During its first week of release, Vultures 1, the first full-length release from the artist formerly known as Kanye West and singer Ty Dolla $ign, switched distributors, was temporarily pulled from Apple Music and cut a song to avoid a potential copyright infringement issue raised by Donna Summer. estate. By now, the album's story may be as interesting as the music itself — and Advertising sign has reported that some samples remain indeterminate, suggesting this could be just the beginning.
Like many hip-hop artists, Ye makes music that includes both snippets of other recordings (samples) and re-recorded snippets of other songs (interventions, which are also confusingly referred to as samples). Samples generally require permission from the owner of the recording and the underlying composition, while jams only require the latter. West appears to have cleaned up some of the samples and jams he used, but not all.
There was a time when this would have been dangerous. When the music business was dominated by physical media, rights holders whose work was used without permission had the legal power to take most, or even all, of the rights to a song, as ABKCO famously did with 'Bitter Sweet' by Verve Symphony', which sampled a ABKCO-controlled version of Rolling Stones' 'The Last Time'. The Verve's only other option would be to destroy all existing copies of the album they were on and stop promoting what became their breakthrough hit.
West won't face these problems, in part because there's no song Vultures 1 it's equally dependent on a sample or interpolation, and partly because the nature of streaming means that most music – most art, really – is never really definitive anymore. When Donna Summer's estate said West had used elements of “I Feel Love” without permission for “Good (Don't Die),” the song was simply taken offline. Unclear samples could be re-recorded if West can get permission from a publisher but not a label, or simply replaced by other musical elements. Albums can evolve for legal as well as artistic reasons.
This is an extreme example of what seems like a general trend, as is Travis Scott's album Utopia which Advertising sign it was recently reported that she has her own issues with songwriting credits and royalty splits. In this case, Scott worked with producers and co-writers, but did not close all the deals involved. Scott is far from the only artist to tackle this issue. Here, too, Scott's collaborators could sue—though that would be a foolish move, as many of them depend on his star power to promote their work, and the nature of streaming mitigates potential legal threats.
In both cases, the balance of power in a licensing system that originally gave greater leverage to songwriters and other rights holders now tilts toward recording artists, particularly the powerful ones. This could be bad for other creators because the less money they make, the more tempted they are to cut any deal they can to keep the money coming. In most cases, delays in negotiation and payment are just that. -Drafting deals becomes very complicated because there is only so much credit, and therefore rights, to go around. But the way leverage is shifting towards artists doesn't exactly inspire their teams to tackle it as quickly as possible.
The same kind of pressure doesn't apply to publishers who control jamming rights for older songs, but it's important to remember that that money goes to creators, too — often on better terms than streaming revenue. Beyond financial considerations, creators also have the right to decide whether they want to associate with other creators, just as they have the right to decline advertising opportunities. In West's case, Ozzy Osbourne turned down West's request to try out a live version of “Iron Man,” which he wrote with his Black Sabbath bandmates, due to West's anti-Semitic comments. So West just went ahead and sampled his own song, “Hell of a Life,” which uses the same riff. Osbourne could prevent that — his team didn't comment on West's use of that other song — and he might decide to try.
The music business needs a code of conduct to address this situation before it gets worse. If it is too strict to require artists to settle all rights before releasing an album, a voluntary code could mandate draft agreements or require finals to be completed within a certain time frame. The idea would be to give artists the time they need to resolve rights issues, within reasonable time frames that keep the negotiations relatively fair. If artists can't understand the issues of credits paying their collaborators, maybe they shouldn't submit their music for the Grammy Awards — which are voted on by other creators — or even be allowed to. The idea is not to punish anyone, just to create a hard deadline.
None of this would address Osbourne's issue with West, which I can't help but take more seriously than the others. Consider this: The No. 1 album in the country this week is from an anti-Semite who has praised Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and will soon headline a major festival. (In December, West apologized for his comments in a statement in Hebrew, but it's hard to know how seriously to take it, considering that album has a line about how “I just gave a Jewish b– .”) I think it's possible to enjoy good art made by bad people, and I guess most people do Vultures 1 Don't agree with the crazy things West has said. At the same time, it feels wrong to write about the copyright issues facing West without acknowledging how much hate there has been. Obviously, West will find ways to license the snippets of music he uses on this album or otherwise replace them. But as he faces pushback from creators and rights holders reluctant to be associated with him, such as Osbourne, he may begin a more serious effort to make up for some of the awful things he's said.
