Timbaland finally sued over chiptune plagiarism

Jhwk

#1 – 8:48 AM June 19, 2009

So... this should effectively kill, what? 50% of todays 'popular' music.

write your own damned songs and quit stealing from the masters! that's what we pay you for.

hemidemisemiquaver

#2 – 8:58 AM June 19, 2009

@1, most popular songs songs with samples have licensed them, so those will remain. On the other hand you have so-called mixtapes in hip-hop, usually bare-bones albums consisting of rapping over nothing but an unauthorized loop from a popular song. These are mostly non-commercial and distributed freely to create buzz, so I don't know how much you can crack down on them.

Clif Marsiglio

#3 – 9:18 AM June 19, 2009

This is what I love about BB! Over on the Gadgets side, they actually protect artists when they have been stolen from...on the classic side, they would scream that a lawsuit is stifling the creativity it takes to add a few bass drums over someone else's work!

Probably why I prefer the Gadget side these days too...

Category

#4 – 9:55 AM June 19, 2009

It's about time. Timbaland has stolen so much, it's about time he gets some comeuppance. That dude is a hack.

Rob Beschizza

#5 – 10:13 AM June 19, 2009

Clif, you're excluding the middle!

If Timabaland had just picked out a reasonable segment of the song and created something distinctively new with it, I'd be defending him.

But this example appears to be a large and successful organization exploiting an amateur without the slightest attempt at crafting something new from the source.

Clif Marsiglio

#6 – 11:07 AM June 19, 2009

But Rob,

If you pick a reasonable segment and do something creative with it, no one will even know that you snagged it. That is a true creative work...

As an artist, I personally would NEVER mind if someone came up with something new...but it so rarely happens that this middle ground is mostly theory.

subliminati

#7 – 11:32 AM June 19, 2009

Clif,

"If you pick a reasonable segment and do something creative with it, no one will even know that you snagged it."

Grey Album? Girl Talk? I think some of the greatest recent music is great BECAUSE you can identify something familiar being used in a new, creative way.

"...so rarely happens that this middle ground is mostly theory"

Seriously? Do you read this site regularly? There's at least a dozen examples a week on here that prooves this statement is false. For example:

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/01/pride-and-prejudice.html
or
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/09/london-police-poster.html
or
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/06/19/video-civilization.html

Caspar

#8 – 11:50 AM June 19, 2009

"So... this should effectively kill, what? 50% of todays 'popular' music.

write your own damned songs and quit stealing from the masters! that's what we pay you for."

Don't conflate the two. Ripping off an entire song: Bad. Sampling (say) a four bar piano riff (and more often than not crediting it) to feed in to an entirely new creation - can be great.

Look at the amount of recycling of themes and melodies in Blues and Jazz: those genres have equal magpie tendencies.

Jarret Leong

#9 – 11:51 AM June 19, 2009

the weird two faced nature of boing boing and boing boing gadgets concerns me. why is it stealing for a big name like timbaland, but any small artist would have been vehemently defended by cory as just "remixing" or whatever rubbish he tends to write?

timbaland is a very talented producer and some of the best beats in the past 10 years. the "do it" did an excellent job of taking acidjazzed evening and making it way better.

less hypocrisy, please.

O_M

#10 – 1:04 PM June 19, 2009

...Although Cliff does have a good point about the difference between the two BB's, it still doesn't change the fact that (c)rappers like Timbaland(*) are no-talent hacks who make money off of other people's works. If every musician who'd been ripped off by these thugs would sue, it would put a lot of them out of business because they simply wouldn't have anything worth releasing that was solely their own work.

Of course, we'd probably wind up with someone like Barry Manilow or Dolly Parton getting driveby'd by some (c)rapper's posse, but defending one's intellectual property can alas be dangerous...:-/

(*) Which reminds me of a gal I know from Siberia who pronounces "Timberlake" as "TimberLEEK", thus turning Justin's name into a venereal disease :-P

dculberson

#11 – 3:00 PM June 19, 2009

O_M, I was willing to overlook you predictable and childish "(c)rapper" attempt at "humor" but the rest of your post? Woah. Do you also spend a lot of time worrying about miscegination? Have fun donning the white sheets and pointy hat at the rally tonight.

Anonymous Anonymous

#12 – 4:15 PM June 19, 2009

On a related topic, before she left Canada to work with Timbaland, Nelly Furtado wrote some of her own songs, and they were much better!

I think Timbaland is a hack, though, as everything he works on has a familiar melody and little added.

Clearly the judgement will give money and credit retroactively to the original artist. O silly me, I just reread the credit and realised it's a *label* suing, so it's just a standard RIAA-type case with industry guys on both sides of the aisle for once.

Doctor Popular

#13 – 4:24 PM June 19, 2009

Category- I hear people argue that Timbaland steals all the time, but I have not found any other cases.
I know you make music as well, you know there is a difference between stealing and licensing, right?
Tim has carved his own niche in the music industry. His sound was totally unique at the time, but has totally reshaped pop music. That's really what sucks the most about this whole thing. Why would producer that's created his own unique sound rip off an obscure musician? Then when he get's caught, tries to bully the musician instead of just paying the royalties due? I love Timbaland's sound, but this single act of plagiarism is totally heartbreaking.

O_M

#14 – 5:00 PM June 19, 2009

"O_M, I was willing to overlook you predictable and childish "(c)rapper" attempt at "humor" but the rest of your post? Woah. Do you also spend a lot of time worrying about miscegination? Have fun donning the white sheets and pointy hat at the rally tonight."

...Heh, I love it. Typical thug respons: anyone who's anti-(c)rap and anti-thug is automatically a member of the Klan. Need I remind you Eminem isn't exactly too tan himself?

And I wasn't attempting to be "humorous", either. (c)Rap music is pure garbage, filled with more hate per minute than even Johnny Rebel was able to babble...

*Di*

#15 – 8:53 PM June 19, 2009

"It's about time. Timbaland has stolen so much, it's about time he gets some comeuppance. That dude is a hack." ~Category

Seriously! Sad part is that he was not at all a hack early on - very original sounds - but he just got fat,rich&lazy . . .

Pig Pen

#16 – 9:21 PM June 19, 2009

Wtf, why didn't the original copyright holder sue Timbaland? Suing somebody for something you didn't own at the time of alleged abuse is as slimy as it gets.

certron

#17 – 9:34 PM June 19, 2009

My personal crazy theory is that the weird trancey hook from Nelly Furtado's "Give It To Me" was inspired by the theme music of Torgo from the movie Manos: The Hands of Fate. Compare and contrast...

Give It To Me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2__Qdd11rfA

Torgo's Theme: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0s9OC6rzAA

For extra fun, seek out the "Techno Torgo" version from MST3K.

Am I crazy? On second thought, don't asnwer that.

Torley

#18 – 10:46 PM June 19, 2009

I was shocked at how ignorant Timbaland's answer was, and how rude he was to the original chiptune composer. I thought Timba would be more suave and articulate — unless he was just trying to be funny, but that failed, too.

I'm surprised no meme arose from "That's how you attack a king?"

What's especially worrying is Timbaland is talented with really raw, simple hooks, but to not pay his respects here and overcomplicate matters makes him appear as a hypocrite, hidden behind disingenuous layers of lies as to obscure the earnest origin of a tune.

One distinction: the SIDStation contains a genuine SID chip, so it can make authentic Commodore 64-style sounds with extra controls. It isn't designed to "play music made with old computers" though — that would be the role of a SID player app, of which even the iPhone has one now. And those tend to work on emulation instead of using the original circuitry.

@Certron I answered because I can hear the similarities. Crazy, you? That be both of us, then. :)

dole

#19 – 7:07 AM June 20, 2009

This came up quite a few months back and I thought they were in negotiations to settle but evidently those talks broke down. I do respect Tim's creative use of samples, he HAS carved out a niche for himself in the world of production and earlier in his career, I dismissed him as a one-trick pony but he HAS evolved his production since he's been in the game. I don't respect his brazen dismissal of artists that he thinks may not have the power to fight for their music and thinks that the music in this case, even if it's "from a video game" is any lesser than a "formal" production like Mundian To Bach Ke.
He should know better than most about the laws of sample clearance, I hope the law sides with Janne Suni, and Timbaland gets taught an expensive lesson.

O_M, are you making the analogy that Eminem is a member of the Klan? Because I'm not seeing the point you're trying to make. Rap music has been around for 30+ years now, and there's plenty of positivity to go around that far offsets the hate, misogyny, and other negative aspects of some of the more ignorant and less talented contributors. To generalize any, ANY music genre as "pure garbage" as a whole just shows how closed-minded you are. So what are you doing here at BB again?

tartooob

#20 – 8:34 AM June 20, 2009

I like Timbo and all, but I personally feel that he should be forced to give credit to the Arabic composers and producers who originally created these songs. Here’s a list below to show you the proof of Timbaland’s plagiarism of Arabic music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1X58UPPKDsY

Jay-Z – “Big Pimpin” (Abdel Halim Hafez – “Khosara”)

Aaliyah – “Don’t Know What To Tell Ya” (Warda – “Batwanness Bik”)

Aaliyah – “More Than A Woman” (Mayada El Hennawi – “Alouli Ensa”)

Petey Pablo – “Raise Up” (Um Kulthoum – “Enta Omri”)

Ms. Jade – “Dead Wrong” (Kazem El Saher “El Zaman”)

Missy Elliott – “One Minute Man” (Joanna Mallah – “La Mostahel”)

Justin Timberlake – “(Oh No) What You Got” (Debka Druz – “Debka of the Druz”)

Utada Hikaru – “Exodus ’04” (Aitha Al Menhali – “Meshkeltek")

Ne-Yo and Fabulous – “Makes Me Better” (Sherine – “Aal Saaban Aleh”)

Nelly Furtado "Wait for You" (Muhlis Akarsu – “Allah Allah Desem Gelsem”)

sworm

#21 – 9:26 AM June 20, 2009

listen to: mika -relax, then listen to: cutting crew - (i just died) in your arms tonight.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9wIl6b4g_TA&feature=related

The beginning is a clear rip off. This happens all the time.

For example zombie nation - kernkraft. If you like retro gaming it's all too obvious.

Baldhead

#22 – 11:08 AM June 20, 2009

... and half of Sheryl Crow's song borrow heavily from Tom Petty and George Harrison. Nobody is sueing her. Not that I wouldn't in this case, but there seems a major double standard here. Rapper does it it's those damn uncreative rappers again. Pop singer does it and it's just "inspiration".

And can we not call Tim a rapper? he almost never raps. It's like calling Ringo Starr a singer. or Prince a piano player. yeah they do it sometimes but it's hardly what you see them doing most of the time is it?

Aurich

#23 – 11:19 AM June 20, 2009

You guys need to stop gobbling O_M's troll bait every time a rap topic comes up on BB.

Rob Beschizza

#24 – 12:34 PM June 20, 2009

"why didn't the original copyright holder sue Timbaland"

Suing is very expensive: it means hiring a lawyer. Suing a record company, or any org able to bury you in legal minutiae for years, could be a five or six figure proposition.

Rob Beschizza

#25 – 12:43 PM June 20, 2009

Jarret, there's no hypocrisy here, excepting your attempt to wrap a defense of wholesale plagiarism in sanctimonious pieties like "boing boing's dual nature concerns me."

Mitch

#26 – 12:50 PM June 20, 2009

I like sampling and covers. Reinterpreting someone
else's work or inserting it in a different context
can be very creative and interesting, but please
do it right by crediting the person whose work you
are using.

Anonymous Anonymous

#27 – 6:52 PM June 20, 2009

This is why copyright needs to be eliminated. Just like patents, it is only a tool of the rich and powerful to exploit people who aren't rich. With no copyright, it would be up to the public to decide how much the original author and/or Timbaland did or didn't contribute to the song and then decide if they want to donate financially to one, both or neither of them. Without copyright, music will be made by people who love to make music, not those who are motivated by money. I GUARANTEE there will be no shortage of music.

theawesomerobot

#28 – 10:01 PM June 20, 2009

I can't believe there's an argument about this - this is not sampling. Even if it was sampling and not an obvious direct rip he didn't credit the original artist.

There's no hypocrisy going on here - the only thing going on here is the lack of understanding between the difference of sampling and blatant theft.

Phoenix Lomax

#29 – 3:39 PM June 21, 2009

From a producer's perspective, sampling's done all the time- most old breakbeats are taken from funk and rock songs of the seventies, yet very few are credited (the "Amen" loop is everywhere- but can you name the song it comes from without Googling it?) Drumloops in and of themselves are considered allowed samples commonly, and I don't know of an enforced lawsuit because of an unauthorized drumloop. There is a line, however, between sampling and straight ripping somebody off, which Timbaland is clearly guilty of, and for which he should pay reasonable royalties. Then again, even with the permission of the copyright holders, Puff Daddy\P Diddy\Sean John\whatever the hell he calls himself has taken entire songs and made mockeries of the originals a few times... plagiarism? No. Terrible, uninspired music? No question.

Sampling's not really the issue here at all. It's a general lack of creativity on the part of many of today's biggest musicians. Why try to do something original if you don't have to and you can get away with not? Even Timbaland's name is ripped off.
Emo's nothing amazing itself. It's ripping off the Smiths, new wave, punk, hair metal, hip-hop even, everything it can, because it has nothing of its own to offer.
Garbage like this will continue to happen until some creativity returns to mainstream music again.

velo

#30 – 5:05 PM June 21, 2009

Timbaland can suck it. GRG and Tempest are gonna win this fight hands down. If they don't, all hell will break loose in the chip-scene.

playghost

#31 – 4:24 PM July 4, 2009

This is a Big Mistake!

Sravan