There are many parallels to the legal and moral issues surrounding sampling today to the issues around copyright and cover records in the 1950s and 1960s.
Cover records were a phenomenon that became popular in the 1950s and 1960s where artists would remake other, already published songs with slight changes and release them as their own. One famous example is the song “Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard from which Pat Boone later released a cover record of the same name. The songs were similar except Pat Boone’s version was released to satisfy the majority white audience across the U.S.
Little Richard, who sang Tutti Frutti which was covered by Pat Boone
There are many similarities through a moral perspective between cover record and sampling controversies. Cover records were primarily made by white artists that would make cover records of songs created by black artists. Therefore, it seemed as black artists were exploited by these white artists and the music industry as a whole as black artists did not receive royalties since it instead went to the songwriters. Similarly, smaller, lesser known artists may feel taken advantage of when their music gets sampled by a larger artist as they also do not receive royalties; instead the songwriters or copyright holders usually collect them. This was not only true from the viewpoint of artists with their record labels but also the public’s opinion. Many black audiences felt as if original black artists were not properly being appreciated due to cover records where fans of the original artist being sampled may feel the same when the artist is not properly acknowledged in the song with the sample.
Like sampling, cover records have also proved to be inconsistent in helping the original artist. For example, the original artist may receive a boost in commercial success, however it may vary and not last for long. This is because for cover records, eventually the public started to become interested in the original songs as well and for samples, the listeners may go listen to the original sample. In both cases, it may be difficult for the original artist to retain the audience, which may still leave them feeling exploited. However, if the original artist is able to retain a consistent artist as a result of their music being used, it can be seen as a big win in the long run as their music career can be sustainable.
A large difference to consider is that cover records typically would try to recreate songs in order to fit a sound that catered to white audiences. This isn’t necessarily true for sampling today. Therefore, cover records differ from sampling as one objective for them was to adhere to a larger audience and take away aspects of the original song such as black inspired rhythms and sounds.
Overall, cover records were less morally justifiable than sampling today due to the racist implication of cover records but despite this, both have had similarities, good and bad, in their corresponding time frames.
We can also begin to look at the similarities and differences in legal aspects of both cover records and sampling. In the 50s and 60s, copyright laws did not capture music much in general, meaning there were fewer ways to objectively determine copyright cases with music. During this time, there was the idea of a compulsory license, where explicit permission to cover a song was not needed as long as royalties were paid to the copyright holders. This made it so it was easier to exploit artists legally as the artists were usually not the copyright holder. A notorious example is with Big Mama Thornton’s Hound Dog, which was covered by Elvis Presley around five years later. Big Mama Thornton did not originally have royalties as a part of her deal from “Hound Dog” and also never received compensation when the songwriters received royalties from Elvis’ cover version through a lawsuit. This instance shows how during this time, artists could not only be taken advantage of from cover records but also their own music labels. Today, there are many more copyright laws and previous cases to be brought up in court such as the Biz Markie case that intend to protect the rights of artists. This makes the outcome of going into lawsuits more predictable as there are more examples and sources to draw from in the past that have been under similar circumstances. Despite this, there are still cases with ambiguity such as the “Blurred Lines” case mentioned earlier where the lawsuit was started due to the “feel” of two songs being similar. Therefore, we can see that artists have gotten better legal rights within their music label, partly due to civil rights changes. We can also see that there are still cases where it is not clear the proper outcome due to copyright laws of the time.
Big Mama Thornton
By examining the similarities and differences between copyright issues from the 1950s and 1960s to sampling today, we can see the evolution of these copyright issues both morally and legally as well as the trajectory of issues going into the future. In the 50s and 60s, out right copies of songs called copy records and very similar renditions with cover records were common, yet controversial. In more recent times, sampling, where certain aspects of another song are used, has also become controversial. Lastly, newer lawsuits such as the “Blurred Lines” lawsuit have been investigating concern with the “feel” of certain songs. This change over time shows how copyright issues and controversies have been slowly moving away from objectively copying from a source to subjective instances of plagiarism. Part of this may be due to more complex and strict copyright laws enforced on the artform of music, which is hard to evaluate impartially. Taking all of this into account, it is interesting to see the role copyright laws will play in music going into the future and whether it may limit some artists from freely publishing music in fear of lawsuits.