November 21, 2008

Justice admit to stealing samples

Dirty dance-meisters Justice have admitted that they don't clear all their samples. While not clearing samples is hardly unusual, admitting it certainly is, particularly when the source of the samples includes big names like Queen, 50 Cent and Slipknot. "They are such short samples no one can recognise them. The ones from Slipknot, for example, are just tiny bits of the voice," explain the French funksters in an MTV interview. Listening to Genesis, it's hard to spot any sign of Freddie, Curtis or even #8, so is Justice's sampling fair use, or should they really be making their own sounds? (Source: Computer Music)

1 comment:

Josh said...

At this point it seems like the samples are becoming more like timbres than anything else... just another musical tool. I have no legal basis for my argument, but I think that creative use of sampling, taking little bits of sounds and integrating them so that the original can't be recognized, seems like fair use to me.