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November 27, 2006
People News. Beware of the Sample Troll
People News. Beware of the Sample Troll: Sample Trolls are companies that hold portfolios of old rights (sometimes accumulated in dubious fashion) and use lawsuits to extort money from successful music artists for routine sampling, no matter how minimal or unnoticeable. Recently, one of the most notorious sample trolls, Bridgeport Music, sued Jay-Z for copyright infringement for his 2003 song Justify My Thug. Tim Wu has an interesting piece in Slate about the sample troll and their impact on hip hop music.
As reported by Slate: "If the benefits are abstract, the costs imposed are obvious. Sample trolls have already changed the face of hip-hop. Early rap, like Public Enemy, combined and mixed thousands of sounds in a single album. That makes sense musically, but it doesn't make sense legally. Thousands or even hundreds of samples, under the Bridgeport theory, mean thousands of copyright clearances and licenses. Today, Public Enemy's breakout album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, would cost millions to produce or, more likely, would never have been made at all."
Listen to Jay-Z Versus the Sample Troll [Here]
Posted by james at November 27, 2006 08:37 PM