Samples ain’t simple: Moby in trouble over 22 year old misuse claim

It looks like you're using an ad blocker. That's cool! We get it :)
You can support us by sharing this story or following us on Facebook.

Back to Top

Samples ain’t simple: Moby in trouble over 22 year old misuse claim

moby110524full

That ol’ dog we all know as the Mobester (real name Richard Hall – who knew?) could be facing the courts over improper use of samples from 1992.

The samples in question are from two songs from the dance legend’s debut Moby, ‘Next in the E’ and ‘Thousand’. The plaintiff argues that the songs utilise unethically obtained samples by US soul-girl group First Choice from their track ‘Let No Man Put Asunder’…the irony.

Fighting what we are sure will be quite a lengthy and unsuccessful battle is VMG SalSoul – whom have also recently played out a spectacular fail of a case against MDMA (or the wordsmith formerly known as Madonna) for improper sample use in her hit ‘Vogue’. The track itself is now twenty-four years old – urging us to believe that the plaintiff has perhaps woken up from a two-decade long coma – hungry for MC Hammer pants…and vengeance.

In the case of ‘Vogue’, the judge unsurprisingly stated that, ‘…no reasonable audience would find the sampled portions qualitatively or quantitatively significant in relation to the infringing work, nor would they recognize the appropriation.’ The Moby case is assumed to be given the same ruling.

Although the whole thing seems a bit ridiculous – the question of improper use of samples is an important one to be talking about – and something that young producers (and older ones for that matter) should be conscious of. There’s a lot to be learned from recent controversy involving figures such as Machinedrum (accused of improperly using samples from DJ Client’s beloved track ‘Back Street Ho’), or Crookers use of orgasm samples in ‘Heavy’ (not so much illegal as semi gross). Sampling can certainly be a sticky issue and it’s pretty awkward to see artists rip each other off.

With the plaintiff demanding up to $150,000 in damages from Moby – we assume that this will all come out in the wash pretty soon. Whether that’s due to poor legal practise or true plagiarism, we can’t be sure.

Our advice: just wait 70 years for the copyrights to end, kids. OLD N’ RAGIN’!

In the meantime, listen to the track that started the drama, ‘Thousands’ – renowned for it’s fucking insane 1,000 BPM. We especially enjoyed the first Youtube comment; ‘Here’s a game, fap to the beat’. We advise you have some vaseline on hand…literally.

[via YourEDM]

Comments

Related Posts