Quote Originally Posted by Jay Pace View Post
I read an article on Mylo's first album.

I think his whole album got cleared because although he used samples each song was demonstrably different to the original, so it was deemed to be a new piece of music.

Don't know the legal ins-and-outs of it, and given how big the album was I'm guessing it got pretty carefully scrutinized but I remember thinking at the time that it sounded a pretty sensible way to do things. Rip off a sample in entirety and you
have to pay for borrowing someone elses work. Mangle a sample and it becomes something new, providing its sufficiently mangled.
the basic law itself is clear " if you steal someones stuff you will be in trouble"
pretty clear stuff really , even the bible got that bit right.

thing is : when does a sample stop being a sample and become an/part of an original?

you get these musical copyright experts, musicologists, and they study the piece
electronically , and musically, working out rhythm , key , eq , waveform, etc etc ..

and most importantly deciding whether the sample itself is playing a key part in the track , and whether there is anything to be gained financially by the artist by using it in this way that should be apportioned to the original sampled artist
etc etc..
his decision is the only thing that will settle these issues in a court of law
if it gets to this point.
and so far these guys have been responsible for having thousands of dance music labels prosecuted, and helping james browns estate, among many others.

so musical law is also unclear, in the sense that if your sample is deemed to be sufficiently covered/disguised and of no real financial value to you, then you're ok.