The Beat Generation
May 31, 2024 1:00 PM Subscribe
US District Judge permits copyright suit to continue in the case that alleges the beat that largely defines the Raggaeton genre has been used by 100s in infringement of copyright.
I don't entirely understand this case, but I can imagine Amen Break is watching quietly from a dark corner
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:43 PM on May 31 [13 favorites]
posted by AzraelBrown at 1:43 PM on May 31 [13 favorites]
I haven't read the motion or listened to much of the music in question yet, but apparently it's the tresillo (the "three-side" of Bo Diddley, the whole rhythm being the son clave) with some extra stuff. The tresillo came to the West via the Afro-Cuban slave trade, which means some time between 500 and 200 years ago.
I hadn't heard of this case and I'm interested to see what points are in contention, thanks for the post!
posted by rhizome at 1:45 PM on May 31 [3 favorites]
I hadn't heard of this case and I'm interested to see what points are in contention, thanks for the post!
posted by rhizome at 1:45 PM on May 31 [3 favorites]
AzraelBrown: I don't entirely understand this case, but I can imagine Amen Break is watching quietly from a dark corner
The Bookshelf Riddim takes its place in line right behind.
posted by dr_dank at 1:55 PM on May 31 [1 favorite]
The Bookshelf Riddim takes its place in line right behind.
posted by dr_dank at 1:55 PM on May 31 [1 favorite]
It's a pretty damning indictment of the US copyright system that they get can two years into a case on the clearly spurious claim of having invented the clave. I could kind of understand if producers were actually sampling the recording in question, but that's not even what is being alleged.
posted by ssg at 1:57 PM on May 31 [18 favorites]
posted by ssg at 1:57 PM on May 31 [18 favorites]
So much of copyright law is just determined by vibes (or rather, by who has a financial interest in fencing off the intellectual commons, and then justified by vibes). It's the most incurious minds of our generation asking and then definitively answering questions like "what is art? what is originality? who can truly claim to have created a work?"
posted by jy4m at 2:19 PM on May 31 [12 favorites]
posted by jy4m at 2:19 PM on May 31 [12 favorites]
Copyright law and intellectual property rights are disgusting jokes. Symptoms of a sick society. All they do is hold humanity back for the flimsiest of lies about protection from capitalists.
posted by GoblinHoney at 4:06 PM on May 31 [5 favorites]
posted by GoblinHoney at 4:06 PM on May 31 [5 favorites]
Surely the authors who both put food on the table with their writing but also post on MeFi are currently lining up to aggressively not agree with you.
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 6:49 PM on May 31 [2 favorites]
posted by Back At It Again At Krispy Kreme at 6:49 PM on May 31 [2 favorites]
It’s really similar to ayoub rhythm from Middle Eastern music. I learned and later taught this like a million years ago. So … not that original of a beat. Common African roots I’d guess.
ONE e and A TWO e AND a
2/4 time with sixteenth notes. The magic is sliding the first snare or high drum hit forward 1/16 . So instead of the plodding
BOOM rest CRASH rest BOOM rest CRASH rest
(Say it fast)
You get
BOOM rest rest CRASH BOOM rest CRASH rest
And even though the bass is steady it has a lopsided, lurching feel. Genius but … copyrightable? Naaah.
posted by caviar2d2 at 7:51 PM on May 31
ONE e and A TWO e AND a
2/4 time with sixteenth notes. The magic is sliding the first snare or high drum hit forward 1/16 . So instead of the plodding
BOOM rest CRASH rest BOOM rest CRASH rest
(Say it fast)
You get
BOOM rest rest CRASH BOOM rest CRASH rest
And even though the bass is steady it has a lopsided, lurching feel. Genius but … copyrightable? Naaah.
posted by caviar2d2 at 7:51 PM on May 31
Copyright law and intellectual property rights are disgusting jokes. Symptoms of a sick society. All they do is hold humanity back for the flimsiest of lies about protection from capitalists.
I strongly disagree with this sentiment, like pretty much think it is entirely bogus, while also finding this lawsuit spurious and being very disappointed in the Blurred Lines verdict. There is definitely a wholly ludicrous angle to recent copyright lawsuits like these two that only serves to make people hate copyright, which hate is way more of a "vibes" thing than actual copyright. People hear "copyright" and they think Disney, Marvel, etc. But it is also a million individuals who eke out a minor living from streaming and broadcast / internet royalties, maybe some radio play. Who license their webcomic characters, who sell prints of their art.
Anyway, fuck this lawsuit, all it is going to do is make things worse for everyone.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:55 PM on May 31 [6 favorites]
I strongly disagree with this sentiment, like pretty much think it is entirely bogus, while also finding this lawsuit spurious and being very disappointed in the Blurred Lines verdict. There is definitely a wholly ludicrous angle to recent copyright lawsuits like these two that only serves to make people hate copyright, which hate is way more of a "vibes" thing than actual copyright. People hear "copyright" and they think Disney, Marvel, etc. But it is also a million individuals who eke out a minor living from streaming and broadcast / internet royalties, maybe some radio play. Who license their webcomic characters, who sell prints of their art.
Anyway, fuck this lawsuit, all it is going to do is make things worse for everyone.
posted by grumpybear69 at 7:55 PM on May 31 [6 favorites]
Anything I play, I own.
Don't play drums though, so YMMV. I guess I could sample stuff, and don't know how digital drum tracks are protected and such. Collaborate and listen...
That being said, if a given track isn't being totally lifted, this seems totally messed up.
posted by Windopaene at 8:15 PM on May 31
Don't play drums though, so YMMV. I guess I could sample stuff, and don't know how digital drum tracks are protected and such. Collaborate and listen...
That being said, if a given track isn't being totally lifted, this seems totally messed up.
posted by Windopaene at 8:15 PM on May 31
EDIT: not to abuse
I have been playing mostly covers of late. Other people write better songs than I do. Until I get paid for performing, (seems unlikely), probably don't need to worry about that though.
Play
Sing, Mefittes
It's what we are about
posted by Windopaene at 8:22 PM on May 31 [2 favorites]
I have been playing mostly covers of late. Other people write better songs than I do. Until I get paid for performing, (seems unlikely), probably don't need to worry about that though.
Play
Sing, Mefittes
It's what we are about
posted by Windopaene at 8:22 PM on May 31 [2 favorites]
Taylor Swift got a writing credit on Olivia Rodrigo's "Deja Vu" because the chorus has a double-time rhythm in the vocals, and the last line is shouted with reverb, which is akin to Swift's "Cruel Summer". There was no lawsuit, but apparently Rodrigo's lawyers decided to do this before any legal stuff went down. Something is going very wrong in American copyright.
posted by sixohsix at 2:55 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
posted by sixohsix at 2:55 AM on June 1 [3 favorites]
I always appreciate Adam Neely’s informed and accessible takes on music copyright cases - for instance, this one about the Katy Perry Dark Horse case. He does a good job of explaining exactly how bullshit this type of case is, and the type of harm it can do to all musicians.
posted by ourobouros at 3:27 AM on June 1 [5 favorites]
posted by ourobouros at 3:27 AM on June 1 [5 favorites]
Poptimism is reflexively siding with the biggest, most successful stars and their hilariously deep pocketed record labels against the threat that they might have to pay a small fraction of their earnings to somebody else if a court finds they violated the law and profited from it.
posted by sinfony at 5:55 AM on June 1
posted by sinfony at 5:55 AM on June 1
>But it is also a million individuals who eke out a minor living from streaming and broadcast / internet royalties, maybe some radio play
This is never something to celebrate, it's a very tenuous temporary facile relief at best. These people, shouldn't be having to resort to this to be able to choose to make the art they want and get to make enough ransom to survive. The success of capitalism's goal of ensuring majority suffering and poverty doesn't mean you need to champion the little tricks people have found to avoid getting stomped on by the worst parts of the boot. There are also many many more artists and creatives who have no rights to their work-- literally no human does and there's always the danger they never will never leave the desecrated notion of ownership a company is legally entertained by a broken government.
If these laws and systems were around 10,000 years ago... well I suppose the environment would be in a much nicer shape with much higher biodiversity - because there wouldn't be any of us and our civilization around. Regardless of the logistical realities of the extreme minority of artists living off their artwork in a way directly tied to the laws allowing the concept of owning ideas, they still have no moral ownership of any ideas. Nobody has a thought in a vacuum and even communicating a single thought in any way requires more than one person, and they will all be thoughts tied to other thoughts, ideas, experiences, feelings, everything, imparted to you by other people and their creations.
I could not write this sentence without the assistance of billions of humans, the other apes we assimilated, and the ones who were teaching eachother stuff before that. It's unknowable how much we have already lost, this chain of knowledge is tenuous and breakable and has been shattered countless times and insofar as any human being has obligations to another, atop those that need not be said, we are obligated to share any and all knowledge that would enrich the life of another. Our alienated right to anything good need not be cherished or protected inservice of the mass-extinction's economic system, even as hostages of it.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:12 PM on June 1 [2 favorites]
This is never something to celebrate, it's a very tenuous temporary facile relief at best. These people, shouldn't be having to resort to this to be able to choose to make the art they want and get to make enough ransom to survive. The success of capitalism's goal of ensuring majority suffering and poverty doesn't mean you need to champion the little tricks people have found to avoid getting stomped on by the worst parts of the boot. There are also many many more artists and creatives who have no rights to their work-- literally no human does and there's always the danger they never will never leave the desecrated notion of ownership a company is legally entertained by a broken government.
If these laws and systems were around 10,000 years ago... well I suppose the environment would be in a much nicer shape with much higher biodiversity - because there wouldn't be any of us and our civilization around. Regardless of the logistical realities of the extreme minority of artists living off their artwork in a way directly tied to the laws allowing the concept of owning ideas, they still have no moral ownership of any ideas. Nobody has a thought in a vacuum and even communicating a single thought in any way requires more than one person, and they will all be thoughts tied to other thoughts, ideas, experiences, feelings, everything, imparted to you by other people and their creations.
I could not write this sentence without the assistance of billions of humans, the other apes we assimilated, and the ones who were teaching eachother stuff before that. It's unknowable how much we have already lost, this chain of knowledge is tenuous and breakable and has been shattered countless times and insofar as any human being has obligations to another, atop those that need not be said, we are obligated to share any and all knowledge that would enrich the life of another. Our alienated right to anything good need not be cherished or protected inservice of the mass-extinction's economic system, even as hostages of it.
posted by GoblinHoney at 10:12 PM on June 1 [2 favorites]
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posted by echo target at 1:11 PM on May 31 [4 favorites]