Fair use/public domain for pop songs?

EricVonDoobie

EricVonDoobie

FAQ it
Dec 23, 2009
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Sunnyvale Trailer Park
Might be a long shot but I'm working on a project and would ideally like to use clips from some popular songs (think: stuff on the radio right now) and was wondering if this is legal as long as it's kept to a certain period of time (i.e. 10 seconds) or something? Anyone know anything about this? Not even sure where to look for info on this, thanks in advance.
 


Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

N.W.A. sampled a two-second guitar chord

...ruled that the sampling was in violation of copyright law. Their argument was that with a sound recording, an owner of the copyright on a work had exclusive right to duplicate the work. Under this interpretation of the copyright law, usage of any section of a work, regardless of length, would be in violation of copyright unless the copyright owner gave permission.



But of course Youtube alone probably has millions of videos that technically violate US copyright law. A search there for "gangnam style" provides over 400,000 results, and many of them probably use the track in way that they did not get permission to do so.
 
Moxie said:
Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

N.W.A. sampled a two-second guitar chord

...ruled that the sampling was in violation of copyright law. Their argument was that with a sound recording, an owner of the copyright on a work had exclusive right to duplicate the work. Under this interpretation of the copyright law, usage of any section of a work, regardless of length, would be in violation of copyright unless the copyright owner gave permission.



But of course Youtube alone probably has millions of videos that technically violate US copyright law. A search there for "gangnam style" provides over 400,000 results, and many of them probably use the track in way that they did not get permission to do so.
Click to expand...

Damn, I copyrighted the A-D-E-A chord progression back in 1923. Anyone know a lawyer?
 
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