PLAGIARISM

What some people call remix culture today, has ofcourse been going on a long time before the computerized age. Cultural artifacts were naturally built on from previous works by other people. Then came mechanical reproduction and later on copyright, based on the idea that an individual created something so unique that s/he would own it. Since “the performative turn” of the 1960s, when art and culture in many ways moved its focus from fixed objects into performances and processes, the old romantic ideals have been increasingly problematized. How much can you sample? When is a work original enough to be “copyrightable”? At the moment, it seems in the end that only judges are allowed to answer that question.

Chipmusic is interesting here because the movement we see today has a long history of conflicts between appropriation and copyright. It used to be solved internally by its own status mechanisms: if someone stole your stuff, the scene would get to know it and the accused would be “degraded”. With an internally regulated culture meeting the outside world, it seems the chipmusic/demoscene culture has been using the same strategy quite effectively - for example getting Rolling Stone to ask if Timbaland is a thief (after decades of him sampling). Well, anyway. This is an attempt to try to list cases of artists appropriating / plagiarising / sampling / remixing chipmusic - here understood as commercially released videogame music, demoscene music, and internet releases (many of which are licensed under Creative Commons).

CRYSTAL CASTLES (2008). Heavy sampling and rearrangement of songs by Lo-Bat, and a beat-snippet sampled from Covox (spectral analysed by nitro2k01). Currently no action has been 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.

LAROMLAB (2008). Album-release and touring, 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.

GOOJET COMMERCIAL (2008). Unauthorized use of a C64-song by Jeroen Tel. No actions have been taken. watch

NELLY FURTADO - DO IT (2007). Probably the most famous case. Basically the whole song 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 (May 2008) Tempest is “not talking about it” while GRG is still in a legal process.

SWEDISH RADIO P3 (2007). The comedy program Pang Prego used cut-up versions of Goto80’s song Pappap as a jingle throughout the season - without permission, and without crediting. When approached, they said it was made by Pluxus, but was later informed otherwise.

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.

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.

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) but according to NME Whittaker did actually receive money for it.

DIMMU BORGIR - SORGENS KAMMER (1996). Covering Tim Wright’s music from the Amiga game Agony.

MORE INFO NEEDED
MTV Netherlands using Goto80’s song Comsten in a jingle. (2007)
2 Unlimited using music from Jeroen Tel.
Jamba using Bodenständig 2000’s music for ringtones.

MOD-RIPPING
The Mod Archive used to have a Rippers Listing. It was a list of mod-files that had been re-released under a different name, without the original author knowing about it. Here’s the 2005-version. 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.