COPYCENSE

"A federal appeals court has ruled that rap artists should pay for every musical sample included in their work — even minor, unrecognizable snippets of music.

"Lower courts had ruled that artists must pay when they sample other artists’ work. But it has been legal to use musical snippets — a note here, a chord there — as long as they weren’t identifiable.

"The decision Tuesday by a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati gets rid of that distinction. The court said federal laws aimed at stopping piracy of recordings apply to digital sampling, and it ordered the case back to a lower court for rehearing."

Associated Press. Court: Musicians Must Pay for Any Size Sampling. WashingtonPost.com. Sept. 9, 2004.

See also:
Barry A. Jeckell. Court To Hip-Hop Nation: No Free Samples. Billboard.com. Sept. 8, 2004.

United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Bridgeport Music, et al. v. Dimension Films, et al.

(Editor�s Note: The Post allows free access to their stories on the Web for 14 days before sending the stories to the paper�s fee-based Archives.)