Is it possible to have copyright on a single drum hit?

I have been wondering if it it possible to OWN og have copryright on a single drum hit/shot? Like a seperate snare, kick drums, hihat etc.

The Short Version / Conslusion
Is it possible to own the rights to a single 300 ms drum hit/shot?? Or is legal to share single drum shots with everyone?


The looong version
If it WERE possible, why does - let us say Roland- ot own all samples from their drum machines. These samples are used by everyone and alomst noone actually own any of the rare machines they are sampled from.

...I have bought almost every single sample CD in the "Vegeance Essential"-series.
Like 50% of the KICK drum samples on these CDs are extracted from other music (you can hear hats on top of the kicks, filtered out notes etc). And as there are 1700+ single shots on Vengeance Essential House Vol. 1, I doubt that they are paying royalties for every single one.

ya know, when marley marl "accidently" sampled a snare when attempting to sample a vocal part off a record.. he kinda started the drum sampling

wasn't even an issue then ... sampling as a whole wasn't even an issue until biz markee got sued for an un cleared sample and lost

but i doubt someone would waste time suing over a drum hit or two

technically the owner of a copyrighted work owns exclusive rights to any derivitive works made from the audio recording so technically sure

but prove where a kick came from..


As far as 808's I would think roland should get a licensing fee for use of the tr-808 name associated with the kits but really all "808" kits are not created equal
just end up getting called 808's

kinda like everybody calls tissue paper "kleenex"

So when I buy a commercial sample CD full of drum hits, I COULD legally share them with friends who in turn legally could them i n THEIR music as well without buying the sample CDs...?

phazer1980 wrote:So when I buy a commercial sample CD full of drum hits, I COULD legally share them with friends who in turn legally could them i n THEIR music as well without buying the sample CDs...?

when you buy a sample set you get a "license" granted to you that allows you
use the purchased sounds as part of a derivitive" work, in other words a beat, song etc where they are part of another recording. the licenses prohibit you from selling or distributing the sounds as is in an unaltered state.


so technically your not supposed to give to ya friends because the license is granted to you, the buyer, but if you are collaborating with the friends or are make music toegether where you will get some kind of credit on the end tracks it is ok.



It's kinda like the non exclusive license you grant to lease beat buyers,

you let them record a song on ya beat and sell the song but they can't just resell the instrumental to other beat buyers , it has to be part of a derivitive work.. a new recording with altered/added parts

BGBEATS wrote:so technically your not supposed to give to ya friends because the license is granted to you, the buyer

Just like ur technically not supposed to lent out cd's and dvd's to ur friends.

Menco wrote:

BGBEATS wrote:so technically your not supposed to give to ya friends because the license is granted to you, the buyer

Just like ur technically not supposed to lent out cd's and dvd's to ur friends.

not at all the same thing as cd's and dvd's really because a license that you get with a sample set purchase is giving YOU non exclusive rights to use the drum hits or loops in a derivitive work. anybody is allowed to have the sounds for just personal listening, it is this permission to use in your beats that you are paying for( the license) and with the soundsets it is like you are prepaying the sample clearance fee for the soundset to be used in your recordings

but......

when you buy a cd of songs or download an itunes song/album you are purchasing the physical product the cd, and/or the songs for personal listening only, if you intend on including the songs on a compilation album like a dj mix cd you need to obtain mechanical licenses from each song's publisher and they HAVE to grant license to you as long as the songs are a commercial release. their is a statutory royalty rate per song that is 9.10 cents for songs up to 5 minutes that you prepay for how many cd's are getting pressed up or how many downloads you expect to sell..

the harry fox agency grants mechanical licenses for many many songs though you can contavt the publisher/copyright controllers direct if nort represented by harry fox agency

sample clearance is different and you can be denied by the copyright controllers.



but again for your purpose and the soundsets look at it like your prepaying a one time feefor sample clearance/royalties
to use the samples in ya songs/beats like a 50 dollar sample cd from big fish, the 50 is like a one time sample clearance royalty





when people download sample sets like that from torrents etc they are getting the sounds but not being granted license to use em.. that license/permission can only be granted by the copyright holder (big fish.. modern beats..etc)

remember it is very similiar to the non exclusive license you are giving buyers of your beats like on mybeatshop or rocbattle etc

so like if ya get beat jacked and ya like that dude didn't pay for my beat he stole it off soundclick and now it is on his myspace in a song.


it is the same if you download torrents of soundsets and use them without payment... like sound jacking compared to a rapper beat jackin ya

or if a rapper bought a non eclusive beat from you and recorded his song but then gave your beat to all his friends and they recorded separate songs with it too without paying you the fee for it





hope that helps ya understand it a little better

What I meant is that when u purchase a sample pack or cd, only the purchaser is allowed to use the product. But everyone is lending out their cd's and dvd's. Like somebody comes knocking on ur door asking u if you still own this cd or dvd or that ur breaking the law by lending it out.
Same with the sample packs, technically ur not allowed to give them out to ur friends but probably everybody does because no one can give a what really, and no one will come checking on u trying to sew you.

I highly doubt it dude.
No one can prove that their sample is exactly yours, might sound pretty damn close and might look similar.

Hi again
The original question was if someone can own a SINGLE drumhit, like a kick/snare/hat/etc. from an accustic drum kit or some synth or drum machine.

phazer1980 wrote:Hi again
The original question was if someone can own a SINGLE drumhit, like a kick/snare/hat/etc. from an accustic drum kit or some synth or drum machine.

Oh dude, sorry I took a left turn on that one.

basically if you are sampling the sound from the machine or someone else sampled it from the drum machine, whether a person or company and gave to you you are good to go

technically you would be infringing on a person's copyright only if you sampled the drums from their actual copyrighted song or beat.

now that is being ultra technical but a copyright owner owns exclusive rights to any derivitive works of their registered audio recording.

like take two people make two songs using the same tr-808 machine

those two eparate recordings themselves would be propery of the copyright owner
so they would own the actual hits that are on their own recording that includes whatever effects they applied, tuning etc but they do not own exclusive rights to all the 808 tones coming from the machine, they only own their own recoring of it

ya get it

So can I distribute sample packs that contain drum hits from commercial sample CDs?
Will anyone listen to a drum in my pack and say it is theirs? If the sample contains exactly the sample data and the same lenght, then the sample CDs seller might have a case. So when I distribute samples it might be a good idea to resample it so it is bitwise different from any original.

phazer1980 wrote:So can I distribute sample packs that contain drum hits from commercial sample CDs?
Will anyone listen to a drum in my pack and say it is theirs? If the sample contains exactly the sample data and the same lenght, then the sample CDs seller might have a case. So when I distribute samples it might be a good idea to resample it so it is bitwise different from any original.

If a sound can be proven to be unique in a court of law then then it's mechanical copyright can be defended.

Lets forget about the law and consider the moral implications. This is of coarse a mine field and can be debated for any length of time without any real conclusions ever being reached. Everyone has there own take on what is right and wrong.

I am a small developer of sample products. My studio is filled with vintage analog and digital instruments, effects, tape machines, a drum kit, percussion, mics... etc, etc... I spend 6 days a week developing sample content for my products and content for various software companies. Each product or project has a budget for things like equipment hire, specific gear purchases, vinyl (Dub Plate) pressing for authentic vinyl hits, gear maintenance etc...

Question is would it be fair to just copy my work and sell it as your own. My answer is reasonably obvious... I would imagine.


Regards
Hugo