Copyright of audio taken from a news broadcast

[Pasha]

Is it legit to use some phrases of a news speaker recorded on your DVD recorder like
BBC, CNN into a song of yours? What if this coming from youtube?

I'd like to experiment with spoken things in a song but I'm not sure if it's ok or not to do so.

- Best
- Pasha

[gallinainfuga]

I know that in Italy you have the right to reproduce any piece of news you want (the right to report), no matter if it's wirtten or broadcasted on tv or radio, as long as you clearly state which are your sources.
I guess its the same in europe.
cheers

chickenrun

[Ajbbklyn]

Paul Hardcastle used audio of ABC newsman Frank Reynolds and announcer Peter Thomas, Sr. in his song "19". His record company was obliged to make a cash settlement with the network and with Mr. Thomas in lieu of being sued.

[Emissary]

i wonder what the deal with the BBC news is, i take shit off there all the time. They can sue me if they want, for all my tens of £s

[Pasha]

i wonder what the deal with the BBC news is, i take shit off there all the time. They can sue me if they want, for all my tens of £s

Emissary, do you use it plain or you pass it through some filter so that becomes and artifact?

[wildknees]

all that stuff sounds so great.
how can you NOT sample that stuff and make other things out of it?

forge ahead.

[wildknees]

check this action:

http://www.ripremix.com/getdownloads/

[Emissary]

i wonder what the deal with the BBC news is, i take shit off there all the time. They can sue me if they want, for all my tens of £s

Emissary, do you use it plain or you pass it through some filter so that becomes and artifact?

Depends, i often just scan the radio and tv and take little tid bits of sound and make something new, might even be half a second of a debussy track or a britney spears "song" . Filter it, distort it, reverb it, nobody is ever going to check up on that shit. But some other tracks i took quite long news broadcasts from the BBC news during the Gulf war 2 and made some narrative tracks. I think worrying about copyright is pointless and creative suicide . If you ever get to the point where your actually in the top 40 then fair enough, but for the rest of us, as long as your not ripping an entire phrase or section from another song, i don think anyone is ever going to bother checking up on you.

[justin]

i remember listening to autechre on BBC sessions (forget the name now...) and they used BBC news samples to make up a bit of narrative - which was kinda funny - but it was frowned upon by the censorship politburo. the set was cut short 5mins later...

its always going to be a bit of a gamble, but ultimately it depends where you are going to use this type of material.

j

[Johnisfaster]

My advice is to not get your legal advice on copyright infringement from a public forum.

[leedsquietman]

Mansun had to pay BSkyB/News International thousands of pounds to use a sample of 'This Is Sky News' for their track 'Television' on the album 'Six'. They cleared it in advance and saved themselves quite a bit of legal hassle and fees by doing so.

[kramerica]

My advice is to not get your legal advice on copyright infringement from a public forum.

+1.

I do IP law here in the U.S. and I can tell you that the authority to create copyright law is vested in Congress and that authority is born directly from the U.S. Constitution (Art. I, Sec. ; not common law. Point being, copyright law varies from country to country. If you're in Britain, you need to contact a British IP lawyer. On top of that, if you're considering taking copyrighted material that originates from outside your home nation, then you (and your lawyer) will have to consider international treaties and conventions (e.g. Berne, TRIPS, etc.).

That being said, you should probably just do what you want to do unless you're expecting this possible infringing work to really make waves. The BBC isn't going to go after some local DJ playing small clubs and not selling records. If you're on a label or have other deals with distributors, licensees, etc., then be careful b/c there's likely a clause that states that you warrant that all of your work is original, non-infringing, or licensed and any lawsuit or losses brought upon them for using your work will be indemnified by you.

[adventurepants_]

I thought the idea was that you clear anything you want to release as your own work, or to just ignore copyright if youre just using the samples live.


The Verve probably thought "Bittersweet symphony" wasnt going to sell either, so wasnt worth clearing, but they lost %100 of the royalties of that.