2007 Timbaland plagiarism controversy
Encyclopedia
Timbaland's plagiarism controversy occurred in January 2007, when several news sources reported that Timbaland
(Timothy Z. Mosley) was alleged to have plagiarized several elements (both motifs and samples) in the song "Do It
" on the 2006 album Loose
by Nelly Furtado
without giving credit or compensation. The song itself was released as the fifth North American single
from Loose on July 24, 2007.
-style 4-channel Amiga
module
composed by Finnish
demoscene
r Janne Suni
(a.k.a. Tempest). The song won first place in the Oldskool Music competition at Assembly 2000
, a demoparty
held in Helsinki
, Finland
in 2000. According to Scene.org
, the song was uploaded to their servers the same year, long before the release of the song by Furtado. The song was later remixed (with Suni's permission) by Norwegian
Glenn Rune Gallefoss (a.k.a. GRG) for the Commodore 64
in SID format
- this is the version which was later used for "Do It". It was added to the High Voltage SID Collection on December 21, 2002.
A video which claims to show proof of the theft was posted to YouTube
on January 12, 2007. Another video was posted to YouTube on January 14, 2007, claiming Timbaland also stole the tune a year earlier for the ringtone Block Party, one of several that were sold in the United States in 2005.
On February 16, 2007, he added the following note:
On September 9, 2007, his webpage was updated with the following information:
On February 3, Gallefoss published the following comment on his personal web page:
:
The first legal action against Universal Finland was officially filed with Helsinki District Court in mid-August 2007, on behalf of Glenn R. Gallefoss.
. In this interview, Timbaland admits to what he calls "sampling", but he also claims that sampling is "not stealing", because "everybody samples from everybody every day". Timbaland also says that the sample is "from a video game" and mentions the Commodore 64. He also says that he has no time for research and that it is sometimes impossible to "know what's public domain and what's not". Timbaland also calls the issue "ridiculous" but mentions that he is "in legal discussions" and therefore can't say much about it. He did, however, call Janne Suni an "idiot" and a "freakin' jerk" on the show. He consistently talked about the incident as sampling, failing to address the claims with regards to the melody.
On February 9, 2007, Timbaland commented on the issue as follows in an MTV interview:
. This device is a MIDI-controlled synthesizer based on the SID chip
of the Commodore 64, and it is capable of playing back .sid files the way they would have sounded on the original hardware. It has been speculated that Timbaland downloaded Gallefoss' version of the song from the High Voltage SID Collection and used the SidStation for running it to the studio system.
Chris Abbott, maintainer of the website C64Audio.com, posted an in-depth analysis on the topic and summarizes it in his on-line article. Abbott has commercially released Commodore 64 music, most notably the "Back in Time" CD series. Abbott writes:
Abbott also notes that although the evidence seems to be conclusive, the eventual outcome is not.
On December 17, 2008, Abbott also testified as a witness of prosecution in the Helsinki court in Gallefoss' case against Universal Music Finland. The Finnish court reportedly threw out the case after ruling in only one aspects of the three claims (sampling, performance rights, producer rights), and the case remains in appellate court
, as of January 2010.
On June 12, 2009, Mikko Välimäki, who is one of the legal counsels of Kernel Records, the owner of the sound recording rights, reported that the case had been filed in Florida.
An often-mentioned example is Zombie Nation
's 1999 hit Kernkraft 400, which was a remake of David Whittaker's song for the 1984 Commodore 64 game Lazy Jones
. Legal action is pending. Another example is the Dutch
hit You've Got My Love, for which the artist Bas "Bastian" Bron
sampled the drums from Jeroen Tel
's and Reyn Ouwehand
's song made for the Rubicon game. Both of the cases were won by the original authors in court.
The Fitts for Fight
case also involved copied chipmusic.
In April 2008, a similar case was revealed about self-proclaimed "chiptune maestro" Laromlab
, who released his self-titled album on Mushpot Records, but shortly after was discovered that the entire album is in fact the work of a chiptune collective called the YM Rockerz. Mushpot responded by dropping Laromlab immediately from the label, and Laromlab himself has issued an apology, stating the "project was a hoax, a complete fallacy".
posts suggesting that "Do It" was based on "Acidjazzed Evening" date back to July 2006, and according to the Finnish news portal eDome, "Suni and other demoscene hobbyists" already knew about it at this time.
The electronic music magazine Side-Line
put a complete news round-up up on its website. Finnish tabloids Ilta-Sanomat
, Iltalehti
, and newspapers ITviikko, and DigiToday also published articles about the suspected plagiarism on January 15, 2007.
On January 16, Finnish news portal eDome published an article about the case saying in the English summary that:
The article also covered similar cases from the past and notified that both the competition and the prize ceremony "were witnessed by the 4000-5000 people at the event. The competition and the ceremony were also shown in Helsinki area cable TV." The same day, the news reached Norwegian media, including Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation
and Dagbladet
, both of which interviewed Gallefoss.
On January 17, the case was reported on briefly by the Rolling Stone
website, XXL Magazine
,
and the popular German IT news portal Heise online
. Heise's story suggests that Timbaland downloaded Gallefoss's SID arrangement from the High Voltage SID Collection
.
On January 18, Rolling Stone put the controversy as top news of the day with a more detailed article. Later that day the San Jose Mercury News
covered the story in their blog
On January 22, MTV
took notice of the issue with a longer article and according video-news. It is not clear if this video news was actually broadcast or merely posted online. MTV owned sister station VH-1 also published the MTV news story. MTV had apparently tried to reach Timbaland's representatives via phone and e-mail, but they "had not responded at press time".
Timbaland
Timothy Zachery Mosley , better known by his stage name Timbaland, is an American record producer, songwriter and rapper....
(Timothy Z. Mosley) was alleged to have plagiarized several elements (both motifs and samples) in the song "Do It
Do It
"Do It" is a popsong by Canadian recording artist Nelly Furtado for her third album, Loose . It was produced by Timbaland and Nate "Danja" Hills...
" on the 2006 album Loose
Loose (Nelly Furtado album)
Loose is the third studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Nelly Furtado. It was released in North America on June 20, 2006 by Geffen Records. Timbaland and his then-protégé Danja produced the bulk of the album, which incorporates influences of dance, R&B and hip hop...
by Nelly Furtado
Nelly Furtado
Nelly Kim Furtado is a Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer and actress. Furtado grew up in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.Furtado first gained fame with her debut album, Whoa, Nelly!, and its single "I'm Like a Bird", which won a 2001 Juno Award for Single of the Year and a 2002 Grammy...
without giving credit or compensation. The song itself was released as the fifth North American single
Single (music)
In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...
from Loose on July 24, 2007.
Background
The original track, entitled "Acidjazzed Evening", is a chiptuneChiptune
A chiptune, also known as chip music, is synthesized electronic music often produced with the sound chips of vintage computers and video game consoles, as well as with other methods such as emulation. In the early 1980s, personal computers became cheaper and more accessible than they had previously...
-style 4-channel Amiga
Amiga
The Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
module
Module file
Module files are a family of music file formats originating from the MOD file format on Amiga systems used in late 1980s...
composed by Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
demoscene
Demoscene
The demoscene is a computer art subculture that specializes in producing demos, which are non-interactive audio-visual presentations that run in real-time on a computer...
r Janne Suni
Janne Suni
Janne "Tempest" Suni is a Finnish demoscener, pixel artist and tracker musician, and a member of the demogroup Fairlight.He is best known outside the demoscene for being the creator of the song "Acidjazzed Evening", the melody of which R&B producer Timbaland used without permission, in the 2006...
(a.k.a. Tempest). The song won first place in the Oldskool Music competition at Assembly 2000
Assembly (demo party)
The Assembly demo party is a demoscene and gaming event in Finland. The main organizers of the event are Pekka Aakko and Jussi Laakkonen . The event takes place every year between late July and early August, and lasts three to four days...
, a demoparty
Demoparty
A demoparty is an event that gathers demosceners and other computer enthusiasts to compete in competitions. A typical demoparty is a non-stop event lasting over a weekend, providing the visitors a lot of time to socialize. The competing works, at least those in the most important competitions, are...
held in Helsinki
Helsinki
Helsinki is the capital and largest city in Finland. It is in the region of Uusimaa, located in southern Finland, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland, an arm of the Baltic Sea. The population of the city of Helsinki is , making it by far the most populous municipality in Finland. Helsinki is...
, Finland
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
in 2000. According to Scene.org
Scene.org
Scene.org is a non-profit organization, providing the currently largest demoscene file repository. It was founded in 1996 by Jaakko "Mellow-D" Manninen, though originally it existed as ftp.fm.org, an FTP-server for releases from the group Five Musicians. In 1997, it re-opened as Scene.org...
, the song was uploaded to their servers the same year, long before the release of the song by Furtado. The song was later remixed (with Suni's permission) by Norwegian
Norway
Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...
Glenn Rune Gallefoss (a.k.a. GRG) for the Commodore 64
Commodore 64
The Commodore 64 is an 8-bit home computer introduced by Commodore International in January 1982.Volume production started in the spring of 1982, with machines being released on to the market in August at a price of US$595...
in SID format
MOS Technology SID
The MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID is the built-in Programmable Sound Generator chip of Commodore's CBM-II, Commodore 64, Commodore 128 and Commodore MAX Machine home computers...
- this is the version which was later used for "Do It". It was added to the High Voltage SID Collection on December 21, 2002.
A video which claims to show proof of the theft was posted to YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
on January 12, 2007. Another video was posted to YouTube on January 14, 2007, claiming Timbaland also stole the tune a year earlier for the ringtone Block Party, one of several that were sold in the United States in 2005.
Janne Suni
Janne Suni posted the following comment regarding the copyright status of "Acidjazzed Evening" on January 15, 2007:On February 16, 2007, he added the following note:
On September 9, 2007, his webpage was updated with the following information:
Glenn Gallefoss
The C64 news portal C64.sk published the following comment from Glenn R. Gallefoss on January 15, 2007:On February 3, Gallefoss published the following comment on his personal web page:
Universal / Nelly Furtado
Hannu Sormunen, a Finnish representative of Universal, which represents Nelly Furtado in Finland, commented the controversy as follows in the January 15, 2007 issue of IltalehtiIltalehti
Iltalehti is a daily tabloid newspaper and the third largest newspaper in Finland. Of tabloid newspapers, Iltalehti has a market share of 40% and its biggest rival Ilta-Sanomat has a market share of 60%...
:
The first legal action against Universal Finland was officially filed with Helsinki District Court in mid-August 2007, on behalf of Glenn R. Gallefoss.
Timbaland
On February 2, 2007, Timbaland responded to the plagiarism accusations in an interview by the radio show Elliot in the MorningElliot in the Morning
Elliot in the Morning is a morning radio talk show hosted by DJ Elliot Segal. It airs weekdays from "5:48 until 10-something" on WWDC-FM in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area and on WRXL in Richmond, Virginia...
. In this interview, Timbaland admits to what he calls "sampling", but he also claims that sampling is "not stealing", because "everybody samples from everybody every day". Timbaland also says that the sample is "from a video game" and mentions the Commodore 64. He also says that he has no time for research and that it is sometimes impossible to "know what's public domain and what's not". Timbaland also calls the issue "ridiculous" but mentions that he is "in legal discussions" and therefore can't say much about it. He did, however, call Janne Suni an "idiot" and a "freakin' jerk" on the show. He consistently talked about the incident as sampling, failing to address the claims with regards to the melody.
On February 9, 2007, Timbaland commented on the issue as follows in an MTV interview:
Third-party analysis
A device in Timbaland's studio, as seen in video clips from the MTV show "Timbaland's Diary", has been identified as an Elektron SidStationElektron SidStation
The Elektron SidStation is a musical synthesizer sound module, built around the MOS Technology SID mixed-mode synthesizer chip originally used in the Commodore 64 home computer. It was produced by the Swedish synthesizer company Elektron, and was introduced in 1999...
. This device is a MIDI-controlled synthesizer based on the SID chip
MOS Technology SID
The MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID is the built-in Programmable Sound Generator chip of Commodore's CBM-II, Commodore 64, Commodore 128 and Commodore MAX Machine home computers...
of the Commodore 64, and it is capable of playing back .sid files the way they would have sounded on the original hardware. It has been speculated that Timbaland downloaded Gallefoss' version of the song from the High Voltage SID Collection and used the SidStation for running it to the studio system.
Chris Abbott, maintainer of the website C64Audio.com, posted an in-depth analysis on the topic and summarizes it in his on-line article. Abbott has commercially released Commodore 64 music, most notably the "Back in Time" CD series. Abbott writes:
Abbott also notes that although the evidence seems to be conclusive, the eventual outcome is not.
Court proceedings
In August 2007, an action for infringement was filed in the District Court of Helsinki against Universal Music, Ltd alleging Nelly Furtado's song "Do It" infringed "Acid Jazz Evening". In January 2009, after a trial that included multiple expert and technical witnesses, a three judge panel unanimously dismissed the plaintiff's case. Writing for the court, Judge Lemstrom writes, "The plaintiff has lost his case in its entirety."On December 17, 2008, Abbott also testified as a witness of prosecution in the Helsinki court in Gallefoss' case against Universal Music Finland. The Finnish court reportedly threw out the case after ruling in only one aspects of the three claims (sampling, performance rights, producer rights), and the case remains in appellate court
Appellate court
An appellate court, commonly called an appeals court or court of appeals or appeal court , is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal...
, as of January 2010.
On June 12, 2009, Mikko Välimäki, who is one of the legal counsels of Kernel Records, the owner of the sound recording rights, reported that the case had been filed in Florida.
Similar cases
Earlier examples of unauthorized commercial use of SID music have been brought up by sources covering the Timbaland plagiarism controversy.An often-mentioned example is Zombie Nation
Zombie Nation (band)
Zombie Nation is a German techno and electro project of the Munich based DJ and producer Florian Senfter.-History:The first Zombie Nation five track EP was released in the spring of 1999 on DJ Hell's label, International DeeJay Gigolo Records...
's 1999 hit Kernkraft 400, which was a remake of David Whittaker's song for the 1984 Commodore 64 game Lazy Jones
Lazy Jones
Lazy Jones is a computer game for the Commodore 64, ZX Spectrum, MSX and Tatung Einstein. It was written by David Whittaker and released by Terminal Software in 1984. The Spectrum version was ported by Simon Cobb....
. Legal action is pending. Another example is the Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
hit You've Got My Love, for which the artist Bas "Bastian" Bron
Bas Bron
Bas Bron is a musical artist and a producer of mostly electronic music from Amsterdam, The Netherlands.-Bastian:Bas Bron is perhaps most famous in the Netherlands under the moniker Bastian...
sampled the drums from Jeroen Tel
Jeroen Tel
Jeroen Godfried Tel is a Dutch composer. Best known for numerous computer game tunes he wrote in the 1980s and early 1990s for the Commodore 64, Tel is a founding member of the computer music group Maniacs of Noise....
's and Reyn Ouwehand
Reyn Ouwehand
Reyn Ouwehand is a composer of music and former member of Maniacs of Noise , composing for the Commodore 64 sound chip, the SID soundchip. His commercial works include Flimbo's Quest and Last Ninja 3....
's song made for the Rubicon game. Both of the cases were won by the original authors in court.
The Fitts for Fight
Fitts for Fight
Fitts for Fight is a female duo consisting of Ellinor Aurora Aasgaard and Julie Ilona Balas from Kristiansand in Norway. They became known when it was revealed that the songs they claimed to have written themselves were made by demoscene musicians and downloaded from micromusic.net, while the two...
case also involved copied chipmusic.
In April 2008, a similar case was revealed about self-proclaimed "chiptune maestro" Laromlab
Laromlab
Laromlab is the stage name of Brandon Harrod, an American electronic musician and computer artist working in the chiptune genre.Brandon Harrod had just released an album on the American label Mushpot Records in February 2008 when it was revealed that all of the tracks on the record were made by...
, who released his self-titled album on Mushpot Records, but shortly after was discovered that the entire album is in fact the work of a chiptune collective called the YM Rockerz. Mushpot responded by dropping Laromlab immediately from the label, and Laromlab himself has issued an apology, stating the "project was a hoax, a complete fallacy".
The beginnings of the controversy
The earliest internet forumInternet forum
An Internet forum, or message board, is an online discussion site where people can hold conversations in the form of posted messages. They differ from chat rooms in that messages are at least temporarily archived...
posts suggesting that "Do It" was based on "Acidjazzed Evening" date back to July 2006, and according to the Finnish news portal eDome, "Suni and other demoscene hobbyists" already knew about it at this time.
Mainstream coverage
One of the first large media to react to the on-line controversy was the Finnish Broadcasting Company, which published a news item on the topic on January 14, 2007.The electronic music magazine Side-Line
Side-Line
Side-Line is an online music magazine specialising in electronic music, and electro-goth/industrial in particular. It was founded in 1989 as a print publication, and had a circulation of 6,000 in Europe and America...
put a complete news round-up up on its website. Finnish tabloids Ilta-Sanomat
Ilta-Sanomat
Ilta-Sanomat is one of Finland's two prominent tabloid size evening dailys and the second largest newspaper in the country...
, Iltalehti
Iltalehti
Iltalehti is a daily tabloid newspaper and the third largest newspaper in Finland. Of tabloid newspapers, Iltalehti has a market share of 40% and its biggest rival Ilta-Sanomat has a market share of 60%...
, and newspapers ITviikko, and DigiToday also published articles about the suspected plagiarism on January 15, 2007.
On January 16, Finnish news portal eDome published an article about the case saying in the English summary that:
The article also covered similar cases from the past and notified that both the competition and the prize ceremony "were witnessed by the 4000-5000 people at the event. The competition and the ceremony were also shown in Helsinki area cable TV." The same day, the news reached Norwegian media, including Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation
Norsk Rikskringkasting
The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation , which is usually known as NRK, is the Norwegian government-owned radio and television public broadcasting company, and the largest media organisation in Norway...
and Dagbladet
Dagbladet
Dagbladet is Norway's second largest tabloid newspaper, and the third largest newspaper overall with a circulation of 105,255 copies in 2009, 18,128 papers less than in 2008. The editor in chief is Lars Helle....
, both of which interviewed Gallefoss.
On January 17, the case was reported on briefly by the Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
website, XXL Magazine
XXL (magazine)
XXL is a Hip-Hop magazine, published by Harris Publications.In 1997, XXL was founded by former Source staffers as well as other Harris Publication employees, who wanted to create their own magazine about the hip-hop music and culture using the model developed by the founders of The Source...
,
and the popular German IT news portal Heise online
Heinz Heise
Heinz Heise is a publishing house based in Germany.- History :Heise was created in Hanover in 1949 as an address and telephone directory publisher, then later expanded to include magazines and loose leaf collections. In 2001, the company was divided into separate enterprises, all of which came...
. Heise's story suggests that Timbaland downloaded Gallefoss's SID arrangement from the High Voltage SID Collection
The High Voltage SID Collection
The High Voltage SID Collection is both the name of a project to build a collection of music created on the MOS Technology 6581/8580 SID sound chip in Commodore CBM-II, Commodore 64 and Commodore 128 home computers and the collection itself...
.
On January 18, Rolling Stone put the controversy as top news of the day with a more detailed article. Later that day the San Jose Mercury News
San Jose Mercury News
The San Jose Mercury News is a daily newspaper in San Jose, California. On its web site, however, it calls itself Silicon Valley Mercury News. The paper is owned by MediaNews Group...
covered the story in their blog
On January 22, MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
took notice of the issue with a longer article and according video-news. It is not clear if this video news was actually broadcast or merely posted online. MTV owned sister station VH-1 also published the MTV news story. MTV had apparently tried to reach Timbaland's representatives via phone and e-mail, but they "had not responded at press time".
External links
- Acidjazzed Evening (MOD format, ZIP-compressed)
- Acid Jazz (C64 remix) (SID format)
- Collection of different sources about the issue