Our favourite danes are in trouble. Djuma Soundsystem are rulled to pay a wopping amount of 747 182 Danish kronas (100 000 €) fine for copyright infringement. It turnes out that their signature track Les Djinns (2006) contain a ten second sample of a somewhat less known track by Atilla Engin called Turkish Showbiz.
The original Atilla Engin was released back in the 1986 and the current copyright owner is by court decision entitled to 84% of Djuma Royalties. As the music industry is today, where everyone samples everyone, this sounds like a bad joke. Especially the whopping amount to be payed. How the 84% of royalties can be calculated to 100 000 € is even less clear.
Danish SVENSKER & SCHAARUP (MEAT CLUB) are throwing a charity party to support Djuma Soundsystem. We also do believe in more love in the music industry and do all we can to help our fellow danes. All the money collected through the Flattr button below will be donated to Djuma Soundsystem, hoping that the trio will spend them wisely on a proper lawyer. Keep the music alive!
(If you don’t have a Flattr account yet – go get one - it’s a great way to make small, secure micro-donations to everything from aspiring artists and musicians to Wikileaks. And pretty much any type of content featured online. Once you’re in – come back and click the flattr button to above)
Original Story: The Copenhagen Post
by Dj Skyjacker of House Music With Love
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Without knowing the details, it does sound like a pretty bad verdict. It’s an arpeggio, for Smurfs sake! But this is the danger of going to court with these things. It’s extremely difficult to predict how things will go.
On the other hand, it is more than likely that the actual fine (if not the entire conclusion) will be overturned in appeal. If I was Djinn’s lawyers, I’d go for a crash course in Turkish folk music. The opening sequence (if that is what the case is about) sounds very generic to me.
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