I was at a bar and had a beer with a guy who was going to school for copyright law and him and I got to talking about music copyright.
He said there was some case (DJ Girl Talk or something?) that basically said “if the work is ‘transformative’ then it’s fine”
Idk. The way I look at it is unless you’ve got tons of money (see: Marvin Gaye Estate suing Robin Thicke, Tom Petty’s people suing Sam Smith [and settling out of court], Albert Hammond’s people suing Radiohead for Air that I Breathe vs Creep [which Albert Hammond himself said was bullshit and wished they hadn’t done that]), they aren’t going to go after you and the worst that could happen is they say “Hey take down that song.”
So yeah. The real problem right now is people posting stuff on youtube when they’re trying to educate…The state of musical education on youtube right now is absolutely bizarre because you can’t share a 10 second clip of a Led Zeppelin song without getting your video taken down and getting strikes against your account. Rick Beato said he uttered the words “Ozzy Osborne” in his video and got it taken down for showing five seconds of a Randy Rhodes solo that was live. When he took out those words and that solo it was fine.
Shit’s fucked. I could rant for a long, long time about the state of our copyright laws (In the US, I guess?) and how it’s just absolutely insane. How utterly mental ASCAP and BMI and UMG are and how they’ll stop at nothing to guarantee people pay their fees.
A guy at my local music shop told me that when a restaurant would play Rush Limbaugh over its speakers (don’t ask me why), they were required to have a license because Rush Limbaugh played music in between his talk radio.
He said people like him aren’t even allowed to have a little speaker with his own music playing while he’s working.
I know a woman who owns a little local venue and they couldn’t afford the licensing fees so they told every single band that played there (four bands/night, six nights/week, for ten years) to NEVER play covers or they’d be completely fucked. She said she’s had agents from ASCAP and BMI call her on her personal cell phone trying to extort her into paying the fees. She says they send these agents out to venues totally randomly to see if there are any covers being played, and if so they get slapped with a heavy fine. She co-owned this place with a gentleman and I saw him get visibly pissed and storm out of the room saying “I TOLD THEM NO FUCKING COVERS” the instant a band started a cover.
So fuck it. Sample to your heart’s content. Fuck 'em.