Freesound Forums

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac

I came across this video on YouTube when researching the infamous "Amen Break".

Bram you might like this, near the end the recording speaks about how the 6 second "Amen Break" has been oversampled and misused by people who don't give the original creators credit. It tells about a company in the UK called "Zero-G Limited" and how they copyrighted the infamous break in 2002, 33 years after it was originally recorded and copyrighted by the band "The Winstons" in 1969. This break has actually been submitted into the sample banks here at Freesound which made me wonder if that is remotely legal.

Although the video is long, I suggest that you watch all of it since it emphasizes more than just the history of a drum beat, it emphasizes the todays problem of digital sampling and it wide misuse.

This is the loop submitted to Freesound sampled from the song "Amen Brother" by The Winstons.
http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/samplesViewSingle.php?id=24940

Awesome. I'll watch the vid, but I'm having some troubles with my computer's audio... Grrr...

zero G - what prats.

Bless the Winstons and James Brown etc for not goin after anyone with lawsuits... did they?

In the video the narrator says that the man who started The Winstons didn't file any law suits and didn't take any action against companies like Zero-G Limited. I'm sure if the original members won a case against people who violated the copyright they'd be millionaires. Sadly when I Google searched "The Winstons" I only found a 1 paragraph Wikipedia entry, not hardly the amount of credit they deserve.

I am flabberghasted that there have been no major lawsuits yet.

Like Xerox or Qtip, it has become more than a brand name... too many people to sue I suppose. Even I realized I have used it and can't remember where I got it from. See here:

http://www.archive.org/details/DemiDemiDemi

This also happened with some sounds on here that I was saving under names that made sense in my folder system of sounds before the autonaming started on here long ago. Once the file names were changed I was unable to indentify lots of sounds so if anyone hears one I missed atribution on, just let me know and Ill update my song credits.

Warning: that song has some seriously offensive lyrics, I didn't write them or sing them. Very interesting story though. The wikipedia article even has the sample posted so they will be our canary.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_break

They can sue me, I can file chapter 7 again now.

Seems to me that this is pretty much de facto public domain material by now. Technically they could sue, but I don't think the winstons want to and zero-g doesn't have a very good claim. "Amen brother" was of course already published, in copyright, and is thus 'prior art'.

Not quite sure if it belongs on freesound, though. I say leave it up unless we get a takedown notice.

its funny that i found this. because i was thinking something similar. i was thinking that..hey isn't that copy right problems because someone has put up that loop? i mean even if no one is suing...its still illegal right?

well if not then i have plenty of old movie samples that i know people will go ape shit over..so perhaps i'll put them up. many of them are from an old graffiti movie called style wars. i know for sure people would eat them up. think i should put them up? i mean..its no different than what some are doing with the amen break...or is it?

If the movies are still in copyright, I would have to say no. In the U.S. there are new exceptions being proposed regarding "orphaned works" but this is a narrow case, and the laws/rules have not been agreed upon yet. The amen break is a special exception because there's a precedent of the copyright owners being pretty much okay with the use of their sample, or at least not wanting to get into a legal battle with the entire genre of dnb.

So I think it's pretty much de facto public domain- but again, they have the ability to assert copyright, it just probably isn't worth it. Who really wants to spend all that time and money in court aside from rich trade organizations?

And again, if they really do have a problem with it we can always take it down.

i agree hall with your assesment. i'm gonna put them up anyway.

guess i see things for what they are. even if the wisnston bro's don't care..according to the law its still illegal...soo...

as for the movie..hell if i know if its still under copy right...and honestly..i care about it as much as those who are putting up the amen break and claiming it as their own work. (come on now hall did you really think i'd go a post without talking some sort of smack?hehehehe)

The thing that olny angery's me is when people use the break as is, or when they only do cut&paste it but no filtering, compress, distort. nothing, i'm like you gotta do something to it, otherwise your a thing and i don't like you. you know??

I have about three folders, each haves one of all the sliced drums from the break, each folder is a different filters and distortion of the break.

yeah man i agree 100% with you on that. tweak it please. i mean if you just chop it up and play back the hits...i really can't give anyone props for that (which tends to be what many do).