APPROPRIATIONS

This page documents some of the many appropriations of chipmusic: trolls, samplers, remixers and plagiarists. The purpose is not to dismiss any uses but to document a tendency that was much debated in the chip- and demoscene during the 00’s. Please note that this has been poorly updated since 2011. Also check 8bitcollective’s Hall of Shame, MOD Archive’s Hall of Shame, threads at pouet & csdb and Saga Musix re Timelord.

PLAGIARISM

Once We Were Robots (2011). Put vocals on songs by Je Mappelle, Kola Kid, Smiletron, Monster! Monster!, etc. Did the same thing in 2009 as Le Peg. Chipmusic-thread + youtube-clip + ReverbNation.

Sinsid (2010). Published C64-songs by e.g. Randy, PRI, GRG and Kristian Rostoen, Thor, Eco and Kasmo at his 8bc-account. csdb-thread + last.fm

HtheB (2010). Put his name on songs from various artists for a digital download album and a number of NDS-games. chipflip 1 + 2

TV Death Squad (2009). American artist using music from Random, Mesu Kasumai, Goto80, Psilodump, Ten and Tracer, Combatdave, Wiklund. Denied plagiarism accusations. chipflip

Laromlab (2008). Album-release and USA-tour, claiming authorship to previously released chipmusic mostly without modifying the original. Public apology followed. Details at Crazy Q’s page. Original songs by Dubmood, Crazy Q, Dma-Sc, Aleksi Eeben, Lotek Style, Gasman, Ikuma, Random, and Goto80.

SAMPLES, COVERS, HOMAGES, REMIXES, ETC

Actress – Maze (2010). Samples the game Knight Lore.

Dam Funk & Computer Jay – Strange Days (2010). Samples the c-64 soundtrack to  R-Type by Chris Hülsbeck.

Osten af Mozarella – Commodore 64 (2010). Uses Turtle Grains by Optic as backtrack for this song.

Disrupt & Soom T – Dirty Money (2009). Uses the C64-song Reggae2 by JLD, which led to a popular remix by An-ten-nae. jld-comment @ csdb

Rusko – Bionic Commando remix (2009). Remix of the game song. Not released on a label. discogs

Wermut (2008). German darkwave artist using a whole song by Mindflow. chipflip interview

Crystal Castles (2008). Heavy sampling and rearrangement of songs by Lo-Bat, and a beat-snippet sampled from Covox (spectral analysed by nitro2k01). No legal action taken. Civilised blog-post here and chiphate here. A bizarre detail is how Crystal Castles and Timbaland have used the same pulsewave-arpeggios in their songs (although a rather generic progression) – check it.

Frankmusik (2008). Brittish electro artist signed to Island Records samples rather moderately from two C64 demoscene songs. More info here and here.

Timbaland (2007). Acid Jazzed Evening was used in this song, produced by Timbaland. Original Amiga composition by Tempest but Timbaland used GRG’s C64-cover of the song. Check out this torrent or this youtube-clip to get the idea. Details at the wikipedia-article. Currently (September 2009) Tempest is “not talking about it” while GRG is still in a legal process.

Fitts for Fight (2007). Using songs from micromusic.net and the demoscene and putting vocals on top. Details in the micromusic statement. Public apology followed. Original songs by Stu, Binärpilot, DVD Heijden, 505, 8BitWeapon, DRX, Kluster Bounce, Arachno, and Yerzmey.

Egotronic – Exportschlager Leitkultur (2006). Samples Monty on the Run by Rob Hubbard.  source

Deadmau5 – Edit Your Friends (2005). Samples Tim Follin’s Spectrum-song Chronos.

Bastian – You’ve Got My Love (2003?). This song includes a beat from Jeroen Tel and Reyn Ouwehand’s C64 song Rubicon. Bastian paid for it in the end.

Abe Duque – Champagne Days, Cocaine Nights (2003). Extensively samples the C64-tune Knight Tyme by David Whittaker. Excerpt from Duque’s tune here. According to discogs credits are in the notes of the record.

Las Palmas – Bidragskungen (2004). Uses the song from the C64-game Strip Poker. Original song here, Bidragskungen here.

Diplo – Diplo Rhythm (2004). Uses the music from the NES-game Platoon throughout the whole song. Released on Big Dada. youtube

Mark VII – Presents Action Replays (2002). Mash-ups C64 game music with rap acapellas. Released on the Monotonik sublabel No’Mo’. mp3 & info

Logic Bomb – Extension (2000). Samples the Amiga mod Cyberride by Jester.

Hardy Hard – Silver Surfer (1999). Based on the Amiga mod Beams of Light by Walkman.

Monotrona (1998-2003). Used various C64-songs and added vocals. More info here.

Anton Maiden (1998-2000?). Used MOD- and  General MIDI-covers of Iron Maiden, put vocals on it and released it on a label. chipflip

Blitter vs Hrvatski – Nuclear Cats Get New Home (1998). Samples various C64-songs (Wizball, Flash Gordon, Turbo Outrun?). youtube

Toni Phobia & DJ Charles – High Pumping (1998). Uses the melody from David Whittaker’s C64-music Storm. youtube

Dimmu Borgir – Sorgens Kammer (1996). Covering Tim Wright’s musicfrom the Amiga game Agony without credit.

Hardsequencer – Magic Flight (1994). Based on the Amiga song Stardust Memories by Jester. music+info

Paul Johnson – Psycho Kong (1994).  8 songs based on samples from Donkey Kong. discogs

Itch-E & Scratch-E – Awaken (1993). Uses a melody by from 4mat’s Amiga mod Cardiac Pause as a theme in the song. youtube

Ionosphere – Clear Blue Sky (1993). Uses bits from 4mat’s Amiga mod Madness.

Power-Pill – Pac-Man (1992). Aphex Twin samples Pacman. discogs

Gentle Giant – Time to Kill (1975). Seems to sample Pong? youtube

MISCELLANEOUS

V/A – 8 Bit Rude Boy (2011). An MP3-compilation pressed on vinyl without permission. 8bc-thread

Apps with keygen/crackintro music (2010). This app uses 360 chiptunes and is sold for $. More info here (which also mentions this other app).

Jamster – Crazy Frog (200?). Using Bodenständig 2000‘s song ‘In Rock 8 Bit’ in Crazy Frog TV-ads without permission. See comment field for more info.

Eisenfunk – Majak HQ (2008). Uses Supremacy by Jeroen tel. watch

Various Commercials. Goojet (2008) unauthorized use of a C64-song by Jeroen Tel. No actions have been taken. watch + Ariston (199?) uses Jonathan Dunn’s Gameboy-song for Robocop. watch

Swedish Radio P3 (2007-2010?). The comedy program Pang Prego used cut-up versions of Goto80’s song Pappap as a jingle throughout the season – without permission, without crediting.

Sally Shapiro / Johan Agebjörn (2006). A cover of Overload by Mantronix (aka Martin Wall) – as mentioned in the linear notes. info

Scooter – The Stadium Techno Experience (2003). “Level 1” – main melody covered from Chris Hülsbeck’s song “Freedom” for Turrican (2?). “A Little Bit Too Fast” samples the song “I Am Rushin'” by Chris Hülsbeck according to wikipedia.

Zombie Nation – Kernkraft 400 (1999). Main melody covered from David Whittaker’s Lazy Jones (subtrack21). According to NME Whittaker received money for it. Currently (March 2010) there is a lawsuit in process.

MOD-rippers. The Mod Archive had a Rippers Listing, now located here. An extreme example of mod-appropriation is when the PC-composers Purple Motion and Unreal got their songs appropriated by Jay Newingham. Check details here. Actually, the songs are still around in his own name – here. If you search for “jay” on this page you can see how a discussion about copyright in the demoscene could loook like, in the light of this case. Dj Distance ripped off mods in 2003, read about it here. Dj Isabelle ripped off mods in 2000, read about it here.