I'm not talking about Moby. I'm talking about King Britt. He basically samples the vocals from very old gospel and blues recordings, and then mixes in his live playing over it. His most famous song is "New world in my view", which was featured in the HBO show True Blood.
Here's another song ("Power"), this time featuring harp:
I like what he has come up with. I think his songs are effective, and he isn't patronizing his listeners or just "ripping off" the original performers. He seems to be making something totally modern through the combination of old and new. Something very differnt than the original.
The only question I have is about copyright and compensation. It's totally possible that all the original songs he samples are in the public domain (actually it's more than possible, it's highly probable). I couldn't find ANY info about whether or not he pays for the sampling privileges. Personally, I would hope that he pays the descendants of the artists at least SOMETHING for the right to use original recordings, even if those recordings are now in the public domain. I'd hate to think that such new and cool modern blues music would be tainted by even the least bit of monetary scandal.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share this dude's music with those on here that are interested... ---------- ------------------ View my videos on YouTube!"
Do a search thru the Library of Congress and also EQUALLY IMPORTANT, check with the Harry Fox Agency regarding that. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Zack, it's about respect. Plain and simple. Just because you don't "have" to do something doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. ---------- ------------------ View my videos on YouTube!"
Isaacullah, it is good that you're doing at least the one thing that a lot of the hiphop artists weren't doing for far too long until they lost in a huge lawsuit, and that's to at least make sure about copyrights and stuff and also to give the credits because a lot of those guys didn't give a rat's a** about it and were guilty of serious copyright infringement and non of those guys ar legally allowed to sample ANYTHING from the The Beatles catolog because of that.
On the other hand, once you find out the owner of the copyright if you do any sampling, get in touch with them ASAP and ask for permission to use it first. They may tell you no, and if they do, don't use it, but if you do get their permission, make sure everything is in writing, including any compensation that they will want and/or if they won't ask for any and in both case, make damned sure you make that info known on the credits.
Zach, on the public domain thing, based on the latest laws, nothing goes into the public domain until after the last surviving composer has passed on by 75 years and then it becomes public domain and until that happens, it's part of the surviving composer's estate. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
By the way, I can't find any info on the original recordings. I searched the library of congress as well as many other public domain lists... I think I'd need the extra info from his liner notes in order to be able to do a proper search on the songs, but I don't want to spend money on it until I'm sure that some of the money is going to the descendants of the original artists. It's a catch 22! ---------- ------------------ View my videos on YouTube!"
Isaacullah, that's where the Harry Fox Agency comes in. ---------- Sincerely, Barbeque Bob Maglinte Boston, MA http://www.barbequebob.com CD available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/bbmaglinte
Apparently the Harry Fox Agency doesn't handle sampling rights. From their website:
"To obtain a performance right, or to gain representation for your work for the use by others, we suggest you contact the U.S. performance rights societies. Their websites contain search engines that can also assist you in finding publisher information for Synch licensing, print rights, or sample clearances.
ASCAP BMI SESAC
For "master use" or sampling rights, you will also need to contact the owner of the master recording, usually the record company that issued the original recording. You can discover what record label issued the recording by looking it up on a retail website, such as amazon.com."
Perhaps I can get my local record store to open up a King Britt CD and let me look at the liner notes before I buy it... ---------- ------------------ View my videos on YouTube!"
Last Edited by on Aug 09, 2010 1:40 PM
I kept searching, and didn't find out any more about the copyright stuff. What I DID find out is that King Britt is a legit DJ. He came up with De La Soul and Diggable planets. This means he has full cred in terms of musicality and culture. However, the De La Soul era of hip hop was the era where the most copyright violation sampling was taking place. Now I don't give to rodent's testicles about ripping off a giant record company. They've been ripping off consumers and artists for years. What I'm concerned about is ripping off artists themselves. Especially ripping off rural blues and gospel artists who maybe only ever made that one recording that is being sampled. These people have very little power or voice, and it is easy to take advantage of them.
All that being said, King Britt is CEO of his own record label, Five Six Media. It's highly unlikely that he is not paying copyright fees that NEED to be paid. I'm still not sure if he is paying money to the artist's descendants out of respect, regardless of whether or not any money is obligated by law. King Britt does seem to be involved in many community-oriented musical charities, including the Gulf Relief Foundation, so this is a credit in his direction. Knowing this makes me feel better about him, and now I think that it's probably alright to spend your money on his album. If he's not paying money to the descendants of the artists he samples, he's at least spending it on living people who need some help... ---------- ------------------ View my videos on YouTube!"
Last Edited by on Aug 10, 2010 1:36 PM
Copyrights get extended to far now, 75 years after the last person dies. That means that the person who recorded something probably didn't even meet the last person collecting royalties and the person collecting royalties is probably one of a couple dozen people the royalties could have been handed down to. I think at a certain point things need to pass into the public domain. Sure, you could track down someone and give them some money, but are you going to track down all those people? That money isn't going to go very far split that many ways. I think at some point that becomes counter productive, a disincentive to actually using the work that might otherwise be totally forgotten.
In the end if you want to do something for the family there are other ways that may mean even more to the family... when you release a song you could collect up stories from the family about the artist or see if any budding musicians in the family tree might be useful on the recording (and of course you pay them like you would pay any other musician).
edit:
Actually, to give you a more concrete example, in my family there are some watercolors, painted by my grandmother, and a poem that someone who I never met that meant enough to the family that it got scribed into a silver plaque. The water colors are nice but outside the family they don't have any real value. The poem is very nice (although one stanza is a little clunky.) All of these things were found when we were cleaning out my grandmother's house after she passed away. The watercolors went to my Uncle's house, where they sit in a box (I have photocopies of some of them) and the poem, the plaque, I'm not sure who got that, and we got copies of the text. I wanted to put them all on a website so that family members in particular, but anyone in practice, could look at them and enjoy them. Nope. The family was worried that someone might steal them, copy them, whatever. So they sit there in a box. Real commercial value? Probably under $100, including the melt value of the plaque. If you divided it up amongst the people who might legitimately have a claim to some share of the monetary value? Probably not enough to buy dinner at Burger King. But if it was out there, and other people could use it? It would be so cool to see the poem in a book as an example of folk poetry or see the paintings on a family members site. That won't happen though. :(
@BBQ hip hop artists won a lot more cases than they lost with respect to copyright infringement. in most cases the hip hop artist had sought and received permission from the record company to use a very short sample. this involved paying a fee to the artist for thier performance. in several cases the sampled artist would seek some credit for writing the hip hop track after its release and usually lost (both the case and a lot in legal fees). it is sometimes confusing because the writer and performer are the same person so to illustrate: say nacorans last post is actually a published book. if i make a recording of myself reading the post i have to pay him copyright as the author. if isaacullah takes a sample of me saying "that won't happen" from the end of the post and uses it in a hip hop song he has to pay me a royalty for my performance but he doesn't have to give nacoran anything because he cant copyright the phrase "it won't happen". during the 90s longer samples became more fashionable and it kind of became a non-issue. the unfortunate part is that a lot of funk and soul artists, many of whom were not very successful financially were pushed to the brink of bankruptcy by lawyers who convinced them they had a case to recieve more money for thier sample.
@isaac thanks for posting, i had never heard of this guy
Last Edited by on Aug 10, 2010 6:06 PM
Conjob, even worse, sometimes they won. The Verve thought they had done everything right, but the Stones still sued them because they thought they deserved more than they'd agreed on, and the Rolling Stones won. :(
