Sampling Rules 'To Change'

Artists from Coldplay to Ludacris will have to change their ways if they want to continue sampling other musicians' tracks, because new rules mean they have to credit all performances featured on their songs.

While artists protest sampling music allows them to pay homage to their heroes, affected artists insist it amounts to thievery and infringement on their copyright.

New regulations from the sampling office state that bands have a moral obligation to credit the artist before they feature extracts on their own tracks.

The rules will come into force early next year (06) and give artists the right to be credited as the performer on any records where their work has been sampled as well as being able to reject modifications to their performances, which could be considered "prejudicial to the performer's reputation".

Copyright laws currently state that using a "substantial" part of a work without permission is infringement but the word "substantial" is too subjective to indicate any hard line.

Karl Whitfield of the Patent Office says, "Copyright is an economic right but moral rights are to do with integrity. If I give a performance and you do something with it that is detrimental to my reputation, I should be able to complain about it."

Source: ContactMusic