NASHVILLE, Tenn. – A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that rap artists should pay for every musical sample included in their work — even minor, unrecognizable snippets of music.
Lower courts had already ruled that artists must pay when they sample another artists’ work. But it has been legal to use musical snippets — a note here, a chord there — as long as it wasn’t identifiable. The decision by a three-judge panel of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals in Cincinnati gets rid of that distinction. The court said federal laws aimed at stopping piracy of recordings applies to digital sampling.
