are a number of "sample trolls" using technology that finds samples in old songs: http://www.project-disco.org/intellectual-property/040914-wh...

The statute of limitations for copyright infringement usually starts when the infringement is discovered: http://law.freeadvice.com/intellectual_property/copyright_la...

rvense2• 11 years ago

It constitutes copyright infringement, but of the copyright to the recording, not the "composition". AFAIK the band doesn't own the recording.

aikah2• 11 years ago

I think he could, definitely. Some artists have been sued for way less. I'm pretty sure this stuff was sampled and used by more than 10 000 different artists, in the drum'n'bass scene it's obvious.

DougN7• 11 years ago

I'm the first to admit I'm musically illierate but how likely is it that no one has never played a (simple?) six second beat like that before? I don't know what drum music looks like on paper but six seconds can't have so much information content that it hasn't been hit upon by others in the past, can it?

mdda• 11 years ago

The words "I" "have" "a" "dream" take less than six seconds to say, so surely that information content has been hit upon by others in the past... As someone else has posted, there's a great documentary about the whole sampling/resampling scene that explains a bit about the attractions of this particular sonic segment : Suffice to say, there's a lot more to it than just a 1-2-3-4 pattern.

SixSigma• 11 years ago

Funny you should mention that, the mlk family retain copyright of the recording, after a lawsuit with CBS, of that speech which is why you don't hear it in full.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Have_a_Dream

Though I suspect you know that already.

skwosh2• 11 years ago

It is kind of absurd. Music is intrinsically about reuse, recycling, and reinvention [1]. Sampling is really just a continuation of that.

[1] Axis of Awesome, The Four Chord Song, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

robotresearcher• 11 years ago

People are not copying the composed phrase, they are using the performance directly. The original audio recording is sampled, processed and replayed as a component of a new song.

Synaesthesia• 11 years ago

It's a very punchy, very energetic fill or break that's just proven extremely versatile and great sounding, especially for drum and bass. It just sounds good! There are some other very famous breaks too, the Funky Drummer for example.

rvense2• 11 years ago

Recordings are copyrighted.

I don't think anyone's suggesting that the Winstons own the pattern, just that they deserve more compensation for this particular rendering of it.

aikah2• 11 years ago

it's not just about the notes that are being played, but also the specific sound of that recording. AFAIK no one has been able to reproduce that exact sound , with the exact timing. That beat launched an entire kind of music (90's UK hardcore techno, then jungle/drum'n'bass)

skwosh2• 11 years ago

The song that the article refers to is Amen by The Winstons (1969), a cover of the gospel-like Amen by Jester Hairston (1963).

Though the drum break was played (and probably "composed") by band-member G. C. Coleman, the cheque was made out to the copyright holder and singer of the band Richard L. Spencer.

I wonder what would be different if Sony held the rights.

The Musicians Behind One of the Most Sampled Songs in History Finally Got Paid

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