Patented Melodies?

Ultimate Dj · Post by **Ultimate Dj** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 10:49 pm

Hello,
I'm just wondering if some melodies are patented. Like take a piano riff of No One or Axel F or Around The World or Linkin Park...etc can i take those notes and play them in my owns song without haveing to buy a copy right or something?

Basically I want to do my own Remix of a lot of songs and I wanna no if its legal.

thnx

pura vida
dj

EJ2 · Post by **EJ2** » Sat Apr 26, 2008 11:31 pm

You mean like the Chiffon's, "He's So Fine" being lifted by George Harrison in, "My Sweet Lord"? He didn't ask permission, so he got successfully sued- http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/mysweet.htm

If it's for your own private purpose, I don't see a problem. However, if you intend to go commercial with your work, you could find yourself in court defending against a plagiarism suit. That's my reading of it.

RiotNrrd · Post by **RiotNrrd** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 12:57 am

Basically I want to do my own Remix of a lot of songs and I wanna no if its legal.

Without getting the permission of the artist(s) first, it is not legal.

For your own personal noncommercial use, the artists are unlikely to come after you. Very unlikely. So you can probably go ahead and remix to your hearts content as long as it's clearly a hobby. But if you start selling anything, without the aforementioned permission, it's an entirely different story and could realistically land you in a whole vat full of trouble.

Synthoid · Post by **Synthoid** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 5:58 pm

EJ2 wrote:If it's for your own private purpose, I don't see a problem. However, if you intend to go commercial with your work, you could find yourself in court defending against a plagiarism suit.

By the way....you don't patent songs, you copyright them...

Ultimate Dj · Post by **Ultimate Dj** » Sun Apr 27, 2008 7:23 pm

Synthoid wrote:
EJ2 wrote:If it's for your own private purpose, I don't see a problem. However, if you intend to go commercial with your work, you could find yourself in court defending against a plagiarism suit.
By the way....you don't patent songs, you copyright them...

Whatever!

.

Okay thanks guys that helps. I was meaning to sell them. Of course I know i can do it for myself cause how would the artist ever find out I did it ya know?

But say i did want to get the permission of the artist...how would i do it? any ideas?
Thnks again!

pura vida
dj

xmlguy · Post by **xmlguy** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 6:50 am

You be smokin too much ganja, mon. So your plan for fame and fortune is to steal music from other people and hope they don't find out? How you like it if I remix all your remixes, and give them away for free?

JonSolo · Post by **JonSolo** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 2:51 pm

If you plan to sell or distribute music that contains a sample, you must acquire permission from the artist as well as those who own the rights to the recording (i.e Vivendi, Warner, etc).

If you plan to remake the music yourself, either in part or as a whole, and you plan to distribute it WHETHER YOU SELL THE PRODUCT OR NOT you need to contact the Harry Fox Agency http://www.harryfox.com/index.jsp to discuss and determine what mechanical rights are involved. The only way to bypass this is to directly negotiate with the "publishers" of the music.

The Publisher owns the right to the song and/or parts of the songs. They can determine, for example, if they want a phrase from their song to be used as a central part of a hip-hop song or not.

Let's look at two examples.

1. You have a line in your song that repeats "Party like it's 1999". You give this song away for FREE, but without the Publisher's permission or licensing. Prince can come back and sue you for damages, and if he don't Warner Brothers will.

2. You include the "famous" five notes from Close Encounters of the Third Kind in a song. Again you distribute this for FREE without permission. You can be sued by the holder of the rights to that song. Likely this is some bigger entity than John Williams.

If you think that they won't or can't find out, trust me when I say that they have bots that scour the Internet on sites such as Google looking for the very thing that I just mentioned. This does not mean that you WILL get caught. But if someone turned you in, it is guaranteed.

A local club just got shut down because they held Karaoke and did not pay ASCAP royalties. I have never heard of a club that ACTUALLY paid royalties, but someone busted on this club and it got shut down and only reopened with piped in music. They won't even do a live band.

Solo

Ultimate Dj · Post by **Ultimate Dj** » Mon Apr 28, 2008 6:28 pm

xmlguy wrote:You be smokin too much ganja, mon. So your plan for fame and fortune is to steal music from other people and hope they don't find out? How you like it if I remix all your remixes, and give them away for free?

I think you misunderstood me, xmlguy. I'm not planing on stealing anything from anyone. I wanted to find out if it was legal to copy the notes from a song and make my own remix. I see now that it is not without getting the permission of the artist...etc.

All I wanted to do was take the main melody from Around The World by ATC and make my own musica. And I just wanted to figure out how to do it.
Thanks much everyone. I got it figured out now!

ps I dont smoke

pura vida
dj

Peter Paul · Post by **Peter Paul** » Thu May 01, 2008 8:21 pm

Hello DJ,

Why don't you do classical music arrangements? Nobody will sue you for that. All classical music made 70 plus years ago is in public domain. If you do it right your audience will go nuts.

Ultimate Dj · Post by **Ultimate Dj** » Sat May 03, 2008 4:24 am

Peter Paul wrote:Hello DJ,

Why don't you do classical music arrangements? Nobody will sue you for that. All classical music made 70 plus years ago is in public domain. If you do it right your audience will go nuts.

Thanks for the suggestion! I dont really do Classical but you just never know! if it makes me popular (with the girls

) than of course i'll consider it!

Anything specific you would suggest?
thnx

pura vida
dj

Peter Paul · Post by **Peter Paul** » Mon May 05, 2008 8:34 pm

Doing classical music arrangements does not mean doing classical music per say, so do not worry if you don't do it/like it yet. Doing classical music arrangements is totaly different experience and has very little in common with playing original classical music except basic melody or tune. You take basic melody and arrange it in whatever genre you like it to fit. Choices are infinite and process of doing it very addictive. If you know structural format of the genres you want to arrange song in, all you need is piano or organ. However, if you have good kb arranger, it is an excellent tool with its endless choices of styles and there is virtually no limit in terms what you can do with certain classical song. Of course, you also need chorded songs. Fortunately, there are tons of them readily available.

Ultimate Dj · Post by **Ultimate Dj** » Sun May 11, 2008 4:03 am

Peter Paul wrote:Doing classical music arrangements does not mean doing classical music per say, so do not worry if you don't do it/like it yet. Doing classical music arrangements is totaly different experience and has very little in common with playing original classical music except basic melody or tune. You take basic melody and arrange it in whatever genre you like it to fit. Choices are infinite and process of doing it very addictive. If you know structural format of the genres you want to arrange song in, all you need is piano or organ. However, if you have good kb arranger, it is an excellent tool with its endless choices of styles and there is virtually no limit in terms what you can do with certain classical song. Of course, you also need chorded songs. Fortunately, there are tons of them readily available.

hmmmm.....sounds like that could be a lot of fun!

How would I begin to learn some of those? Youtube? Then what would I search to find some good ones?
thnx

pura vida
dj