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.
Exactly, and there is a movement within legal circles trying to make this a more reasonable system. Battling against the RIAA etc and the US`s increasingly unreasonable legal precident isn`t easy, but there have been some good example cases in europe that are a little encouraging.

If you are blatant then you are doomed, but I think creative use of material is possible without being firect theft.

Otherwise where will this all ultimately lead?
Idea theft is a dangerouse road to head down.
Will the Jimi Hendrix estate claim copyright on some of the sounds that hendrix pioneered that became effects?
Will the inventor of the piano claim all rights to the sound of the piano?



And before you pedantic gimps jump on that comment, yes I know that the inventor of the piano can`t even be traced, isn`t alive, and a piano isn`t a "recorded" piece of music.