In the last few days it has come out that Timbaland likely swiped music from a amateur artist for a ringtone and later used it for the backing music for Nelly Furtado's album track "Do It". This video and a followup make the case:
: So did he steal the track? Probably. However the interesting thing is how the story has quickly gone from being tracked in blogs and forums to specialized news sites like Side-Line and being covered in Rolling Stone. Interestingly the hip hop press that I've read suggests it's not a big deal that it isn't worth the controversy. Maybe they are right.
3 comments:
They are not. This is blatant stealing, not sampling.
While the creaters of this ringtone should get some modest compensation, which SHOULD have been worked out prior to the song being releases (which hasn't been stated in any of the articles I have read on the topic,) the fact is, Timbaland took something and created something much much more. "Do It" was one of my favorite songs of last year and had hoped it would in fact be made a single.
I find much artistic worth in taking parts of something and creating something new altogether. It takes only a quick look at Timbalands credits to see that he has been not only an inovator in hip hop, but in music in general.
Should he steal... no. Should his work and hip-hop/rap be dismissed because of the use of samples? No.
I didn’t express my final thought very clearly but why I think the issue isn’t that big of a deal is because I don’t think Timbaland knowingly used the backing track. There were some clips of Timbaland’s sessions with M.I.A. up on youtube a couple of months ago (pulled off for copyright violations I believe) that demonstrated his technique of quickly scanning through his material and finding something with the right vibe. I suspect that he had downloaded the track at some point pulled it up at some time working with Furtado and didn’t realize that it wasn’t his own. While it’s pure speculation on my part it would simply demonstrate bad organizational skills rather than a conscious attempt to steal someone else’s creative work. If he did it maliciously than that’s another story.
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