tricky royalties question, please help ya boy!!!!!

[classic]

ROYALTIES question, please help ya boy!!!!!

Sup yall

I have kinda of a complicated question about royalties and sampling rights.

As most of you already know im a classical pianist. Well I got board one day and played the second movement from Mozart’s Turkish randanta and added my own flavor to it.

well I went to the studio last night and this R&B singer was extremely interested. Im talking about MAJOR bucks here.

The thing is this, if I sold this beat would I have to pay any royalties?? I played all the instruments and nothing is sampled. I think that when people sample old classical music(like Mozart or chopin) they don’t have to pay the composer cause they have been dead for some years. The only thing they have to pay up on is the person who made the actual recording (in the studio). Since I played everything, would I have to pay, even though the riff is from mozart??

Just wondering??
Please help

Class…

 

[Ominous]

I'm not an expert on this so I am speaking way out line here...but I would say that stuff is hella protected so you would have to give them a cut somewhere...if they even let you use it.

I say....since you put your own twist on it....can't you twist it up enough to be unique but still sound good?

That way you wouldn't have to worry about copyright coming back to bite you?

 

[Guevara]

THiS iS SoME REDiCULoUS SHiT CLASS, BUT iM ASSUMiNG YoURE GoNNA HAVE To PAY SoMEBoDY THiS SHit iS PRoTECTED iN SoME FoRM.iT iS HoT ENoUGH To PURSUE.

 

[Ash Holmz]

yo ... u dont gotta pay shit ... 70 years after owner of copywright is dead .. most traditional classical music is up for grabs

 

[classic]

thanks for the complement gueveura

hmm so some think i do have to pay and some say i dont.

Ommnious i acutaly i think that the beat is pretty much oringal. THe intro is what the real movemt sounds like and everything else was my ideas. I think if i did sell it i would have to take the intro out since i played it directly off my sheet music. But from what holmz sait maybe i wouldent

Anyone else, this is some tricky shit man and i need to know soon?!?!

class...

 

[bigdmakintrax]

First thing there are some public domain pieces that you can consider....there are a lot of classics<<---no pun....LOL....out there that you can use as you wish....the big deal with sampling classics though is....say for instance the NY Philharmonic or the Boston Pops performed it and you sampled it....even though it is a public domain composition.....you would owe the performance rights side to the POPS or Philharmonic.......Now you chose a piece that you Played....this is called an interpolation.....I have talked about these issues on illmuzik....ever since I have been on .....(even b4 God graced the place with his wisdom) anyhow.......you had better find out from someone like Harry Fox
http://www.harryfox.com/index.jsp as far as licensing and what is royalty free....sometimes you can even come up with something that you might think is original by accident and someone already has done that riff and they might show up when you start collecting big checks......a small story that Angela Winbush had to offer up last month at the Conference I attended......she said there was a 3 note progression in one of her songs that she hired a musician to come in and play......and she was in the studio when that musician recorded the song........well what happened is that some ol school Jazz cat....(I can't recall his name).......brought a lawsuit against her while she was out on tour.......now what happened next is crazy......it costs like 6million in fees to either fight a copyright lawsuit and possibly win on a major scale not including time overhead....This was from her recollection.....guess what she did instead of having to go thru all of that and prove that this small piece of work was not his.......She chose to pay this cat off to get him out of her hair.....main thing about this story is.........you have to be very careful when creating and especially if you are creating things based upon something that already exists if you want to go to a high level with it.....
the other thing that came out of that conference was sampling is great....but it can get you into a lot of legal trouble.....same with interpolating....its best to be 100% original in composition and do your research.....

 

[Copenhagen]

I'm no expert either, but to my knowledge, a person's copyright lasts 70 years till after their death. Thereafter, anybody can play/record their work as they see fit, it's totally free. Now, if you sampled someone's recording of it (which isn't 70-years-old from the author of that recording's death), then you have to pay them for their performance, but not for the composition itself.
Therefore, if you played it yourself, and even added your own twist, then you should have no problem, unless someone already recorded a composition of it with the same twist as yours.

Also, I found this:
Sec.302:"Copyright in a work created on or after January 1, 1978, subsists from its creation and, except as provided by the following subsections, endures for a term consisting of the life of the author and 70 years after the author's death."
Sec.303:"Copyright in a work created before January 1, 1978, but not theretofore in the public domain or copyrighted, subsists from January 1, 1978, and endures for the term provided by section 302. In no case, however, shall the term of copyright in such a work expire before December 31, 2002; and, if the work is published on or before December 31, 2002, the term of copyright shall not expire before December 31, 2047."

You can read more here:
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/ch3.html

 

[Ash Holmz]

yo ... u dont gotta pay shit ... 70 years after owner of copywright is dead .. most traditional classical music is up for grabs

yo u dont gotta pay shit ... u replayed a melody hundreds of years old.. u diidnt sample the london orchestras 2001 rendition or anything so ur defintely straight dont even worry about it..

 

[tricky spinz]

wheres God? he knows all the industry stuff and probably shit like this. send him a pm or and email or something. he'll tell you whats up i would imagine.

 

[bigdmakintrax]

God is great but do what I always say...use your God given senses of reading and comprehending and research for yourself...its good to hear it from folks but on the real God isn't a lawyer and it's worth it to educate yourself, in this business that's why he includes a disclaimer in most of his advice....because a lot of times just listening to someones interpretation of the law doesn't translate into what might be fact...you might end up needing a lawyer....LOL

 

[classic]

wheres God? he knows all the industry stuff and probably shit like this. send him a pm or and email or something. he'll tell you whats up i would imagine.

Good lookin tricky, Im PM'd G about it and im awating a response.

Big D u got some good points also. I have been doing reseach but i havent found a definative answer yet.

class...

 

[Chedda]

class dude that beat is hot as fuck, seriously on point, make sure you get a good price for that bitch.

 

[eXampuL_oNe]

Yeah, im with holmz... I would think you'd be aight, and plus if the singer is only local u shouldn't have to worry about it, because it won't be on a big distribution, right? Or is this someone well known? Usually if your movin under like 100,000 units you shouldn't have to worry about that stuff... And i don't believe that you would get sued either, i think he would, for using it... But yo man, i'm feelin this beat and if you sell it (u should, get that money) i definitly want to hear the finished product...

 

[J Cro]

the written music is in the public domain therefore for you to record it you dont have to pay anybody. now if you sampled johnny b quick fingers rendition of that same song. then you have to pay him royalties.

 

[Loose Cannon]

Class,

Did you really play that? Thats fuckin amazin. I aint ridin dick either. Even if you had to quantize. Them pianos at the begginninn and all that otheer shit.

Thats ONE of the nicest beats i heard from you before.

 

[classic]

Class,
Did you really play that? Thats fuckin amazin. I aint ridin dick either. Even if you had to quantize. Them pianos at the begginninn and all that otheer shit.
Thats ONE of the nicest beats i heard from you before.

Yea man thats all me, I dident use quantize either, it took a couple of trys to get the riff right without the quantize.
Thanks for the props .


class...

 

[classic]

Fyi

Man the shit fell threw ( i knew it would) THe R&B singer was bull shittin.

Thanks for all the help anyway


class....

 

[Copenhagen]

Too bad. Better luck next time. I am sure somebody else will buy that beat.