How music samples communities impacts in copyrights lawsuits

The practice of sampling is especially pervasive in music culture, it consists of take a small part of a song and mix it with another one, creating a new music, but still in a way that is often possible to identify the sharp influence of the originally music embodied.

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Most of the time these samples are not cleared by the artist that wright the original music (authorized) and artists or labels that chooses this path still assuming the risk of an eventual lawsuit for copyright infringement, which can often more costs than the process of clearance rights related to a sample.

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In recent years hip-hop artists have been finding challenges in their own community of fans. The cultural practice of the sample is identified by the fans of these artists themselves and who are dedicated to identifying the songs originally mixed, which leads them to share their knowledge in comment sessions of specialized blogs, on Youtube, collections such as “WhoSampleWho” and social networks in general. This type of content is like a treasure hunt for copyright lawyers.

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In Who Sample Who, for example, you can search for a specific song and find out which other songs sampled it or if that song was made from a sample. When we search for the famous song like “Beat it”, by Michael Jackson, it is possible to confirm that this song was sampled at least 74 times, using everything from the original music, like the vocals, the drums and its other sound effects. It’s not possible to confirm by a regular person which one’s rights are cleared or not cleared, but for Michael Jackson copyright lawyer music catalog it is.

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In face of that, what has curiously been happening is that the well-meaning engagement of fans has been discouraging artists from doing more uncleared samples, precisely because the greater publicity about the tracks has exposed the artists to be identified more easily, which consequently has generated more lawsuits for copyright infringement.

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It is true that a legal process of sampling and advised by a specialized lawyer can assist both parties in this process, the artist who wishes to produce a sample and the one who will have his work sampled.

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Author: Ana Luiza Pires and Cesar Peduti, Peduti Advogados.

Source:?Sample Snitching: How Online Fan Chatter Can Create Legal Trouble for Rap Producers

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“If you want to learn more about this topic, contact the author or the managing partner, Dr. Cesar Peduti Filho.”

“Se quiser saber mais sobre este tema, contate o autor ou o Dr. Cesar Peduti Filho.”