muddying the sampling waters/copyright

["Liebig, Steuart A." <LiebigSA@Maritz.com>]

This isn't strictly about the sampling issue, but it may be an interesting
side-light:

Anyone remember the Richard Roundtree/Shaft rip-off ad as Schlitz Malt
Liquor? It seems that the producers of the ad hired the guy, J.J. Johnson,
who did the original orchestrations for the Shaft theme music (and other
music for the film) that Isaac Hayes did. Isaac Hayes sued the producers,
J.J., and Schlitz and their ad agency for some sort of copyright
infringement because the music sounded TOO similar to the original. A lot 
of
the similarity was, of course, due to the wah-wah guitar part that, 
although
different, lent much of the flavor to the ad's music. The defense brought 
in
a lot of music experts on the wah-wah and its sound, etc. The jury came 
back
and found in favor of Isaac Hayes.

Now when I heard the music for the ad on TV, I said, "Oh someone's copped
the Shaft theme, pretty funny." Apparently, you CAN sue for that. 

Same defense attorney had a case where Tom Waits sued Doritos (I think it
was) because they used a "sound alike" for one of their ads. I guess the
defense said that the agency had wanted the sound of someone who Waits had
modeled some of HIS sound on . . . can't remember how that went, but I'm 
not
sure that Waits didn't win.



Did anyone see that Jagger/Richards seem to have gotten ALL of the
publishing for the Verve's "Sweet Symphony" (real title escapes me right
now) bacause of the sample that was looped/used? This blew my mind, then I
was explaining the deal that was made to someone who wasn't a musician and
why it outrages me. His response: "Oh that's the whole song, of course
Jagger/Richards should get it all"!