The Song That Plays When Nintendo Sues You
In 1994, a Cleveland studio recorded a jingle for a real estate ad — and decades later it became one of the most litigated ten seconds in music. This is the story of how a throwaway melody exposed the strange machinery of sampling law, and why the people who wrote it never saw a cent.
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Music law splits every track into two distinct legal interests: the composition and the sound recording.
The Bridgeport ruling established a zero-tolerance policy that treats digital sampling as a physical property violation.
Courts in different regions disagree on whether tiny, trivial snippets of audio require a legal license.
The Beastie Boys successfully defended sampling a three-note flute sequence under the de minimis doctrine.
Madonna won a case involving a fraction-of-a-second horn hit that was deemed too short for infringement.
The twenty fifteen Blurred Lines verdict expanded copyright liability to include the general vibe of a song.
- 01Intro1 min
- 02The Two Lives of a Song2 min
- 03The Rule of Zero Tolerance2 min
- 04The Flute and the Horn Hit3 min
- 05The Geography of Sound2 min
- 06Outro1 min
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