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United States Court Of Appeals For The Sixth Circuit
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June 3, 2005
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Bridgeport Music, Inc, et al v Dimension Films, et al
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410 F3d 792
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Ralph B Guy, Jr , Ronald Lee Gilman , and Judith M Barzilay (sitting by designation)
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230 F Supp 2d 830 ( MDTenn 2002) (granting summary judgment for defendant), ''rev'd'', 383 F3d 390 (6th Cir 2004), ''rehearing granted in part and opinion amended'', 401 F3d 647 (6th Cir 2004)
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district court erroneously granted summary judgment for defendant on claim for Copyright Infringement based on fact that defendant's copying of plaintiff's copyrighted sound recording was merely '' De Minimis '' Court of Appeals rejects ''de minimis'' defense to claim for copyright infringement of a sound recording
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, 410 F.3d 792 (6th Cir. 2005), is a court case that has proved important in defining
American Copyright Law for recorded music. The case centered around
N.W.A. ’s song “100 Miles and Runnin’” and
Funkadelic's “Get Off Your Ass and Jam.” Essentially,
N.W.A. sampled a two-second guitar chord from Funkadelic’s tune, lowered the pitch and looped it five times in their song. This was all done without Funkadelic's permission and with no compensation paid to Bridgeport Music, which owns the rights to Funkadelic's music. Bridgeport brought the issue before a federal judge, who ruled that the incident was not in violation of copyright law.
On appeal, the doctrine for recorded music in the Sixth Circuit, and has affected industry practice. However, the court expressly noted that the decision did not preclude the availability of other defenses, such as
Fair Use , even in the context of "sampling." Thus, in the Sixth Circuit, defendants may not rely on the ''de minimis'' doctrine to say that they copied such a small amount that they are not liable for copyright infringement. However, they may still argue that their use of the sample is still a ''fair use''--that is, that the use is transformative, for noncommercial purpose, copied only a small amount, the original had a thin copyright, or the copying did not harm the market for the original work or its derivatives.
The court, with this ruling, created a
Bright-line Test resulting in any unlicensed sampling would be considered copyright infringement.
A new concept for dealing with such issues as this has been discussion in the music world on creating a
Compulsory Sampling License model.
