I've heard alot of songs in the hip-hop section of the AP and quite a few are instrumentals that other (quite famous) people have made and the people that have uploaded them have put their own lyrics over it.
Is this allowed?
i thought the portal was for original work only
It shouldn't be allowed if the ratio between the user's work and the original (stolen) work is incorrect. That means, if it's a beat that you recognize and they only used it to layer a relatively small amount of lyrics over it, then it's not ok.
Sorry if that was confusing, I just woke up.
At 3/12/06 10:17 AM, MrRaven wrote: quite a few are instrumentals that other (quite famous) people have made
I would agree with API - you should not submit a song where it's basically just (randomNGuser)'s version of "Well known song" - especially when the instrumentals are the same and you're only doing the vocals in place of the original artist.
For sampling and "borrowing", I'm pretty sure you can get away with up to 15 seconds of the original or 25% of the total - whichever is greater - I'm NOT a lawyer! - I'm only talking about what I think I remember about the creation of derivative works.
But just adding your voice, especially if the lyrics are the same, to existing music would definitely be copyright infringement and that's a no-no.
ah right, thank you, thats cleared it up for me =)
Of course, theres nothing wrong with making a track sound exactly like sombody elses, as long as you do all the work yourself ;-)
