Yo what's up guys it's yo boy Harmy and in between writing another guide ever since the other two went up on Getting Started here and on free VSTs here, I figured why not make a very to-the-point guide to link to when people ask that question again and again.
The following is not written by a lawyer. For specific legal help, try r/legaladvice or contact your local civil lawyer.
PLEASE READ THE BOLD TEXT FOR TL:DRs AND OTHER IMPORTANT NOTES
CHAPTER A: WHAT IS COPYRIGHT?
Copyright protects artists of any medium, granting any elligible piece of art exclusive rights. This allows artists to be the force (or assigning force) behind creating more of that product, selling that product, to create more works based off of the product, to perform or display that product and to distribute that product through other platforms where others can enjoy that art.
That's definitely important as it protects unique works from being rehashed by every and anybody, forces new artists to create original things and gives legal ground against illegal distribution (like streaming/torrenting).
If you wish to copyright your own original song, the easiest way to get protection is through your label, your music association or your distributor. Most streaming platforms like YouTube and Soundcloud also offer takedowns should other people illegally redistribute your music on their platform, though registration is the easiest way to be fully protected.
Although let's be frank, you're likely looking here because you have a song utilising some part of a copyright-protected material. This usually comes in the form of samples, small bits of audio recorded as part of a TV, song or audio library or stems, larger bits of audio from a song, usually an acapella or a drop section of a full song.
While samples and stems are the historic backbone of hip hop and EDM production, copyright law has yet to mature for the digital age. The bottom line is...
TL:DR IF YOU DO NOT HAVE THE ARTIST'S PERMISSION, USING THEIR SAMPLES/STEMS IS ILLEGAL.
Although that answer will likely piss off some people, it is currently the truth (and will be updated if anything major changes). Sampling is more a hip hop thing, so let's try and cover both by talking about remixes in EDM, as per the sub. Here's where people ask some questions, and this guide shall address them.
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Why isn't it legal? (TL:DR Rights)
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How can I make it legal? (TL:DR Follow the rules/Avoid doing so)
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Do I even need to care? (TL:DR Technically...no! Read on...)
CHAPTER B: WHY ISN'T IT LEGAL?
A lot of great music has come from derivative works, legal and illegal. So why is it mostly illegal for the little guys? Several reasons, but the easiest one to explain and visualise is that an artist/label needs the power to dictate how that they're used so that they're not used for nefarious purposes.
Let's say Hitler literally reincarnated and Zombie Hitler is now running for election in your country. He decides to use your song in the background of his rally, and you find that bad. Without legal protection, you can whine all you want, but technically he was allowed. Now people are going to associate your song with Zombie Hitler, and that's not really good for you or your artist image.
Thankfully with legal protection, his party can get sued for that, and you can come out and say that not only do you not agree with Zombie Hitler, he actively committed a crime by using the quality of your song to enhance his rally without permission.
So you say: "But I'm not Zombie Hitler!"
There's still a problem. Imagine you're really popular and famous, and there's a semi famous dude who makes really bad music. He makes a terrible remix of yours and now the Internet is talking about how much that new remix sucks. You're technically looped in. You don't wanna be associated with him. Without legal protection, that remix (and association) stays up. To any artist worth their salt, they need the protection to keep the brand strong.
Another concern is having to protect against "not-remixes". Remixes are not defined too well legally, so if there was a legal council applied to every remix to determine whether they added whole new original ideas, or just bass boosted and then sped up the original song to get cash from the reupload, it would waste so much unessesscary time and money. How much a work can be considered different is up to lawyers, not people who run music platforms. So automatic removals are the best blanket bots can offer.
For normal remixes, even if money is not exchanged, people still can use remixes to try and "break into the game" to sell other songs or even shows and merchandise. So if you see a guy become a millionare from remixing your song, is all of that his own effort, or is part of that from the millions who love you and were just hungry for more. How much of his success do you deserve for making the original art? Without legal protection, that's zero. You could have your remixed song playing across the country and not see a single cent.
Whatever reasons an artist has to limit the derivative works created from their own art, it's always easier to say it's illegal unless the artist says yes.
CHAPTER C: HOW CAN I MAKE IT LEGAL?
The askers of this question will likely see many remixes of that cool new song pop up by big name artists and fellow producer buddies. All of these must be legal, eh? Well, it's actually hard to say unless we know if they're distributing that remix as per artist/label permission. Let's just focus on how YOU can make legal remixes.
The most direct way is to get super famous/talented and ask the artist yourself through social media or your label, because they'll likely answer and say yes due to the collaboration giving both artists the benefit in the equation. Artists may even call you!
What? You're not Marshmello? Okay. Then the next direct way which most people use are remix contests. There are many sites which host these from Splice to Wavo to Metapop to SkioMusic to Indaba to even Spinnin Records, and even remix site aggregators. (Please Google all of these).
Remix contests generally give you the opportunity to download the individual, isolated stems (like just the vocals or just the guitar) and then create your own derivative work in a set amount of time, upload them to the site, have people vote on the best with judges doing their final call. Doing this can even net you prizes like label deals, official releases, expensive audio software and hardware and merchandise!
How to win those is a guide for another day, but as these are set up by labels, they can get fresh, new talent and quality soft marketing from the songs uploaded to other platforms in exchange for letting producers go wild in their copyright-lowered zone. So do sign up for those, and do keep your eyes peeled.
Some people might ask about fair use. The bottom line is that unless your work is designed to critique or parody, it's not protected under fair use, so 99% of remixes would fail this. For reference, here's a Stanford article and here's an illegal reupload of a bunch of classic Disney films spliced together to explain fair use
What some people do is re-creation, usually by personally singing the acapella or replaying the melody in their own synth patch. I'm not too clear on how legal it is, but I would say it falls under covering the song, which needs performance and distribution rights, as the main ideas of the song are still in their complete form, which is very likely still underneath copyright. Pitching the vocals and other assorted modifications are still not enough to distinguish your sound as unique enough to break copyright.
You can however confidently break down a sample/stem into non-copyrightable parts and then use those. Copyright applies to the complete form an artistic piece takes, so while lyrics and melodies can and are copyrighted, they cannot reasonably copyright chord progressions, drum patterns, writing ideas and styles and production techniques without landing a whole lot of other songs into hot soup. For instance, Jack Ü can't copyright pitched vocals, so go ahead and make your own catchy aahs with them. For extra protection, take inspirations from multiple songs, not just one.
And if you don't want to bother with any of these in the first place, only remix works in Creative Commons/The Public Domain. These are people who don't care about Chapter B and want their music to be free, sometimes still within specific limits. With every piece, there are usually different copyright terms attached, so read and respect the artist's choices.
All non-legal works can be safely called illegal. Some producers will describe a non-official remix as a "bootleg". To create these, they use stems created from phase cancellation that they did themselves, or grabbed them from online leaks of producers or liscencing websites. If you want some of your own, visit r/songstems. There's also that secret Russian site you can visit. cough.
CHAPTER D: DO I NEED TO CARE?
Despite all of this, if you're not rich or famous and especially if you're not signed to a label or making any sort of money from your records, you're likely too much effort to hunt down and manually get threathened with legal action, meaning that any enforcement won't give you a criminal record and very few eventually even make it to court.
You would only care about uncleared samples/remixes if you are suddenly famous overnight, and the artist's label sees you as financially fit to prosecute over civil court. By then, you even probably have legal people at your label to defend for you.
The biggest threat to small remixers is the platforms that they distribute their content on, usually Soundcloud and YouTube. As private companies, they are free to set up automatic takedowns to keep the big music biz guys from threatening the platform. Strikes were once a clear system in the past, but now both platforms are unclear. But if you value the specific username/email combo you have with the service and want to have complete freedom now and forever to upload, don't do it. Many producers here will testify that a second account serves for remixes to keep their main account safe.
Does it suck to have derivative work held down in a culture that not only praises transformative art, but also has an incredible audience listening to remixes everyday? Yes. One good news is that it's getting better.
This is best summarised in an article by the World Intellectual Property Organisation titled Remix Culture and Amateur Creativity: A Copyright Dilemma. Here, it details the shifts in music copyright law that spawn from this. Canada's Copyright Modernization Act from 2012 has a new exemption which allows non-commercial remixing, a US Court Ruling (Lenz vs. UMG, 2015) can be used to argue amateur remixing should fall under fair use and the article itself calls for copyright reform in the music industry.
Just earlier in 2017, a new rights clearance company called Dubset just scored a monetization deal with Sony Music Group. The company looks for unofficial remixes and marks them for revenue collection, so the label, publishers, Dubset and the producer can all get a cut of whatever money comes out, meaning that terrible amateur remixes are ignored while good, groundbreaking remixes can earn everyone a healthy sum. Techcrunch did an excellent job of writing about it here
And as we can see, this is a huge step that no one feels pressure to lobby for, but it could mean a whole lot for art. Only the dedication of music fans who love remixers and music producers who never give up can change anything, so don't be too disappointed.
As for now, stick to the rules. :)
Submitted September 25, 2017 at 02:58PM by HarmyDoesReddit https://www.reddit.com/r/edmproduction/comments/72e6zo/redmproductions_updated_user_guides_copyright_and/?utm_source=ifttt