London’s Daily Mail reports that Shirley Bassey didn’t know Kanye was going to sample her 1971 hit “Diamonds Are Forever” on his latest album.
“He didn’t ask my permission to have me singing on the his song. I didn’t even know it existed until I heard him performing at the Live 8 concert. I didn’t even hear from his record company, which wasn’t very nice. One way or another, he is going to have to pay me a lot of money.”
Is that possible? I mean, we’re not talking about some inscrutable background riff a la the “Bittersweet Symphony” War Of 1997. Shirley’s central to the song! I have a hard time believing Kanye’s peeps weren’t planning on paying her. Shirley, talk to your lawyer.
I’ve been walking around my office singing “Forever ever? Forever ever? Ever, ever? EVER EVER? EVER EVER?” and that shit’s really got to stop.
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This is totally impossible for a release from a major label artist (ESPECIALLY the hit single) Bassey is out to lunch. She might not have been asked, but she sould probably give a call to her publishing company.
This is like when Coolio was like, “Weird Al didn’t get my permission to do Amish Paradise,” and Weird Al was like, “Well, they’ve been cashing the checks, so….”
Money’s in the bank, but the light ain’t in the attic…
she is credited in the liner notes for the cd so I assume they got permission
Kanye West is the most overrated rapper in the world. He just recycles other peoples ideas…. That whole Forever for ever ever… thing was done by OutKast 2 albums ago…
Reference, allusion, etc.
Wow, regarding the Chris Rock thing…. let me save the folks who haven’t seen it some time. He says “George Bush hates midgets.” There, that’s it. It’s not a clever parody, nor even a spoof. He simply says “George Bush hates midgets.” And this is on iFilm why?
Let me give this a shot:
“George Bush hates tennis players.”
“George Bush hates the elderly.”
“George Bush hates gynocologists.”
Wow, am I a brilliant satirist too? I mean, I’m so clever! Cause, you know… I can say something someone else said, and change what the topic is. If this is what is considered humor these days, let me warm up the shotgun barrel by sticking it in my mouth.
Adam is right – there is no way such a prominent sample could slip through on a major label release without the sample having been cleared by the label’s legal department. It’s one thing to imagine some drum loop lifted from an obscure recording getting through… but not a lengthy vocal sample from a well known song.
What’s funny is I have that “ever ever” high pitch vocal stuck in my head, and I too randomly go about the office singing/quoting it.
If she simply sang on the song, but doesn’t own the rights, is it possible that she has no claim to royalties? Or does Kanye need her permission to use her voice?
Can I get a lawyer up in here?
Lawyer? You need a publisher. It’s possible she doesn’t have the rights to the song (either sold it off to her pub.co. or never had rights on the initial track). If she doesn’t, then all he’d need to do was clear it through who does own the rights (most likely some major publisher) and whoever has the master (some major label).
But yeah, there’s no way in god-damned hell, the label (nor Kanye, who’s one clever mo-fo himself) let that sample through without clearance.
She’s just trying to capitalize on the press.
Giving fault to Kanye for using something like “forever ever ever” is ridiculous. If you have been listening to rap for- oh I dont know- the last ten years or so, you’d know that this happens ALL the time
Remember Ice Ice Baby…..
she didn’t write the song so she doesn’t have its publishing rights.
And she didn’t pay for the recording so she doesn’t own the master rights either! Snap!
For more information on sampling and copyright law, check out this great e-book.
http://kembrew.com/documents/mcleod-freedomofexpression3.pdf
Music by John Barry and lyrics by Don Black. It’s only performed by Bassey, so no dice.
Interesting. Will someone call Shirley and tell her to shut the fuck up?
Hey, now. Shirley’s off her rocker, but she’s awesome. Goooold-FINGAHH!
Whatever, it probably sounds better and updated.
servant5150
Hookah Forum
I believe the label who owns the master typically needs the artist’s permission to use the song in a commercial or in a sample on another artist’s album, even if the artist didn’t write the song (as that would be a publishing concern anyway) or own the masters (since the artists rarely own their own masters anyway).
about the coolio – weird al beef. coolio is an idiot. it is called a compulsory license and if i cough up the cash then i can COVER or PARODY any damn song in existence no matter what i do to it or what I say in it AND NO ONE ON EARTH can stop me. as long as weird al re-recorded the music he was in the full right and i would have told coolio to go to hell.
you can’t use a “samle” or any portion of a song without permission and everyone above is correct, i am sure this old lady doesn’t hold the rights to this song and so whoever does sold the use of it off to camp kanye.
Is it possible that the song would be owned by the Brocoli family that oversees all of the James Bond stuff or the studio? Odds are the song was commissioned for the movie, so maybe the right are owned by them. I don’t know, I’m just throwing that out there as a possibility.
A lot of artists didn’t have approval rights back when she did the song, so there’s a good chance the label never had to run it by her. However, Def Jam routinely releases their artists albums without having properly cleared the samples, so if she did have approval rights, it’s not very shocking that she knew nothing about it. While it seems impossible that they can get away with that, they do. They figure they’ll get it taken care of eventually or just settle the claim.
Revised – MGM (now Sony) owns the master, so yeah, she should shut her hole.
Saying Kanye stole “forever ever, ever ever..” is like saying Jagged Edge stole the rhyme of “party/bacardi” from Nada Surf.
Funny too how Coolio was pissed about Weird Al when all Coolio did was change the words to “Pastime Paradise” by Stevie Wonder.
It’s not a question of who owns the master. The master is a physical object and you derive no intellectual property rights from owning it.
The only intellectual property at issue here is the songwriter’s copyright and the right to the sound recording. A sound recording is not a physical thing, it is the recorded sound itself, not the physical medium upon which it is fixed. The right to the sound recording can be owned by anyone regardless of who owns the masters (although they are often held by the same person or entity). So theoretically she could own a piece of the sound recording rights. Although since it was probably a work for hire, she most likely does not own any rights to the sound recording.
Nonetheless she may have a contractual right to say how the sound recording is used. But again, I doubt it.
Also, just to make clear: the songwriter’s copyright and the sound recording are two totally different things. The songwriter’s copyright is the “sheet music” if you will. However in this case, the song was also probably a work for hire, so it too is likely owned in full by the record or film company.
[quote]There’s no way in god-damned-hell the label..let that sample through without clearance[/quote]
You would hope not, but we’ve all seen it happen before. Personally, when these type of things happen, I don’t understand how the artist gets blamed and not the record label. If a book gets printed with a spelling mistake, it’s not the authors fault, it’s the editors.
Yes and no. It’s a writer’s basic obligation to know how to spell words correctly. Just like it’s a musicians basica obligation to make sure their minions (the label, if you look at it that way) take care of the paperwork.
Either that, or don’t sample. It’s not that hard not to do.
Regardless, Kanye’s an EXTREMELY established producer. He knows what’s going on. Like I said, it’s impossible that that sample wasn’t cleared before the record went out.
Often-times samples don’t get cleared when the artist doesn’t tell the label there’s a sample used, and the A&Rs just don’t know any better.
For any given hip-hop record (ie a snoop song that requested a sample from us) they’ll have numerous songs to choose from, depending on what samples get cleared, and who offer the best publishing splits.
I don’t think the Bittersweet Symphony kids get a penny off that song, after that sample kicked in and got its fair share.
hah. old lady is a bit old and perhaps not with it. someone should quiz her to see if she remembers the propellerheads. bet she remembered to cash those checks.
Yeah, she’s a great entertainer but Shirley Bassey is a notorious hooch hound.
Even Charlotte Church says she’s a drunk!
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/050713/364/fn8wm.html
Diamonds Are Forever
Music written by John Barry (Jonathan Barry Prendergrast) and lyrics by Don Black.
All the haters need to back the effe off of SHIRLEY BASSEY! KANYE WEST is over-rated, ugly, has an overinflated ego and should get his ass whooped for dissin the man who made his ass a star. But I digress. Some of you are too young to have the proper respect for Dame Shirley Bassey, so I’ll let that slide, but there is a lot of sh*t hitting the fan when people download music without permission and the first thing artists get in a tizzy about is their ‘voices’. That’s right. They have a ‘right’ to their ‘voices. Now, if you heard YOUR voice on sometimes track and you didn’t get the proper respect, you’d be pissed off too.
Bassey is a legend. West wants to be a legend. Their is a HUGE difference.
Show the proper respect.
And Charlotte Church is a slut so I don’t think she is the proper authority when it comes to putting tags on people.
PEACE!