Mondo Knows Facts
A 1991 court ruling changed sampling overnight
Grand Upright against Warner made an uncleared loop straightforward infringement Biz Markie's Alone Again lifted a Gilbert O'Sullivan song without permission. In December 1991 a US judge held that the practice was simple theft, quoting the commandment against stealing in his opinion. The decision pushed producers to clear every sample and made licensing a routine studio cost. It sits in Mondo's music collection, one of 200 facts that each trace back to the reference below.
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US copyright lasts 70 years after a songwriter diesWorks written from 1978 onward are protected for life plus seven decadesA cover version needs only a statutory licenceA compulsory licence dates from 1909, after player piano rolls escaped controlCD audio samples 44,100 times a secondThe rate came from fitting film and television equipment rather than hearingOne song pays out through several separate streamsPublishing, performance, mechanical and sync money are collected differentlyComposers organised a collecting society in 1914ASCAP gathered licence fees from venues and split them among membersAmerican copyright now runs for life plus seventy yearsWorks published long ago can still be under protection after repeated extensions
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Tags: sampling, copyright, lawsuits
A 1991 court ruling changed sampling overnight: the short answers
- Where does this come from, and can I check it?
- Grand Upright against Warner made an uncleared loop straightforward infringement. The figure is taken from Music Business Worldwide, which is linked in full on this page. Every fact on Mondo Knows names its source rather than repeating an unsourced claim.
- Is this really a music fact?
- Yes. It sits on the Music shelf, one of 2,600 sourced facts grouped into space, animals, the human body, history, science and more. Category pages collect every fact in the same field.
- What else can I read about it?
- The links under the fact point to a quiz, game, puzzle or calculator on the same subject, and the shelf below shows related facts. The wording here is original, and quoted phrases are marked as quotations.