Should you be able to profit off of sampled music from small artists?

IlluminatiPirate

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Whats everyone's opinion on this? I mean sampling music from older well know artists is one thing but so sample a small one with barely any following and then to go out of your way to contact a distributor to Content ID it and make money out of it is a whole different ball game.

Original

View: https://m.soundcloud.com/pnfa/roots

DΛRKNΣSS

View: https://youtu.be/yZwSSKutQeQ


However it looks like either PNFA or someone else made death threats and even doxxed DΛRKNΣSS

View: https://twitter.com/officialpnfa/status/1511034957631827970?s=19
 

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FalseReality

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Out of good will I'd say you should at least credit their sample.

Where do you think the death threats came from? Did they talk about it publicly and someone took it to their own hands or is it likely personally related to PNFA?
 
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IlluminatiPirate

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If the way you sample doesn't require reverse-engineering the source in a DAW to prove that you sampled, you are playing with fire.

Just look at Daft Punk. They of course credited Barry Manilow in their Superheroes track, but why would they bother crediting the vocals in Revolution 909 when people still debate the source to this day.

If the artist can prove that you took their work without properly compensating/crediting them, then yes they have every right to take action against you.


View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kw9UDDXdfgs
 
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As a small music artist my philosophy of life is that music should be shared as much as possible, even if that means someone steals my work, if someone made millions of dollars thanks to a sample i made, i wouldn't actually care at all, perhaps i'm just absolute crazy and fucked up in the brain, but hey, just take a look at remixes and covers that became more famous than the original songs, it happened before and it is going to happen anyways, is just how our disgusting capitalist system works, it doesn't matter who made it first, but who made it louder, still i support the idea of giving credits, or at least recognizing inspiration in some artist.

Regarding the death threats, that is really fucked up man, but as we say here "a cada cerdo le llega su san martín" hope that disgusting asshole never found himself in the same situation and those threats just stay as that, just threats, to be honest, i couldn't feel more disgusted about the state of mankind nowadays, tearing ourselfs apart because of something we should all enjoy, like music, at the end of the day, boomers were right about internet after all.
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s0ren

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The initial "due to personal problems all content will be removed from bandcamp and youtube in the next few hours. Hope you understand, i'm so sorry." message on bandcap from DARKNESS was really sad, I was on the train and I knew there was a bunch of stuff I wanted to download but didn't have the opportunity to :agcry:

That being said, it is a fine line. I don't think you should be able to steal someone's art and make money off minimal changes. In DARKNESS' case however, you could get basically all the music for free. I don't really see the "pay anything you want" albums on Bandcamp as paying for the music per se, rather you are donating to the artist in addition to downloading the music. As you can get it for free, I'm not really sure if it's being sold. I guess this is just semantics though.

EDIT: Sorry read up on the contentID stuff, yeah that's sketchy and he def shouldn't do that. It's just so hypocritical and gay.
 
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NW_Cryptid

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While I feel that (like most twitter drama) this got a bit blown out of proportion over pointing fingers "he said she said" bullshit. I feel like if you're going to sample and sell it has to be from people who either won't notice (because they're so rich and popular already that it won't even put a dent in their regular listening numbers) or won't hurt them (see the prior reasoning here. It's true for this as well) generally speaking, sampling from someone small is just poor taste at best and criminal at worst. If they file DMCA claims then it should be handled legally in a court of law not morally on a twitter thread lol.

All in all, I'm more of a "steal from the rich give to the poor" than a "steal from the poor because they can't defend themselves from the rich." Smaller creators need all the support they can get.
 
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JihyoParkXX

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I'm a casual consumer and as a casual consumer I can tell you that I usually don't read the credits of whatever song I'm listening to. Even if I did it's mostly to find names that I recognize, like when a K-Pop artist writes their own song. I speak for other casual consumers that even if we don't know and care, you can at least not be a jerk and give them some recognition in the credits.
 
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I personally think it's a bit of a dick move to do this to smaller artists. Richer and more popular ones won't really care about it, I mean, as Cryptid said, it won't make a dent in their listening or whatever. But smaller artists by definition may be struggling to make money with their music. For this reason, it's a bit dickish imo to steal from them. It's not worth death threats and doxxing at all though.
 
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Vaporweeb

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Maybe I'm just an asshole and years of listening to slowed down 80s hits have warped my perspective (and lengthy study of general appropriation in art, which is a divisive subject (thanks, Duchamp!)), but I really don't care. Especially when all of the music was offered on bandcamp for free (as far as I could remember, anyway. I only ever paid the $2 for the whole discography for the convenience of downloading it all at once).

That said, trying to content ID heavily sampled work is a shitty idea and a poor decision on DΛRKNΣSS' part. There's no way it wasn't going to backfire. Shame it had to end like this.

Anyway, I'm glad it got it all under the wire when I could (and thankfully you can still download deleted albums from your bandcamp collection). For preservation's sake, here's everything as of at least march 11th of this year:


I might've omitted some by mistake but otherwise I think I pretty thoroughly cross referenced the disco. Let me know.
 
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Jessica3cho雪血⊜青意

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Whoever really sent those threats, whether it was PNFA, is fucked and I hope they enjoy a visit from corrupt local authorities and their melee weapons.

Personally, if ever somehow, I was a big name or some shit, I'd say it would be based on an examination of use cases and extent of the usage. Like, if they sample 80% of a song of mine, but its only on 1 of their 50 tracks, I couldn't really give less of a fuck. If they sample my music in 50 of their 60 tracks, but its only like a 5-10% sample, I don't see an issue with it. I mean most music written probably samples 5% of some song you've never heard anyways.

Besides, punching down looks pathetic unless they're hacking away at your kneecaps.
 
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inuyashiware

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Whats everyone's opinion on this? I mean sampling music from older well know artists is one thing but so sample a small one with barely any following and then to go out of your way to contact a distributor to Content ID it and make money out of it is a whole different ball game.

Original

View: https://m.soundcloud.com/pnfa/roots

DΛRKNΣSS

View: https://youtu.be/yZwSSKutQeQ


However it looks like either PNFA or someone else made death threats and even doxxed DΛRKNΣSS

View: https://twitter.com/officialpnfa/status/1511034957631827970?s=19

I think sampling is a fine addition to music. I do think credit is due where credit is due. And Depending on the Scale of what Artists you are ,you should pay royalties. My Favourite example is PlayboiCarti's Location. Sampling Endomorph by Allan Holdsworth. There's nothing like that Angelic Ethereal and soothing loop. Made me Discover the Works of Holdsworth and I love it.
 
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