Did Producer Timbaland Steal From the Demoscene?

gloom writes "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?"

Uh, okay...

Why is this news? Everyone knows that hip-hop is unoriginal to start with.

Re:You're unoriginal.

You mistakenly put a link to Outkast in your 2% talent.

Re:You're unoriginal.

No, that's correct. They only have 2% talent.

Re:You're unoriginal.

Name a type of music that has been more influential in the last 30 years.

How about, um, rock music? Rock music in all its form hasn't exactly been out of style and dead since early 1977.

Re:You're unoriginal.

Name a type of music that has been more influential in the last 30 years..

Music from the Demoscene, apparently.

Re:You're unoriginal.

Name a type of music that has been more influential in the last 30 years..

Well ... Define "influential" ...

If you consider music sales [msn.com] Rock music is more popular than Rap, Hip-Hop, R&B and Urban combined. If you look at critical acclaim Rap music has only been receiving critical acclaim and awards (outside of specific genre awards) in the past 5 or so years.

And what does it matter if a musical style has been "influential" if the initial argument was that it was unoriginal? You can be very generic (and even steal other people's ideas) and still be "influential".

Re:You're unoriginal.

"Hip-Hop" is just a bastard child of rap and pop.

Wrong. Hip-hop is an all-encompassing culture, a movement started in New York City by inner city Hispanics and African Americans. Hip-hop traditionally consists of 4 "elements": DJ'ing (originally the backbone of hip-hop culture), Emceeing (rapping), Breakdancing, and Graffiti.

Originally, rap was the combination of an emcee rhyming over a DJ's beat. An emcee's job was originally to get the crowd more into the music the DJ was playing, hence the title (derived from MC, or Master of Ceremonies).

Through the late 90's, rap was simply called rap. Somewhere along the way, around the transition from the "jiggy era" to the Cash Money dominated southern sound of the mainstream, fans of underground rap music and conscious early 90's rap started referring to anything that was not mainstream as "hip-hop music", in an effort to differentiate "good" rap from "bad" rap"

Only recently have radio stations and music channels that typically play mainstream style rap referred to the music that they play as "hip-hop". This has prompted many people to revert to referring to the music they like as "rap" in backlash, to express their disappointment to the direction popular rap artists have taken musically (focusing more on simple beats and rhymes in efforts to appeal to pop crowds and club scenes).

Re:You're unoriginal.

Not to go too far OT, but Hip hop and Rap are actually the same thing as far as the actual pop-cultural relation to them are concerned. To be technical, Hip Hop refers to the entire culture, including things one might not generally think of such as fashion and speach. We used to refer to the four elements of hip hop: graffiti, breakdancing, DJing, and MCing (a.k.a. rapping), which in its early forms was actually subservient to DJing. Nowadays, MCing has moved overwhelmingly to the forefront, as the other elements have become more diluted, diversified, and hybridized (beatboxing could be seen as a more recently formalized and popularized hybrid of MCing and DJing, though it's generally been around for almost as long as hip hop itself). Now Hip Hop dance includes a lot more than just breakdancing, graffiti is much less popular (probably because it's not quite so marketable being illegal in nature).

Since Rap has taken such a dominant role, nowadays whenever someone says "hip hop" they're generally talking about Rap, but to refer to the two things as though they were different musical genres is a fallacy. People think that the subject matter of the songs determines the genre (rap being the sole property of gangster rappers, and all other forms falling under some other umbrella of "hip hop"). In truth, they're all hip hop, and rapping is what they all do. It's just a matter of what they rap about that determines the subgenre (gangster, etc.).

I find the people who try to argue that Hip Hop and Rap are different are generally people who don't listen to it much, or only listen to 3 or 4 artists and then declare themselves expert.

What you have listed there are not musical genres in order of their influence, but probably more in order of your own personal preference or encounterance (which is self-select no doubt, and very much anecdotal). You get outside of the US and Germany, and you'll find Metal drops off the list fairly quickly (and even within those countries, I doubt you'd ever find it that high on any list). Country barely has an influence the farther in any direction you go from midwestern or Southern America before you even hit the borders, much less outside the country. Disco, come on, really? And whatever "Movie Classical" is. But, you go anywhere in the world from as far back as the mid to early 90's, and hip hop was already ubiquitous, from the American brand that gets exported in abundance to the various local flavors that grew up on their own. We're talking from France to Japan to Zimbabwe here I might add.

But listing music in order of influence is also kind of fallacious, since all music is generally organic, and all genres have influenced and been influenced by others. If Disco has a great influence on modern hip hop, and hip hop is very popular, is it fair to say that Disco is the genre that's truly influential or hip hop itself? What if you could say the same for any other musical genre's influence on hip hop and vice-versa? Hip hop, at its very roots, is an assimilator, and has been growing due to its ability to absorb other musical genre's influences into itself seamlessly. From the earliest DJs mixing and remixing established Pop, Disco, and R&B tracks on turntables, to the modern mashups, this has always been a core element of Hip Hop.

Quite frankly, the competition of "my genre of choice is more popular/influential than yours" is a bit ridiculous, because it's not like popularity is the sole legitimizer of an art form. In most cases, it means the destruction of creativity in favor of formulaic nonsense and posers taking over and steering the future of the genre, which is what has happened to most of modern popular hip-hop. One should be happy while their genre or artist of choice remains in relative obscurity, because that is the place where they can enjoy the most creativity; even if it means other more popular and successful performers end up sampling or outright stealing their work.

Re:Uh, okay...

You probably just don't have the right ear for it. If it was only the intro then I'd be dismissing it. It's not an exact copy and I'd bet you could find a few thousand pieces of music with those notes in there - it even sounded familiar to me! The melody is what is so interesting. It seriously sounds like the exact tune playing in the background - the notes are the same and even the drum beat (though it's a pretty common beat) seems to be the same.

I'd have to listen to proper high-quality versions of both to decide whether I think it's a true forgery though. If there's more of the original in the supposed forgery then that would be more evidence, but note how the tune in the intro could be easily derived from the melody - I would only put the intro being there as a minor evidence boost.

Re:Uh, okay...

Yep - subtracting the .mod from the Furtado and taking out the drums on an EQ leaves very little backing. I love DSP.

Re:You're missing the point.

Nelly Furtado's a freaking Portugese CANADIAN. Where did they get Australian from?? /Canadian

Most of us can barely find Canada on the map even though it's our 51st state; let alone figure out where some small island in the Pacific is located so we naturally assume anyone that speaks English and is from the Pacific is Australian. But at least we know Lisboa is Australa's capital; and if you look closely enough at a map of Europe you can find Australia nestled between germany and Hungary.
What I find odd is that her last name is Furtado - that doesn't sound very Australian since they speak English, not Spanish.

Obrigado for playing.

Piracy is okay if you are rich

People please. There's a double-standard. Try to keep up with these things.

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

There's a big difference between downloading a song, and ripping off someone elses work, passing it off as your own, and making money off it, which is what this fucker Timbaland has done. It's not piracy. Piracy is when you download Nelly Furtado's album.

Outright theft is when someones work is stolen and passed off as your own FOR PROFIT.

And it's also a great example of the disparity in the legal system. This guy has been completely ripped off, and basically can't afford to take it to court, because Geffen are richer than him.

One world, under a dollar, with justice for none except the corporations.

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

I find it interesting that Slashdotters, for some reason, draw the line at making money off of someone else's work. Stealing it is okay, but selling it afterward is crossing the line?

There are two definitions of steal that seem appropriate to this discussion

1. To take (the property of another) without right or permission.
2. To present or use (someone else's words or ideas) as one's own.

Now the first definition is what you're applying to downloading, but a lot of people have problems calling 'Downloading' 'Stealing' because the owner of the music does not lose possession of the property and you (typically) have been given permission to obtain the music through other channels; you can tape music off of the radio for personal use and most albums will have (at least locally) been played on the radio when they're released.

The second definition is directly related to what has been claimed that timbaland has done.

There is room for debate on the download and no room for debate on the Timbaland situation.

Re:Piracy is okay if you are rich

Actually Internet conventional wisdom is fairly unpredictable when it comes to copyright.

Case 1: Metallica vs the Internet

Metallica, a pasty white but decidedly non nerdy metal band complain about people stealing their music.

Slashdot: LOL, retards. Information wants to be free. Musicians should make money from live gigs + It's copyright infringement not stealing. Stealing is when you take something physical away from someone, like when a mugger took my iRiver full of Metallica songs.

Case 2: Someone uses GPL code in a non GPL product

Slashdot: OMG Stealing! Mailbomb them back to the stoneage!

Case 3: Pasty white Mac fans remix music, get sued

BoingBoing: Information wants to be free. DRM eats babies!

Case 4: A rich black man uses 4 chords from nerdy white guys

Slashdot: ZOMG! Stealing! Plagiarism!

I'd say that the background of the two parties is more important than any deep principle.

Disclaimer: Conventional Wisdom determined by reading comments until I got a headache, not a representative sample.

Pining for the Cjords

FFS keep this quiet!.... The RIAA (regular readers of /. I'm sure) will take notice and somehow manage to construct a legal argument meaning Timberlake gets to sue the Finnish artist for more than than the GDP of Finland. 7th Dimensional Copyright Theory or something. Wouldn't be the first time.

Re:Great now they posted it on YouTube

That's the thing about the demo scene: it's not about royalties or profit, it's about the art. When someone rips that off and starts charging others for it (without so much as even giving you credit for all your work), it's completely against everything the work was originally composed for. It's like you get a gift for your kids and some jerk steals it from you, re-wraps it, and sells it to your brother as the perfect gift for his nieces/nephews.

Re:Great now they posted it on YouTube

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you only need a license if you plan to let others use your work in some way, shape or form? You are protected by Copyright law without a license and there are no exceptions. Licenses provide any general exceptions you want to give.

Demoscene people generally have a very small set of people they even want to hear their music. There's some live events and a few websites and that's it.

Re:hottest name?

timbaland? who the hell is that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timbaland [wikipedia.org]

Re:hottest name?

Seriously, it's two thousand goddamn seven, the "What is this X the article speaks of?" thing is OVER. You're on the fucking Internet, go to Google or Wikipedia and do five seconds of research. </rant>

Re:hottest name?

Seriously, it's two thousand goddamn seven, the "What is this X the article speaks of?" thing is OVER. You're on the fucking Internet, go to Google or Wikipedia and do five seconds of research.
... and act like you're an expert on the matter, like the rest of us!

Re:Elvis estate sues RIAA

Please listen to what's behind the links before posting the first thing that comes to mind. It's not just a similarity - much less simple influence. It's an exact match all the way from the melody down to the bass and drum lines and the synth samples.

One hell of a coincidence if you ask me.

Re:Best argument against buying music ever

"Second, if it is not immoral for producers to "steal," then why on earth should any consumer feel guilty for taking it back?"

Ummm... because two wrongs don't make a right?

- Greg

Re:Best argument against buying music ever

"Ummm... because two wrongs don't make a right?"

It's the "consumers" (i. e. "the people") who granted the music companies their copyrights anyway. If they're not going to abide by the terms of the agreement, why shouldn't the people be allowed to revoke their copyright privileges?

Re:Is it April 1st already?

See, that would be an acceptable answer if the label Timbaland is signed to didn't go around suing people. But the major labels and their artists can't come out against piracy while coming worse infringements themselves.*

Get Legal Representation...

A quick browse of the Wikipedia webpage on sampling shows a number of cases where artists have been sued for sampling, so the best thing is to get yourself a lawyer who will direct you towards a good license that allows you to share your work non-commercially. If someone violates that license, you can then get that lawyer to go after them. The history of sampling cases seems to show that artists will pay you off so they don't risk a trial.

And that finnish artist...she should bring Timbaland to court in Finland. She definitely has a case against him, especially since she has prior art to back up her case.

This is new?

This is new? [wikipedia.org]

Slashdot, help me know what to think!?!!

Do we support this behavior (DJ Danger Mouse) or do we not (the example above)???

Re:Slashdot, help me know what to think!?!!

You left out option three: actually understand the issues involved and stop trying to play "gotcha."

DJ Dangermouse may reuse other people's work in his own creations, but he credits his sources.

If the above is to be believed, Timbaland reused someone else's creations, but didn't credit his source. That's low. Really low. If it's true, Timbaland deserves the scorn he's getting.

He can sue, but I wouldn't expect a jackpot

Being an online-posting musician myself -- what rights do I have if this should ever happen to me?

Don't worry. It won't.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

Anyway, they're not going to get anywhere bitching to Geffen. No corporation is going to admit wrongdoing if they aren't forced to. Spreading the info on the web is good for their cause but really, "Tempest" has to get a good lawyer.

Keep in mind the only thing you can go after in the music industry is rights and roylaties. You won't get a big cash payout if an indie band steals your melody or worse, if another amateur slaps his name on your song. All you can do is make a fuss and possibly ruin their credibility. This would even go for a major label act with an album that doesn't sell-- if there's no money to be had there's not much you can do.

Now, Furtado's album will probably sell millions, so "Tempest" has a shot at getting the publishing rights for the song. But to get this resolved he will have to get a competent entertainment lawyer who will work on a (large) commision. Then, if they settle or he wins, he may be able to get the writer credit (or shared credit) on subsequent pressings of the song and all or part of the roylaties-- not on the album, but the song itself (so a fraction of the album.. a small fraction if it is not a hit.) And when I say roylaties, I'm not talking gross sales but instead what Timbaland's cut would have been.

Again, unless the song itself is a top-ten hit, I would not expect a big payday from this.

It's not sampling!

Lifting and rearranging (i.e. "stealing") a tune is not sampling. If the Timbaland recording is the first published use of the song, and the use is unauthorized, then it is copyright infringement plain and simple. If it is not the first published use of the song, then there are two possibilities: a) the re-recording is a "cover" of the original, essentially similar to it, in which case compulsory licensing applies (and royalties are paid to the copyright holder at a rate defined by statute), or b) the re-recording is different enough that it is a derivative work, in which case compulsory licensing does not apply and once again it is simple copyright infringement. The copyright holder can force a halt to the infringement; what damages might be obtained in court, I don't know - the law isn't simple.

This is US law - I don't know what country's laws would actually apply in this case.

Metal Group "Dimmu Borgir" did this before

Dimmu Borgir [wikipedia.org], a Norwegian Black Metal group, ripped a song from the Amiga game "Agony", composed by Tim Wright. The original was a beautiful piano piece [titan12.free.fr] that you could listen to in the title screen. The band stole the melody and used it in the song "Sorgens Kammer [altayre.free.fr]" ("The Chamber of Sorrow" in Norwegian).

They never acknowledged the ripoff, simply substituting the song with another one in the album. Pathetic.

This is common practice

Sample to your hearts content without permission, if you have a winner, then you pay for the license. It looks like Timbaland just forgot the last part. If the song never gets released and popular, no harm no foul right? But if you have a winner you'll be able and happy to pay for the license, so it is a no brainer to sample without permission, until you want to release it. Of course this only seems to work for those with the ability to make money off a release (big record labels), independent musicians without the exposure and protection of a big label probably won't be able to pay off the copyright holder anyway.

But Tempest is right, there is no way this'd be worth it to fight. For example Talib Kweli recently violated Ben Kweller's copyright (or more likely his label's copyright) from the song "In Other Words". Kweller replied at the end episode 7 of his youtube show One Minute Pop Song. [youtube.com] If a fairly well known artist, Ben Kweller, can't fight it, someone like Tempest has pretty poor chances.

Home sampling is probably fair use, but certainly using a sample on a record is not. If Timbaland samples Tempest at home, I think that is great. If Timbaland wants to include it on an album, there has to be some kind of recourse for the little guy covering such obvious infringement. You know if Tempest released an album (even just on the internet) sampling Timbaland the RIAA would be all over it with Lawyers. Remember The Grey Album [wikipedia.org]?

Tracked music in Popcap games

I've really enjoyed a lot of the Popcap games available for PDAs, especially since a lot of their optional background music seems eerily familiar from my downloaded mod files (many are available from Nectarine radio nowadays: http://www.demoscene.net/ [demoscene.net] )

OK, so it actually turns out that a lot of Future Crew's tracks were commissioned by Popcap:
http://www.futurecrew.org/skaven/music_tracker.htm l [futurecrew.org]

In any case, it's nice to see demoscene music used appropriately by folks with any decency.

Good God, YouTube

Boy, if you ever thought a large number of /. commenters were flat out stupid (as opposed to ones who just disagree with you), following that link to YouTube will certainly make you feel much better about /. commenters!

Relevant xkcd [xkcd.com]

In defence of Timbaland

Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, Janne Suni's attorney would certainly want you to believe that his client wrote "Acid Jazzed Evening" ten years ago. And they make a good case. Hell, I almost felt pity myself! But, ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, I have one final thing I want you to consider. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Chewbacca. Chewbacca is a Wookiee from the planet Kashyyyk. But Chewbacca lives on the planet Endor. Now think about it; that does not make sense!

Why would a Wookiee, an eight-foot tall Wookiee, want to live on Endor, with a bunch of two-foot tall Ewoks? That does not make sense! But more important, you have to ask yourself: What does this have to do with this case? Nothing. Ladies and gentlemen, it has nothing to do with this case! It does not make sense! Look at me. I'm a lawyer defending a major record company, and I'm talkin' about Chewbacca! Does that make sense? Ladies and gentlemen, I am not making any sense! None of this makes sense! And so you have to remember, when you're in that jury room deliberatin' and conjugatin' the Emancipation Proclamation, [approaches and softens] does it make sense? No! Ladies and gentlemen of this supposed jury, it does not make sense! If Chewbacca lives on Endor, you must acquit! The defense rests.

Re:Double moral in the /. community?

Why I am not surprised to see that the very forum that applauded the release of the Grey Album by Danger Mouse now thinks that sampling and mixing is bad?

Tell me about it. And just last week I noticed that one Slashdotter supported the Democrats but another Slashdotter supported the Republicans. And the week before that I saw two Slashdotters who disagreed over climate change. It's as if Slashdotters have started having differences of opinion all of a sudden. I'm sure that's never happened before. About a year ago we all said and thought exactly the same things.

A note to non-native English speakers:

A Commodore 64 musician called 'grg' remade the song on the C64 (using the infamous SID soundchip)...

Hint: 'infamous' != 'really famous'

Not the first time

The trance song "Kernkaft 400" by Zombie Nation was a major hit in Europe in the late 90s, and quite obviously sampled from a Commodore 64 song. They were eventually forced to share writing credit with the original musician, David Whittaker, and pay a share of their royalties accordingly. I hope this ends up the same way.

Mod parent down; troll

1) Probably. 2) Who cares?

If your music is so bad that Timbaland is producing a copy of it, you should take up mime or tiddlywinks as a means of creative expression.

Consider Nelly Furtado: Intelligent, talented, creative musician who has been turned into a shite-generating whore. All thanks to Timbaland.

The person who made the original song cares. People who support justice care. Whether you like Timbaland or not doesn't enter into it. This is a question of principle.

Maybe we should just rewrite copyright law. "It is illegal to use media without permission from the original author, that is, unless the one doing the plaguarising is someone whom Slashdot user swordgeek doesn't like."

Re:producer != writer

Something that I still haven't seen mentioned anywhere yet is that the producer is usually not the songwriter. Sometimes they are, but frequently they are not. Who is credited with writing the song? They're the ones you all should be going after. The producer usually deals with overseeing the recording, orchestration, mixing, etc. But a lot of times, the chord progression, melody, lyrics, etc are already mostly in place before the producer gets into the picture.

That certainly used to be the case - that's what a producer like Phil Spector did. But these days, particularly for rap/hip-hop music, the producer often has a large creative input in 'writing the tune'. In this instance, the song is credited to Nelly Furtado, Timothy Clayton, Nate Hills (aka Danja) and Tim Mosley (aka Timbaland). Danja and Timbaland are also the producers.