pouët.net

I AM A LAMER AND A TROLL

Exactly why is this fight happening at somethingawful?

Arguements about Real Dolls, Furries and people
wearing diapers are much more the norm there

o the latest internet controversy is about how Timbaland is a beat biter and perhaps even a dope style taker. Stemming from a Digg post, the story goes that Timbo jacked a loop wholesale from a “demoscene” song put together six years earlier. (Wikipedia has a detailed description of the demoscene for those who are interested. But in short it’s computer music and animation made on old computers by nerds and for nerds. And I mean nerd in the least derogatory sense possible, but I don’t think there’s more appropriate word for the type of person who makes internet only music. It’s sort of like internet only music journalism.)

I know I fall into the role of Captain-Save-a-Timbo pretty often and I’d like to initially go on record by saying that the Nelly Fertado track in question is pretty uninspired no matter how you cut it. But it’s also not really deserving of all this outrage.

What we have here is a case of 21st Century beat digging. These types of things happen all the time, it’s just that the “victim” doesn’t have the luxury of having a nerd army with a vague understanding of copyright law on their side. If he looped up an obscure finnish LP that sold a hundred copies no one would be the wiser and the three record collectors who did know what was up would give the dude respect for getting his fingers dirty. The original artist would probably not get paid, not necessarily out of malice or neglect but merely because tracking down a Finnish recording artist and his publishers is not the easiest task. I’d imagine it’s even more difficult to do this with a Finnish recording artist who makes music on Commodore computers and puts it on the internet.

I understand a lot of this has to do with the collective pride of a bunch of geeks and their ongoing one sided war with mainstream media. I do agree that the original artist deserves some sort of remuneration, and I would be surprised if after all the publicity he’s getting he did not recieve any. But if you are going to attack Timbaland’s credibility for this, you might as well throw out 90% of pre-1997 hip hop that lazily looped up a sample. Or every blues and rock musician who jacked a riff, for that matter.

Maybe I should make a “Marley Marl Ripped Off a Track From My Buddy” digg post.