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Mike Freze
New member
If you are going to "steal" small segments of a beat, bass pattern, guitar lick, rhythm guitar part, etc. off a CD or older album you own to include as a track (or segment) of a track in your recording project, where is it fair game without violating copyright law?
Can you use a one-measure copy from any source you choose without violating the copyright law? I don't mean an obvious musical "hook" that is a recognizeable signature to a past hit. Perhaps something that one could not "place his finger on" as a part of a well-known song.
Then again, ANY small segment of a previously recorded riff you incorporate could bring out a thousand people saying, "Hey, that sounds like a bass pattern off of so-and-so." So could your own created sample or loop, for that matter! It might just be a pattern used for dozens of past hits. If that's so, are you safe to use it if it's not identifiable with one obvious hit? There must be a "fair usage" thing involved (like small quotes that authors use that's under a paragraph long where permission is not required, only a reference to where you got that source).
Do you only have to change the beat a bit, change a note or two, add a different effect to make it unique enough to claim it as your own for your own recording project? Or is it more than that?
I guess any loops you buy on CD could make hundreds of people say, "Hey, that was my riff on my copyrighted song" as well (even if the company claims they are "royalty free").
Mike Freze
Can you use a one-measure copy from any source you choose without violating the copyright law? I don't mean an obvious musical "hook" that is a recognizeable signature to a past hit. Perhaps something that one could not "place his finger on" as a part of a well-known song.
Then again, ANY small segment of a previously recorded riff you incorporate could bring out a thousand people saying, "Hey, that sounds like a bass pattern off of so-and-so." So could your own created sample or loop, for that matter! It might just be a pattern used for dozens of past hits. If that's so, are you safe to use it if it's not identifiable with one obvious hit? There must be a "fair usage" thing involved (like small quotes that authors use that's under a paragraph long where permission is not required, only a reference to where you got that source).
Do you only have to change the beat a bit, change a note or two, add a different effect to make it unique enough to claim it as your own for your own recording project? Or is it more than that?
I guess any loops you buy on CD could make hundreds of people say, "Hey, that was my riff on my copyrighted song" as well (even if the company claims they are "royalty free").
Mike Freze
It's a weird bend of the First Amendment if you ask me. But then again, I'm no law professor.
