The Ethics Of Sample Based Music

Imagine the number one song of the year with the most downloads, streaming numbers and views on Youtube could not be nominated for a Grammy. Up until June 2014, artists could not be nominated for such an award unless the song was completely their own, meaning there was no sampling of past music. This may not sound like a big deal until songs like “SOS” by Rihanna or “Ice Ice Baby” by Vanilla Ice became chart topping tracks, and are both derived from older songs. Mark Ronson, music producer and DJ, speaks about how sampled music has changed the way generations discover music, as well as how creative ideas flourish from sampling other artist’s music. In this TED talk “How sampling transformed music,” Ronson gives his opinion on how artists transform

I can imagine people copying someone else's homework, but I really can’t imagine plagiarism in a career. I genuinely can’t believe it until now that there are people like Vanilla Ice in this world that can copyright songs baseline, and let the people in this world hear it as it is his own song. What Vanilla Ice did wrong is that he tricked billions of people into believing that it was his own work, where he also

When wanting to listen to a song today, one no longer has to buy or download a physical copy. In today’s world, streaming has become one of the top ways of retrieving music content. This major change has led to a profound shift for the music industry and its artists. It has developed a continuous conflict that affects the way music is distributed and how artists make a living. Listeners stream music electronically through their computers, phones, cars, and more. Most of these streaming platforms allow for the content to be free, which directs to the question of whether music should be free or not. Streaming is a topic that has presented itself to be a valid issue on whether it ultimately hurts or helps artists and their careers. Streaming has both pros and cons, but in order to aim to figure a possible solution there needs to an examination of the history of the issue, a proper analysis of both sides, and evaluating its importance.

Sampling is a technique that many artists have used for decades, when given the opportunity to record a new track. Sampling has transformed the music industry, by allowing an artist to broaden their horizons, and give people the ability to have a different outlook towards a particular song. Often times when a producer is trying to assist the artist or group, they will present the artist with many beats and mixes. Of the beats and mixes provided, a few of them may be a sample of another artist’s work. Often times when an artist or group admires the work of another artist, they will get their permission to sample their music and incorporate into the work that they are about to produce. Another reason an artist may decide to sample the work

Censoring music will limit the creativity and viewpoint of other people; which is causing our freedom of speech becoming eradicated and adds on to the shortcoming of understanding other people’s perspectives. People have different stances on life, and want to canvass the things that they lived through. This is where foul language and censorship is most debated.

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Over the past fifty years, the British Music Publishing industry has undergone dramatic changes. It has evolved as an entity with innovations in technology, changes and creations of laws and new mediums to promote and exploit songs to a wider audience. Therefore, the way in which the music publishing industry operates and exploits its assets has completely transformed, and continues to do so at a rapid pace. This paper will attempt to explore the ways in which publishers exploit song copyrights and the way in which this has changed over the past 60 years. It is important to define what is meant by copyright and its role within the industry. The Performing Right Society website states: “Copyright

In the musical sense, sampling is when a segment of music is taken from an original recording and is inserted, sometimes repetitively, in a new recording. A sample can be any type of media that is pre-recorded, from classical pieces of music, to rock guitar riffs. The origins of music sampling predate the 1980 's, when hip-hop was first brought on the scene. Some say that sampling has been around much longer than some think, steering to the fact that jazz musicians have always imitated each other 's riffs. In 1961, after being influenced by many other musicians who had experimented with sound and recording, James Tenney took it a step further by talking an existing popular song and changing it completely. His “Collage #1” took Elvis Presley 's recording of “Blue Suede Shoes”, took out sections, swapping them with others and played them along with the tempo of the song. Many could argue that this was the beginning of music sampling. Although that was the beginning, music sampling has only gained mainstream popularity through the Hip-hop/rap and electronic genres. Even though sampling is a very popular thing to do now in the digital age, it doesn 't come without it 's complications. These include many claiming that sampling is unoriginal and doesn 't need any musical creativity. Nevertheless, there are many points to counter-act these arguments including, generating interest for unknown music and encouraging musical experimentation. In this essay I will

The Anthology of Rap is a guide to everything hip-hop from 1970 to 2010. Starting with artists such as Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, and Sugarhill Gang then ending with Kanye West, Eminem and other modern artists. While this book does focus more on the lyrics of certain songs, the authors, Adam Bradley and Andrew DuBois, mention the song’s samples and how the artist used them within the song. This book provides a great understanding of how the use of samples have changed over the course of hip-hop history. Comparing my findings with other references such as “Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling annotation” I can find out exactly how the use of samples changed during and after the result of the trials listed in the

Once more people could hear more types of music, some became inspired, and some began to copy. There are many examples of how musicians have blatantly ripped each other off, ranging from Led Zeppelin stealing “Dazed and Confused”, to members of ZZ Top literally claiming to be another band. Many of these cases go to court, and change the way music is created, and written. One landmark case is De la Soul vs. the Turtles. In this case De la Soul, an entirely Black rap group, ripped off a song by the Turtles, an entirely White pop band. This case changed the way rap music is created, due to the heavy use of samples. Now rappers had to pay attention to the samples they used, and pay artists who made them. The verdict was so influential, De la Soul went as far as to argue that this verdict could end rap music as a whole (Runtagh, 2016). This case just shows one way the court system has tried to draw a line between blatant thievery and inspiration, and the compensation involved. There are many other cases that also attempt to create a legal distinction, but it is difficult for a court to make an exact line. There are only so many melodies, and notes, and some happen to sound similar, and sometimes songs are made to sound similar. Courts must go on a case by case basis in order to determine what exactly is and isn’t plagiarized. After the

Since the music industry is quite diverse it is consequently impacted by a great number of ethical issues. The issues span across the production side to the consumptions side of music. They issues deal with things as inconsequential as lip syncing to the breaking of laws when stealing music. Although there are a lot of different areas that can be examined within the industry, the most important ethical issues fall under the category of compensation.

A patient in acute care has culturally specific music because the family believes it will help the patient. The patient is not cognitively aware and there are other patients in the room. This ethical dilemma questions whether or not the rehab assistant should let the family continue playing the music or to stop since the patient is not cognitively aware and there are other patients in the same room. By asking the family to stop playing the music, conflict may occur as the RA is disrupting their culture healing beliefs. Whereas if they continue to play the music, patients in the same room could become agitated which can create problems between other patients and the family. As the duty of a culturally competent RA, we will try to accommodate the patients needs where everyone is happy with the outcome while maintaining each patient’s autonomy.

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Music licensing is certainly not the ideal solution to maintain the integrity of the art. Music licensing has created situation in which people actually have to pay to use folk songs such as "Happy Birthday" in certain circumstances. The company that owns the license to the song actually receives millions of dollars every year for a song that nobody knows who originally wrote. However, compensating artists for their works is a complicated endeavor and does not receive much public funding in a capitalist system. Therefore, even though the licensing practice may be counter-productive the art form and overly commercialized, it is a necessary evil that must be tolerated in modern society.

Another Philosophy that can be used in evaluating the ethics of is Deontology which is judging an action based on societal norms in place already. Copyright laws have been around well before technology and they have protected intellectual property as well as the rights of musicians. With the music piracy risk evolving as technology has the copyright laws have as well still stating that the reproduction or sharing of music files is unlawful. “Section 106 of the 1976 Copyright Act gives the owner of copyright in original musical works, the exclusive right to do and to authorize others to: To reproduce the work in copies or phonorecords; To distribute copies or phonorecords of the work to the public by sale or other transfer of ownership, or by rental, lease, or lending; To perform the work publicly.” (Digmedia) So since there has always been an established idea that what someone else produces is their property and can only be obtained with a contract and under certain stipulations of usage therefore Deontology would agree this is ethically