Electronic Music 411 - timbaland addresses demo controversy

it's gotta be credited somewhere. the song in question was entered in a contest and won the contest and the guy got his 15 minutes of fame in the demoscene er, scene. so his name was announced as the contest winner it was sort of a 'hit' w/in that particular community.

i say he ripped the guy off and stole the song. he used the song practically in it's entirety for a ringtone then just developed that into a furtado song. furtado is still fun to say.

see link:

link

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02/10/07 + jdg

furtaaaaaaaadó

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02/10/07 + Zanf

link

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02/10/07 + energygiant

right

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edited: Feb 10 2007 + soundhdack

ignatius said: "it's gotta be credited somewhere. the song in question was entered in a contest and won the contest and the guy got his 15 minutes of fame in the demoscene er, scene. so his name was announced as the contest winner it was sort of a 'hit' w/in that particular community.

i say he ripped the guy off and stole the song. he used the song practically in it's entirety for a ringtone then just developed that into a furtado song."

Yes, you say, but song and sounds end up everywhere online and it's not always clear where they originated or who the originators of the material are. Anyway, lots of people are having their say about what happened and nearly all of them, i.e. 99% of them are not directly involved in the case. They're just mouthing off about being offended, and most of their offense has to do with their hatred of the RIAA sector of the music industry, if not the music industry as a whole. Nearly everything I've heard about this case is from people who are espousing their own opinions of what happened, they're espousing uninformed opinions based on yet more uninformed opinions. So that when Timbaland says that he sampled the piece of music (it doesn't matter if it's the whole piece) without actually knowing who the creator of the piece was, many people cry "Bullshit!" because they have different ideas about sampling coupled with a hatred for individuals of Timbaland's stature. What are mashups but sampling and mixing of entire songs and pieces of music. Sure the composer and songwriters tend to be well known and credited, but entire songs and pieces are sampled. Maybe Timbaland did actually know who created the piece of music that he used, but also likely is that he did not know. If he took the piece from off a record than that would be different but he found it somewhere, still publicly unknown, on the Internet.

And those videos don't prove a damn thing other than that the two pieces of music are the same. The facts are that the Finnish guy claims to have rights to the music that Timbaland used in Nelly Furtado's song. That Timbaland also used the same sampled piece in a mobile phone ringtone. That Timbaland claims to not have known who the creator of the sampled piece was at the times he used it. He apparently felt confident enough to use it at least two times in musical productions. What is not known are the circumstances of how he originally came across the piece, and that is the million dollar question. Still, that question doesn't even need to be answered in order for the Finnish guy to get paid. All he has to do is prove that he legally owns the rights to the piece.

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edited: Feb 10 2007 + soundhdack

PAWAL said: "he is dumb dude. he keeps saying brought instead of bought. gives contradicting definitions of the word sample. what the hell is his problem?"

And, really, just how dumb does one have to be in order to make millions of dollars per year? How smart does one have to be in order to become or remain poor?

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02/10/07 + VC

As smart as me, and that's pretty damn smart.

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edited: Feb 10 2007 + mrpanda

You ask some interesting questions soundhdack. I wonder, however, what would happen if I were to find a timbaland produced song on the web, with no credit, on some anonymous website. By his logic, I could sample the whole song, but you know that if it gained any steam, he'd sue me in a heartbeat, even though I couldn't give a flying fuck who he is and am not familiar with his music. I know that you're not suggesting that he's correct, but there definately appears to be a double standard.

Many of us on this site, and in the em community in general, are very pro freedom of information, use creative commons licensing, give our music away online, etc. I'd say that as a whole we are rather hyper aware of where the faults lay in licensing and drm, and the problem as I see it is not with fans stealing music, but with cocky big shots like mr. timbaland creating a double standard by saying it's wrong to steal their music cause they "need to make a living", but when they do the same thing (condoned by the records labels and big name artists they represent) to unknown independent musicians giving their music away, then it's passed off as inconsequential. It's not so much the act itself, as it is the pretentious attitude. If you do something bad, then that's your business, but if you get caught doing it, then at least have the balls to apologize and give what you owe.

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02/10/07 + soft

youtube comment said: "
MizzPrincezz (9 hours ago)
I believe Timbaland I don't care what anybody says, alright producers sample stuff all the time, maybe the song didn't say who made it, maybe it just said C-64 or somethin and he liked it and used it. So if you took a newspaper and crumbled it in front of a microphone and used it as a sound in a movie as special effects or something should the newspaper company be mad at you cuz they didn't get paid? That doesn't mean you're a thief.
"

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!

soundhack - that is some twisted logic dude.

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02/10/07 + kucharo

astroid has it, as usual. It's really about the money. Timbaland has it, the C64 don't. If Timbaland were poor, no one would be screaming about morals. Indeed, no one would even care. With that said, if Timbaland makes any money from the wholly lifted C64 bit then he owes them something. The grey area is, has been and always will be in what constitutes 'a small sample' representing a original work and a wholly lifted idea that deserves attribution. This debate will go on until the very end of time itself or until the RIAA does away with Fair Use altogether.

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02/10/07 + fakeBlooper

in all fairness, he did add stereo separation. that's pretty good.

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02/10/07 + ignatius

soundhack- i dont think this is as simple as some sort of revolt against RIAA and a big name producer.

i love hip hop and i like a good pop song now and then. i'm well aware that timbaland has written some dope beats here and there and can make a good pop song. i didn't get any "hater" vibes from all this. it's just SOOOOOOOOO blatant to me that any other conclusion is absurd to me. obviously he didn't think about it. he just took it.

he expressed himself pretty poorly in this interview and really came off like a jerk. i dont care that he has poor grammar and can't seem to articulate his thoughts about sampling vs. stealing w.o making really bad analogies. that's not important to me (he's a producer.. not the president). there's plenty of smart and talented people out there who can't really express themselves well. whatever. i'm not a hater.

i think he's greedy and lazy for not investigating and clearing the sample. it may be standard operating practice for him to use whatever he wants and then clean up the mess later or make the mess go away.. that's total bullshit and if he needs to get sued once to make him realize that then tell me where to donate to the finish guy's legal defense fund.

songs and sounds are all over the internet but they are all over sample CD's and on records and CD's too. what's the difference? if i dig up some white label record in my collection and sell it pepsi to use in a commercial is that OK?

what does it mean that this guy's song was on the internet to download and not on a CD? if it was on a CD with credits what do you think would have happened? to me it sounds like he would have stolen it anyways.

basically, i cry bullshit. he was too busy under the pressure of his deadline to worry about it.. even though he had used the song in his ringtone that came out a year before the nelly furtado song!!!!!!

bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit bullshit

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02/10/07 + Zanf

Dont play your cards close to your chest STV, just come right out and say what you feel ;)

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02/10/07 + skab

my basic problem with this situation is that sampling used to be subversive. the first time i heard "I know you got soul" by eric b and rakim, i loved the fact that it contained a massive, blatant jackson 5 sample. sadly, that kind of sampling now perpetuates the dominance of bloated fat cats like timbaland. the legality of this doesn't really matter. the world has changed a lot since the early 80s. There is so much that can be done with samples. The possiblities for creativity are vast. What really pisses me off about this whole thing is timbalands lazy, lazy attitude to music and the media's willingless to swallow almost anything by established producers as pure gold. what hip-hop, and a lot of other electronic styles need is a more critical stance from the artists, the media and the public.

so much of what has made the past 15 years in music great is collapsing under the weight of hype, spin and marketing. these are relatively new forces in the music industry, or at least, the levels of sophistication used are new. this whole debate about the morality/legality of this case can't be hurting his records sales either.

what happened to making music for the love? jeez....i'm so old ;)

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02/10/07 + crabster

I bought the whole "found some track on teh interwebs" argument, chalking it up to ignorance rather than malice. Up until listening to this interview that is.

To misquote the one and only sandwich chef: "This is a timbaland, it is made of fail and aids".

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