Copyright Trial - Ed Sheeran Almost Quits Music

One more time. Then we do it one more time. One more time. Spin it, rock, spin it one more time. Hit me, baby, one more time. So tell me this. How long is too long to text back someone that you let's just say significant other, maybe boyfriend, girlfriend, for the sake of argument. What's a fair amount of time to like have to hit them back? Like before they should feel comfortable double texting or something or like getting pissed off that you haven't replied? That more so the second, the latter. Does does the person know what you're up to that day? It's well, you know what I mean? It's implied that at this point that, you know, you if you're an entrepreneur, say, you know, or you have a job where you're working all the time, and like, you know, it's it's a good chance that I'm doing something important. Well, not me. This is just, you know, not talking about me, of course. This is just a general person, a general topic, of course. But yeah, it's implied that you know, you're probably like working on some shit or you're in a session or recording a podcast, maybe this general person, maybe maybe like a one-more time podcast. If you wanted to call your podcast that. Um, all right, so I I have a wife, yeah, and I have a child. So I this just let's let's let the record show that this answer is coming from that perspective.

You could still have an opinion. Yes, yes, and I do I do have an opinion. Okay. I think that it's like anything, man. It's about communication in that if that significant other knows that you're about to lock the fuck in, whether it's you got meetings, you got sessions, whatever it is that you're doing, you're out playing golf, you're working out, whatever it is, right? You're visiting friends, family, it doesn't matter. If they know and if you communicate, it depends on how close you are, but let's say you're close, right? And they're your significant other, you said this. Um, if you're communicating what your day's looking like, right, in general dialogue, right? Like, hey, what are you up to tomorrow? If you let them know, yeah, got a busy day coming up, whatever. I think that that gives you almost, you know, like an eight-hour window, like a workday window. What if it's I need eight hours every day? Then you should just say you're busy as fuck every day. Yeah, I don't know, man. But okay, well, if you don't say that, what's just a general that's obviously a long time. If yeah, if if you don't say that, then I mean, I think that like them checking in in the morning, and then I think the biggest testament of this is that you're gonna have to take a piss at some point.

Yeah. I think it's a bathroom window. Yeah. Whatever, like however long you can hold it, and they probably know. This significant other knows like this dude takes a shit at least every four hours, you know what I mean? Every Four hours. How much you shit? I was asking about you. No, I do one in the morning. Okay, I'm just saying. Jesus. Four. Are you shitting three times a day? No. Once again, bro, you need to go to the doctor. That's not cool, man. Four hours every four hours, how much are you eating? God damn. son. every four hours. All right, let's stop this. Yeah, I know. Okay. Well, okay. But I think it's it's so like it's a bathroom break. Expecting once an hour. Is that a little that's way aggressive? Overkill. It's aggressive. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. That's yeah, that's all I wanted to get off my chest. What's up with you, Ben? So, um, have you seen the Fyre Festival uh documentary on Netflix? A while back, yeah. When it came out, yeah. Yeah, what a shit show. Yeah, so uh Billy McFarland is the co founder along with Ja Rule of the Fyre Festival. God damn, they got as close as canceled as you could be after that.

Yeah, but he's making a comeback. This dude is back in the news, he's back in the media. He is doing uh a press run of sorts. Uh so I most recently caught him on DJ Academics' off the record podcast. Big act. Big act. It was interviewing uh Billy McFarland, who once again, you know, started. So Fyre was an app. Did you know this? Did you know this whole thing was supposed to like promote his app? No. So the app was actually kind of a fucking baller idea. So the app was essentially meant to uh match people that were looking to book talent and talent, right? So if I'm an artist and I'm gonna be in Chicago, and I want essentially people to be able to bid on me to come perform at either a regular venue, a private party, a club appearance, whatever it is, it was gonna be a marketplace for booking. Which, as someone who books shows in college in the music industry, it is a fucking nightmare. You're getting overtaxed, right?

Like because you got booking agents, you got whoever involved. So his concept, because he was already booking talent, uh uh, you know, Billy was, uh, his concept along with Ja Rule, and the reason why he was working with Ja is because he had booked Ja Rule uh in his like experience as a promoter, if you will. And then over some drinks, he threw out this crazy app idea. Yeah, yeah. I was like, let's fucking do it. Exactly. And so this festival was really uh meant to be associated with the launch of their app. That sucks. And it completely shit completely hit the fan. Oh man. Um but wait, but his comeback is doing podcasts and interviews? What's the comeback? It's unclear. Um, I think he owes, I think 27 million dollars in restitutions to the investors that he uh frauded or that he lied to, essentially, right? So he was charged with, you know, cases of fraud where he essentially kept raising money, kept raising money uh because he was under pressure to pay for the event, right? He was running into you know obstacles like how do we get clean water, uh, you know, food, uh, shelter, like all these things that he really didn't really think through.

Clearly. Like, because this was just on another level of event that he hadn't done before, right? Um, so he's essentially kind of doing a media run almost in an effort, it seems, to drum up uh like he's he he he's getting paid actually in a lot of these situations. So he's actually making money to start like doing appearances on on media platforms uh to start paying investors off. But 27 million. Yeah, like how do you never he can never have another event though? There's no shot any investor with half a brain is giving this man another chance. I'm pretty sure that if your fail is so big that you got a Netflix documentary about how much of a fuck up you were, you're not getting more money from any halfway smart investor. Dude, it's wild. I think he will. Really? I think he will. Are you going to a Fyre Fest two? This uh it's funny you say that. That was literally the name of the academics podcast. Oh my god. Fyre Fest two. Get the fuck out of here. Swear. I mean, hold on.

Actually, hold on. While you know, while I'm looking that up. Who in their right fucking minds would give that a shot? I mean, clearly it can't possibly be as bad as the first one. Fire Festival part two is literally the name of the episode. I nailed it. Yeah, and it's not like a part two of Academics' podcast. It's literally like what you're saying. Yeah, Fire Festival 2. Anyways, uh, yeah. So shout out to Billy McFarland for being like the world's best scammer, apparently. Like he's giving scam a whole new name. I don't know if he legally owes 27 million. I don't think he's a very good scammer. Too, but he's out there like doing him, you know? It's like, how is he just allowed to be like going around? Anyways, so today on the pod, yeah, we want to discuss a topic we've kind of discussed in passing on the pod, uh, on the interviews a few times. And this is this concept, and it's been in the news recently of uh sampling and copyrighted music. Indeed. Right. Shout out Ed. So Ed Sheeran most recently uh beat a case where he was sued for um using the melody of let's get it on by Marvin Gaye, but he was sued, I think, by Marvin Gay's co-writer, yeah, co-writer. Exactly.

And so Ed won that case. First of all, did you hear the snippets of both songs? Absolutely. And what's what's your take? Did he copyright the melody? It's such a gray area because what is the law isn't even very clear on what is doing too much and what's not. In my personal opinion, when I heard the two songs, I don't think that he stole. I don't think not at all. I don't think he owed at an at all. I think he's completely fine. And he said he was gonna quit music if he lost the case. So that's that's another W for Ed. But I uh I think he I think it was completely blown out of proportion. It it this gray area kind of law opens up the doors for people who live this you know American lifestyle where it's just sue sue sue kind of thing, and it's like, oh, you might be able to make millions of dollars, let's take a shot just for fun, and it you don't realize how to fix other people, which is super shitty in my opinion. Yeah, for me, I didn't think the song sounded similar at all. I mean, not not at all.

You can hear it, like, but but only that because it was brought to my attention. Right. I never would have put that connection to it. So many other songs. Can I listen and immediately point to that's sampled and from this, right? Because there's there's a lot of things. It wasn't sampled, right? It was interpolated. It was it wasn't like they used part of the audio from but same shit is what I'm saying. As far as I can point to whatever it is that maybe was interpolated or covered, or if it's a lyric, if it's a melody, if it's a you know, loop, whatever it is. Typically, you know, in the ones where you'd think a lawsuit would be possible, yeah, I'm able to tell. Right. Like off the fuck. No one needs to point out. It's gotta be a smoking gun, like, okay, you clearly heard this song. Yeah, obviously. And that in this case, it's like he could have very easily there's there's only there's only 12 notes in music. Like there's only so many chords. Like you're gonna hear something again. It's okay. Don't be afraid to like sound kind of like something.

I talked about Virgil Abloh's rule of three percent, yeah, changing something a little bit. Now, with music, if you don't want to get sued for copyright, you might want to change it a little more than three percent. Maybe like seven percent or some shit. I actually saw um there was a producer, it was just some clip I think on Instagram. He was like, My test, man, when I when I sample a song, you know, I I play the loop and then I I shazam it, and if Shazam doesn't find it, then I know I'm good. Oh shit. That's fucking genius. The Shazam test is next level. Right? Yeah. Bro, shout out who I gotta find it, man. Oh my god, we can't. Shout out to you. Yeah, shout out to that person because that is about as good as you can do. It's a great test, right? If Shazam's AI is not figuring it out, yeah, then you gotta be good. You yeah, fuck the courts, right? But it's this stupid game that has developed now that's just for producers. It's like, how much do I have to manipulate the sample where they can't tell? It's like you have to guess. Like, like okay, can they not tell that I did this? You know, and and and you because you don't want to run into a situation where you have to get a sample cleared, which in general costs absorbent amounts of money.

Yeah. And and it's like music is sampling, man. Like it's all about no one just made it, was born and then didn't listen to music and then made a song. I think my biggest problem with all of it is I'm I'm all about everyone getting their just too, right? Like I want people to be paid for, you know, things that they created and other people that are, you know, monetizing off of their art, right? Just like if I invented something, I wouldn't love for people to just completely go steal my shit and make tons of money off of it. You want Google to just make a new version of it and yeah, yeah, make a lot of money. But in this sense, it's almost like we're dealing with, of course, patents almost, right? Like it's it's the similar thing of are patents just do patents ruin the fucking like economy of just products in general. So then my question to you is like as a music consumer, right? As a fan, as someone who loves to listen to music, do you prefer uh songs or are you a fan of songs that you can clearly tell that uh something has been sampled or that it's pointing to an old song's melody or an old song's lyrics? Like, are are you generally a fan of that?

I love it every time. Dude, I fucking love it. I love it. It brings like a nostalgia, but it's new, it's old, it's new. I'm like, oh shit, that's that song. I'm a huge fan of that. And I agree with you that the original writers should get their their dues, like you said, but this whole game that everyone has to play, it just gets silly at this point. And the and just the thought that someone could sue someone in an attempt to get some money is silly to me. Like I hate that it's kind of come to that. There should be more clear laws, it should be more clear, you know, on Yeah. what you can do, what you can't do, and and also and it's also funny, like the people that have different opinions on what's okay to use and what's not. You hear you have, you know, the guy that makes a Drake song with Drake AI vocals and it goes viral, and it's actually a pretty okay song. Like it was kind of catchy. Yeah. And then, and you know, it's removed from the internet. Drake's people hate it and get that shit out of here. And then you have Grimes coming out and saying, make anything you want with my AI voice, but I get 50%.

Yeah. I kind of lean that way. It's like, you know, it unless you think it's tarnishing your brand, maybe as a songwriter. But you know, if it's clear that that's not you didn't make the song, just someone borrowed your shit, and you can just make some extra passive income from it. I don't see what the big deal is. It's the same as like, why do people not clear samples for some artists? Yeah. Yeah, we had North Ave Jax on here, and he talked about how he sampled uh some song that apparently blew up on the Twilight series, I think. Yep. Um, and you know, him and his label decided like fuck it, we're rolling the dice, we're putting this out. Uh, immediately ran into issues, right? So decided to take the song down and pursue getting it cleared, right? So Jax even pulled a trick out of whose book did he say he pulled it out of where he wrote he wrote like a handwritten letter to someone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Jay-Z did it for uh Hard Knock, uh Life. Yeah, Annie.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For the yeah, well, yeah, for the hard knock life, hard knock life sample. Um, and so you know, he even wrote a fucking handwritten letter and was like, oh, please, like, I really want to use this song. And there's like, nah. Nah, fuck that. Yeah. What is the motivation there? You don't have to do anything. Yeah, it wasn't even a matter of a price. You don't have to do anything. You just reap the reward. Make money. It's music. Let people sample your music. Make Make money and let something new and dope come to life. Yes. As a music producer, I don't want people to rip me off. I want to get my money too. But like anyone, you know, go for it. But I'm gonna get my cut. But like anyone can do it. I don't have to like the song necessarily. We talked about Ray Sremmurd's new album. We talked about the Stan reimagining that I'm not a fan of personally. The lean's gone cold. I'm wondering why. I actually kind of like that bar, but just the song in general. Like, I don't know. Eminem cleared it, and Dido clearly, they both cleared it. You know, it came out on a major label.

So it sucked. They're trying to get their money. I didn't like it either. Dude. The album I liked, but we did that on another episode. Go stream that episode. Yeah, so I think I think that it's almost human nature um to want a remixed version of something that you already know and love. That's the best shit. The best music has something familiar and something new. But I'm almost talking in the literal sense of like what we're discussing right now, sampling and covering and whatever. Literally. So Pretty Girls Walk with Coi Leray and Big Boss Vet, I believe is an interpolate interpolation of a uh old song. Um, another one is rodeo with La Pat and Um, who is it? Fuck. Hold on one second. Check the notes, Ben. Where's your notes, Ben? Nah, La Pat and Flow Millie. That's another uh, you know, cover, if you will, or sample, if you will. These are songs that are on XM radio all the time.

Like, I was just listening to like too much XM radio over my uh, you know, past week's uh beach trip. And these songs were just in constant power rotation, like we talked about with with uh Jason Reddick, and it was just these are songs we already know about. So I think we just like you know clinging to shit almost, right? Like something that we already liked, as long as it's like a you know cool version of it, I think we're just drawn to that type of shit. Shout out DJ Cool Herc, you know, who basically started the wave of put chopping up a drum break from an old funk song, some take some James Brown song, loop the drums, and come up with something brand new, man. I mean, that's what it's all about. For sure. I I think that as hip hop fans, we're used to it, it's how it was started. We we feel nostalgic when we're listening to songs that have samples, it's become a huge uh part of the producer community within hip hop, you know, digging through the crates was literally that term was created from sampling, right? So I I think that um that's why we love it, man.

Yeah, and I don't want to see it go anywhere. Me neither. I mean, look at shout out Juice World one time, R I P, but like making, you know, lucid dreams that interpolated a sting song, fucking went crazy. Does he owe did he owe is his estate now owe sting 90% of that song? Yes. But did he become Juice World because of that song? Also, kind of yes. Was it worth it? Fuck yeah. Steal like an artist, my friend. And until next week, Henry, what are we doing? Getting out of here. Getting the fuck out of here. Peace. Love y'all. Peace.