ABSTRACT
Today, many popular songs rely on ‘sampling’ other artists’ songs. Beyoncé’s Crazy in Love samples a 1970 song; Drake’s newest album, Certified Lover Boy, samples the Beatles’ Michelle on the track Champagne Poetry; Eminem’s smash hit My Name Is samples a funk artist; Britney Spears’ Toxic samples a song from a Bollywood movie.
Sampling is the practice of ‘taking pre-existing sound recordings and using portions of those recordings as new elements in a new musical composition’, typically using a small bit of someone else’s work and spinning it into an entirely new song. It became very popular in hip-hop circles and helped launch the careers of countless rap stars.
A standard remedy for artists whose music has been infringed via sampling is a judge-issued injunction. However, this Article questions the wisdom of that approach by examining the property justifications and remedies justifications for enjoining good-faith, albeit unauthorized, music sampling. Instead of equitable remedies like injunctions, music infringement should be housed mostly – if not exclusively – in legal damages.
Gregorio, Julian, Damages Aren’t so Damaging: Property and Remedies Justifications for Denying Injunctions in Song Sampling Infringement Cases (February 23, 2022). Notre Dame Journal on Emerging Technologies Blog, 2022.
First posted 2022-05-05 13:45:13
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