Mondo Jazz

e poi rimane sempre il problema del campionamento e dei furti musicali. guardate cosa è successo a James Newton: Jazz flutist loses to the Beastie Boys By Teresa Wiltz THE WASHINGTON POST Aug. 22 — This is how jazz flutist James Newton found out-eight years after the fact-that he was on a popular rap recording: A student strolled into his class and said hey, prof, I didn’t know you performed with the Beastie Boys. NEWTON WASN’T happy. A six-second snippet of his song “Choir” was a featured attraction in the 1992 Beastie Boys hit “Pass the Mic.” He says that he’s never received any compensation for the band’s use of the recording and that the Beastie Boys never bothered to ask his permission. ‘UNORIGINAL’ Finding out that the song had made it onto a “Beavis & Butt-head” cartoon only fueled his ire. Newton, a professor at California State University, Los Angeles, says that if he’d been asked, he never would have granted his permission. So in 2000 he sued the Beastie Boys, charging the group with copyright infringement. And, to his surprise and rage in June, he learned he’d lost the case. In her ruling, U.S. District Court Judge Nora M. Manella said that Newton’s sequence was basically a “recording,” for which Newton and his publisher had already been compensated, as opposed to a “composition,” and that it was “unoriginal as a matter of law.” (She also denied a motion filed by the Beastie Boys seeking reimbursement from Newton for almost $500,000 in legal fees.) Newton is appealing the decision, and has taken to the Internet in search of support. The case in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California pits Newton, a critically acclaimed avant-garde jazz flutist and former Guggenheim fellow, against the Beastie Boys, a rap group known for both its innovation in sampling (the use of snippets of other artists’ recordings) and for its progressive politics. Composers are nervously keeping an eye on the case, wondering what kind of precedent it will set if Manella’s ruling is upheld. At issue are complicated questions of copyright law, and whether Newton’s permission was needed for the “Choir” sample. Licensing a sample is a two-part process: Permission is needed from both the record label and the composer. The Beastie Boys licensed the sample from Newton’s record label, Munich-based ECM, but neither the company nor the group got permission from Newton. Manella’s ruling in effect said that since the sample was a recording and not a composition, his permission wasn’t needed. “The ruling in this case will have a chilling effect on musically creative artists,” says Richard Kessler, executive director of the American Music Center, a New York-based arts service organization with more than 3,000 composers in its membership. Kessler said his organization is considering joining an amicus brief with other musical organizations for the appeal. As Kessler sees it, “the idea that the judge would take a look at these six notes and determine that they are not original and didn’t warrant protection, it’s something musical artists, composers will and should fear.” ---- ridicola la differenza accettata dal giudice tra composizione ed incisione. distinguo che ha portato alla sconfitta del musicista.