Sampled Music

"HAPPY NEW YEAR FAM;" I know its a bit too late to say this but am so excited about this new year. I thank God for letting me see 2013 &  am so happy to post my very first blog post for 2013:D . When a new year begins, thoughts usually turn into resolutions so I've decided in 2013, am turning over a new leaf.am expanding my music collection: I want to do something different,i have decided to create new play lists of 'Golden' songs from the 60's 70's & 80's. that are now sampled into "modern-day" hits:-)



In music, sampling is the act of taking a part of one song & putting it in another song as a background track with some alteration.A song can be sampled into another song if that song has not been used or if it is significantly altered from it's original sound.This idea began with rappers in the eighties and has continued until today.For a long time this has been a respected practise of the music world but it has since become a problem. Record labels who hold the rights to the songs being used are suing those who have sampled siting copyright infringement. This has stood  in some cases & seems as though it is becoming the status quo. There are some defences however, there is no specific amount of measures, words or notes that say you have illegally sampled music.

Rap icon Kanye west has sampled over 334 classic songs into famous hip hop hits.The fact that he samples music doesn't speak to whether he is or isn't a talented artiste,he has sold millions of records,won grammys & he's made millions of dollars out of it. However G.O.O.D sampled music has been to him,it has also bought its fair share of problems; a New york label "TufAmerica" sued kanye west for illegally sampling music for his album "My Beautiful Twisted Fantasy"

Artistes also can get permission to sample music or break copyright laws. People arrange pieces of music everyday,The difference is that ask permission to alter the music and/or they give the original author credit for their work. Cameroonian singer Manu Dibango sued Michael Jackson & Rihanna for 500,000 euros for sampling his song without permission. 
Apparently Manu & Michael had reached an agreement upon michael used part of Manu's 1972 track "soul makossa" for Michael's 1983 hit single "wanna be startin' something" but apparently Manu was upset when Rihanna borrowed the same portion of the song & only asked for michael's permission without bothering to contact him,the original owner

So there are other questions that eventually come to mind like when is music legally in the public domain & legal to sample.That doesn't happen til a minimum of ninety after the death of the copyright owner so maybe the next question should be if that is too long for people to make money off of a song. Honestly,in my opinion i think that is way too long.i don't think any artiste should hold a copy more than about his/her life,I believe when they die their music should go to the public domain so that their fans can appreciate & Honor their death without having to pay for it.

So basically,I think music sampling is a new style & a new way to show songs and therefore,it should be legal to take parts of the songs & use them in any genre of music provided it doesn't hurt the original song...