“The violation of law is actually larger than the Sun”

Earlier today an article was posted with news on the Timbaland data drama (Finnish, bad google translation). Tempest, the original composer of Acidjazzed Evening, has stopped being active in this battle, but GRG (who made the C64-cover that Timbaland supposedly sampled) is still fighting the fight, as previously reported. The first battle was lost, despite presenting extensive research with frequency analyses and apparently also proving the effort and skills involved in doing C64-music by playing 5 different SID-versions of Popcorn. In court! That might be the best thing to come out of this whole ordeal.

But now Kernel Records, representing GRG, has went to the US to sue Furtado, Universal, Timbaland, and more! Once again, courts will have to face yer typical judicial questions like “How can modern technology reproduce cycle-exact reproductions of a C64-song?”, “How relevant are frequency analyses considering the possibilities of post-production and the differences between single SID-chips and SID-players?”, or even “Is a SID-tune to be regarded as recorded music, sheet music, or live performances?”. Let’s hope that after the years that these legal discussions are bound to take, we can find some peace of mind in these matters!