The Importance Of Gaining Right To Music

We all know that music artist all about expressing their musical creativity and musical expression. All great music artists have artist that they look up to and admire their musical works. Most music artist find their inspiration in another artist musical work and want to use or take that musical work to make something new with it. What most of these music artists fail to remember in the mist of all of that creativity they need to gain permission to use that work. In this special blog post I will be discussing three different legal issues that all have to do with protecting musical work.

1.     Legal Problems: Kanye West Sued For ‘Bound 2′ Sample: 

This article discusses Hip Hop artist Kanye West being sued by Ricky Spicer for having his voice sampled on Kanye’s song Bound 2 with out his permission. He is suing Kanye for both money made on the song and for his voice to be taken off the song.

Based on the information provided on this lawsuit I feel that Ricky Spicer did have the right to sue Kanye and his label for using his voice on the song. I think if they did not ask him for permission to use it they should pay him a portion of money made on the song as well as any future money made on the song.

2.     Marvin Gaye's Family & Robin Thicke: Son May Sue Over 'Blurred Lines' And 'Got To Give It Up':

In this article R&B artist music artist Robin Thicke is suing Marvin Gaye’s family to protect his song Blurred Lines from being compared to one of Marvin Gaye’s songs called Got To Give It Up. Robin wants to keep anyone from make any type of comparison between the two songs of any kind.

I think that this is a very unnecessary lawsuit that Robin Thicke has started. I think the better question is why is he so concerned about people make that comparison. If he did steal anything and has the proof that it all original work then he has nothing to worry about. I think that this case that is just a waste of everyone’s time.

3.     Jay-Z sued over “Run this Town” as sampling lawsuits spread:

In this article a company by the name of TufAmerica who owns the right to a song called Hook and Sling are suing Hip Hop artist Jay-Z for sampling the song in his 2009 song Run This Town. What makes the lawsuit interesting is that this is the same company who sued The Beastie Boy’s for sampling a song on one of their earlier albums right after one of the group members died in 2012.

I think that this company had the right to sue if music that they owned was used without permission. My question is why does this company wait so long to file a suit. I think this is an example of someone waiting to make the most money they can. I think that if the song had not been a huge hit they would have never started any type of lawsuit. That why in some case I feel that limitations should be set on how long you can wait to sue a person for using or sampling a persons musical work.

I think that all of three of three of these cases have something in common the importance of protecting your musical work and getting permission to use that work. All three have a different take on ownership and getting permission to use someone else from using your musical work. I think this also points out the need to pay attention and keep track of your musical property so that years later you are not listening to one of your favorite songs you have loved for years has been using a piece of musical work that you wrote many years to late. I hope you found this post informative. Remember you can follow me on Twitter @StarsOnTheRise and like my page on Facebook just look for the logo!