I listened to a super interesting podcast last week about sample libraries in popular music that I thought I would share as it is an interesting combination of issues to do with copyright and pop music – alongside a little twitter feud.
In February 2020, Justin Bieber released his newest album “Changes” and shortly after was accused by another, lesser-known artist, Asher Monroe, on Twitter of ripping off one of his beats in Bieber’s song “Intention”. While the beats are indeed identical in the two songs, it isn’t because Bieber ripped off Monroe’s song, but because both artists got the sample from a third artist, Laxity, a producer who makes beats and puts them Splice.com. Splice.com is a royalty-free website where artists and producers can post samples for others to use free of charge. Before I heard this story, I had no idea such a system of sampling existed, but it is actually a huge industry. In 2019, the CEO of Splice said that people listen to over 60 million samples on the site each week and samples from Splice can be found in a ton of popular songs.
This sample library industry is in large part a creation of stricter copyright rules that came out of cases in the 1990s. In the 1980s, samples like this were considered to be a fair use way of using someone else’s work under US copyright law and the use of samples, especially in hip hop music, was prolific. A 1991 US District Court case Grand Upright Music Ltd v Warner Bros Records Ltd effectively ended free for all sampling in the music industry. The Court invoked the maxim “thou shall not steal” in its decision, ruling that sampling without permission constituted a copyright infringement and requiring all artists to get permission to sample other artists work in advance. Another important case in this context was Bridgeport Music v Dimension Films, a 2005 case from the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit that ruled that the usage of any section of work, regardless of the length, would constitute a violation of copyright without the owner’s permission. The sample in question in the case was a 2 second long guitar chord. In its decision the court wrote “Get a license or do not sample”.
After these cases, songs and albums featuring a lot of samples became cost prohibitive to produce – one estimate put the cost of getting permission for a single sample at $10,000. This lawsuit, and others that follow, gave rise to the creation and growth of online sample music libraries where these samples are more affordable for artists to use. Interestingly these sample libraries have led to a sort of democratization whereby new and upcoming artists have a platform to have others listen to, and sometimes, sample their music.
Podcast: https://player.fm/series/reset-2555404/how-sample-libraries-are-changing-pop-music
Relevant Article: https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/17/21140838/justin-bieber-changes-running-over-asher-monroe-synergy-splice-sample-melody
This is really interesting, I had never heard of Splice before. I think, as you said, this is a great vehicle to allow otherwise unknown artists get their foot in a notoriously difficult industry.
I see that Splice’s first Quality Principle for sounds on their platform is that all content must be original. I’ll admit, my knowledge of copyright law is woefully lacking, but I wonder what steps the company takes to ensure this. They state that they investigate potential issues and notify users if they think content they’ve purchased could expose them to legal risk, but in my mind that would mean they have to investigate every sound uploaded. I’m kind of the opinion that “there’s nothing new under the sun” when it comes to music. Especially if 2-second-long samples are successfully litigated, I would imagine that most every sound has been made at one point or another.
Following the “Blurred Lines” lawsuit, where Pharrell and Robin Thicke had to pay millions to Marvin Gaye’s estate (in which the dissent said that the court had allowed the Gaye family to “copyright a musical style”), many artists have preemptively credited works and artists that may have inspired their new song. Notably, Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do” credits Right Said Fred as songwriters in recognition or their hit, “I’m Too Sexy”; Ed Sheeran gave the nod to TLC’s “No Scrubs” on “Shape of You”; and Sam Smith gave Tom Petty co-writing credit for “Stay With Me”, even while denying that Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” was his inspiration. One can see how it would be harder to take this protective step when you’re more removed from the process, believing that the sound you’ve downloaded from a sample library is free and clear of any issues.
And I believe that most copyright infringement from the Splice sound creators would likely be completely unintentional. In a recent Reply All episode, record producer Susan Rogers recalled separate instances with both Prince and Crosby, Stills & Nash where these acclaimed artists were unsure if they had created something new or subconsciously “sampled” pieces of existing works. With the sheer volume of music available at our fingertips, it is almost inevitable that the same will happen to countless young creators.
Sources:
https://splice.com/blog/splice-sounds-quality-principles/
https://splice.com/blog/copyright-originality-splice-sounds/
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/robin-thicke-pharrell-lose-multi-million-dollar-blurred-lines-lawsuit-35975/