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  • From: "Z-Train Music" <ztrainmusic AT hotmail.com>
  • To: markhosler AT bellsouth.net, cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Cc:
  • Subject: [cc-sampling] RE: your Negativland music career avoidance counselor
  • Date: Sun, 25 Apr 2004 00:55:51 -0700

A helpful dose of reality.

You've been at this for a while, so you know what to expect from the self-release process. I've just finished a second album and still suffer illusions of grandeur when i think about ways to influence a good outcome. Having an audience is part of my notion of success, so I want to expose as many people as possible to the music.

As for making money off the art, I'm not planning to quit my day job.


Andy


From: MARK / negativland <markhosler AT bellsouth.net>
To: "Z-Train Music" <ztrainmusic AT hotmail.com>, cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: your Negativland music career avoidance counselor
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 17:52:53 -0700



this may be going far afield from the purpose of this list. Someone let me know if so...


At 4:56 PM -0700 4/23/04, Z-Train Music wrote:
A lot of DIY music guides stress the importance of live performances to promote the CD. What's your take -- is it a necessity?


Possibly, but I'm ain't no music career guidance counselor! Sorry, cant help you! :) Our group "made it" because we got sued, not because we had a "hit" or toured very much. And we're still perpetually almost broke.




Are there performance options for solo musicians that can't really perform their sample-laden music in the traditional live concert setting?


My advice- stop reading those DIY music guides and examine where your notions of success come from (they often aren't yours, but are mostly constructed by mainstream media, society, culture and "DIY music guides"), pull these notions apart as best you can, and develop a more personal and realistic idea of what "success" really is for you as an artist.

From age 17, I always assumed Negativland would never be a way to make a living, so my modest goal was to have a job I felt good about, but only worked 2/3rds time, so that I still had enough time and energy left over to make art. I was able to do this. I did this for 10 years, working on and off as a nursery school teacher, before Negativland had it's "hit" lawsuit and I started to make enough to kinda sorta lived off of it. Kinda sorta. Other folks with a more "Rolling Stone/MTV/Entertainment Weekly" idea of success would have quit long before.

Jenny Twoomey of www.futureofmusic.org has told me that of the number of folks who consider themselves to be musicians, only 2 percent actually live off it (so the RIAA is suing all those file sharers to protect only 2% of those who make music! Silly). So I am in the same 2% as Britney Spears. But even now, 25 years after we began, I don't expect it to last. In the last few years, right when we seem more well known than ever and we still have loads of ideas for new projects, our sales have dropped off to nothing. I only make money right now from doing talks about our work! And this surprising new way for me to make $$ won't last forever, either, so who knows? I even recently applied as a substitute teacher at a progressive K through 8 grade school to make a little bit of extra money.

So- don't look at success as a binary option. It can, instead, be a very modest, grey and fluid thing.

Does this help?


mark









From: MARK / negativland <markhosler AT bellsouth.net>
To: "Z-Train Music" <ztrainmusic AT hotmail.com>, ginrai AT masterforce.org, cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: RE: [cc-sampling] Movie Samples In Songs
Date: Fri, 23 Apr 2004 07:26:01 -0700

At 2:03 PM -0700 4/22/04, Z-Train Music wrote:
Negativland (god bless them) is an exception to majority of record labels. The cost of litigation can easily sink a small label, so they tend to stay away from uncleared samples.

Actually there are more than a few small and not so small labels who don't worry about samples being cleared.


To Mark's point, selling your own CDs via website, or indy record store will probably not land you in court. But you may be hard pressed to find a label that will sign you. Backing from a label seems to helps in a lot of different ways -- production, distribution, air play, music publication reviews, etc.


Sometimes. They can also have onerous contracts that can be as bad or worse than dealing with major labels. Be sure to have someone who can read such things go over any contract you are presented with. I believe that www.futureofmusic.org has a section on their site where they dissect a typical record biz contract.


...btw, how many submissions does negativland receive? how many of those do you sign?


We don't really "sign" anyone. Its more of a collective kinda thing, where we have to a) really like the work, and b) the artists has to be pretty much a self financed total do-it-yourselfer who needs just a bit of hand holding and decent distribution. The artists retain 100% ownership of their work and are free to leave Seeland at any time. It's not a way to run a profitable business, I can tell you that! It's mostly more of a "giving back" to the community of audio weirdos from which we sprang.

To see who else is on our label, check out our site. We only do a few of these a year.

Mark





From: MARK / negativland <markhosler AT bellsouth.net>
To: "Z-Train Music" <ztrainmusic AT hotmail.com>, ginrai AT masterforce.org, cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: RE: [cc-sampling] Movie Samples In Songs
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 13:14:50 -0700

At 11:42 AM -0700 4/22/04, Z-Train Music wrote:
Ginrai,

A lot of laptop musicians are emerging, and we all seem to have a lot questions around the legality and reality of sampling source audio from songs, movies, interviews, spoken word performances or television shows.

I think this is how it goes:

LEGALITY -- If you sample audio that is copyrighted by another entity, and you do not obtain a license for that sample, you have probably violated copyright law UNLESS: i) the sample comes from a work that is "Creatively" licensed (via Creative Commons or another form of open licensing); or ii) your use of the sample can be construed as a FAIR USE exception.


As far as we are concerned, if's it's a fragmentary and/or transformative use, it's ALL fair use! But that doesn't matter- they can still sue you if they feel like it! But generally they wont feel like it unless you are making large amounts of money.

There are some parameters for what constitutes a Fair Use, and the biggest one is that you do not directly obtain money from the sale of the work containing the sample.

REALITY -- Entertainment companies (and their lawyers) don't care about your sampling until there's a financial incentive for them to care. Sample anything you want, but don't expect to sell your work. Give your music away as a demo to your friends and family, upload it to a file sharing network, send it to college radio stations, create a buzz about your self, go nuts.


We sample like crazy, never ask permission, sell the stuff we make as CDs, and haven't been sued since the early 90's. If you are a do-it-yourselfer, I don't think you have anything to worry about if you release it for sale. BUT - you can have trouble with the CD pressing plants.

Go here on our site to read about our own experiences with this -

http://negativland.com/riaa/index.html


mark

Maybe a professional music producer will hear your brilliant work and dub you the next big thing. Maybe not. You'll still have a cool sounding track. Create what you will.

Some advantages to sampling unknown movies: 1) if and when you do license the sample, it may be cheaper than getting a license to sample Star Wars; 2) the film may be part of the Public Domain, in which case a license is not required to sample. If you're not planning on licensing the sample, then there aren't really any non-aesthetic reasons for mining unknown films.

I'm sure someone out there will take issue with something I've said in this flood of words.


Andy

From: Ginrai <ginrai AT masterforce.org>
To: cc-sampling AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: [cc-sampling] Movie Samples In Songs
Date: Wed, 21 Apr 2004 21:36:13 -0700

Hi there. New here. I'm a musician and I've been experimenting with samples in my songs. Not musical samples, mind you, but snippets of dialogue from movies. I've heard that a lot bands that use samples like that just use them and hope no one calls them on it (and sometimes they're called on it, like when Skinny Puppy got into trouble by using a sample from Timothy Leery). It seems that it would hardly be worth the effort and red tape and money to try to get permission for a clip that lasts a second and isn't at all musical. I've looked through Skinny Puppy liner notes and they never mention where the samples come from. I've recognized a lot of them, Hitchcock movies, Scanners, A Clockwork Orange, 2001. Some of them are popular and some aren't. From a copyright perspective, I imagine it would be defendable in a lot of cases under fair use. You could say it's your song commenting on the crass commercial society that creaked the insincere movie and such.

I guess my question is, should I just use movie samples and to hell with it? Is it maybe safer to use samples from really obscure lame movies that no one has seen? Any comments are welcome.

-Ginrai

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AHOY THERE! I have changed my e-mail address and it is now -

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My old address at markhosler AT charter.net is no longer being used.

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AHOY THERE! I have changed my e-mail address and it is now -

mark / negativland <markhosler AT bellsouth.net>


My old address at markhosler AT charter.net is no longer being used.

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  • [cc-sampling] RE: your Negativland music career avoidance counselor, Z-Train Music, 04/25/2004

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