Timbaland Ripped Off A Demoscene Tune
 

This is something I read about a couple of weeks ago and found quite interesting, but just remembered about as my sister played a Nelly Furtado song during supper time. While the subject is not VGM per se, I believe it's still relevant enough to be posted here.

For those who don't know about it already, this news has for subject the Hip Hop producer Timbaland, who was showcased much last summer since he produced and did most of the music for the latest album of Nelly Furtado, "Loose". One of the songs on this album, "Do It", is a cool tune. However, much of this "cool" factor is related to the fact it features musical elements similar to a demoscene tune (songs made with computer systems, like the Amiga, but not for a game), so much that it can't be a coincidence, but rather a blatant copy. The demoscene music in question is "Acidjazzed Evening", composed by the Finnish tracker musician Tempest (Janne Suni) for the Assembly 2000 Oldskool Music Competition. It did very well; in fact, it won 1st place! So, it can be said that this is a rather well-known Amiga MOD tune. Two years later, Glenn Rune Gallefoss, a Commodore 64 musician, wrote a C64 version of "Acidjazzed Evening", with Tempest's consent.

In 2005, the problems begin! Timbaland released a set of cellular phone ringtones, including one titled "Block Party". You can definitely hear the C64 version of the tune in it, with the only thing changed being the drum samples. Another fact to prove this is not pure coincidence is that Timbaland actually has a SidStation module (hardware C64 audio player) in his studio, as can be seen in a video. No credits were given to Tempest, and since ringtones aren't the most popular media, this event didn't gather much attention. One year later, Nelly Furtado's album came out. Timbaland decided to recycle his "Block Party" tune and make a full song out of it, which resulted in "Do It". This time, there are lyrics and more effects, but the similarities with "Acidjazzed Evening" are still obvious, and again, the composition was not attributed to Tempest at all. People active around the demoscene noticed this and told Tempest about it. I believe no real attempt of pursuit has been made so far, but he mentionned on his website that he's in contact with a law firm since September 2006. Hopefully this will result into a victory over this act of intellectual property thievery.

When I first heard Nelly's new songs, I thought they were good, especially enjoying the fact they had a nice beat and synthesizers. This made me have a share of respect for Timbaland, music-wise. Sadly, it's all gone now, when I read about how he ripped off a demoscene tune without giving any credits or residuals from the millions they must have made with the album/live shows. And if this wasn't enough, Timbaland was actually asked about this matter in a radio interview and he mentioned he might have sampled it, but it's not the same thing as stealing in his book. He didn't really know if it was public domain or not, comparing it to a Casio keyboard preset demo. In my opinion, this is a ridiculous excuse. And here is a quote from him:

"It's from a videogame, idiot. Freaking jerk."

A total lack of respect for both the original artist and the medium (both tracker and video game music here)! I really hope Tempest will win this case and that Timbaland will face consequences for his actions and attitude.

Here are some related links:

Analysis by C64Audio.com
Flash animation comparing the different versions of the tune
Tempest's site about this subject

Timbaland radio interview: Get the Flash Player to play this audio file:

My goal was to make people aware of this story, but feel free to discuss or add more elements.

Yeah, I never understood that one either. Something went wrong from the day people making records using other people's records were called "musicians". ~_~

I hope Timbaland ends up paying Tempest some huge amount of cash.

haha I don't like Timbaland and his "sampling" thing. Pay, big fucker.

I think it's indicative of the low regard with which VGM is held. If the music was "only" from a video game, it can be freely plagiarized and incorporated into new, derivative works without the author's permission. But if a Nelly song were treated in that way, ripped off and sampled into a new track, swams of lawyers would appear, locustlike, and blot out the sun itself.

I hope the original artist at least gets an official acknowledgement, if not a huge cash payoff. Of course, that might be tied to my dislike of rap as a genre and, conversely, my love for VGM.

Yeah, I read all about this when it made the rounds awhile ago. Timbaland shows he has a complete disregard of musical ethics by blatantly stealing a song someone else made. It's not even a case of it "sounding similar," it's obviously the same thing. For him to write it off as being ok since it's "from a videogame" [which is incorrect], that's just sad.

Listening to the interview now. His thinking is really messed up. At one point he said something like, "Look at my face. Now look at his face...you don't know his face." OK, so it's fine to steal songs from people, as long as you're very well-known and they're not. Yeah, that makes sense.

And of course, the generic radio guys laugh with him at "those Finnish guys." Disgusting.

Like you, Rimo, I hope justice wins here, and Timbaland gets it big time. A court ruling against him or something like that, with it being very public and on the major news stations would be great.

Yeah, this is one of the most blatant ripoffs I've ever heard. Why didn't he just give proper credit and submit it to OC Remix or something? Until he gets his head on a pike, I will set aside 30 minutes a day to pray him a future full of misfortune and AIDS.

Also I like how every single one of the musical acts on the CD they're talking about in the beginning of the interview are card-carrying members of the international association of utterly worthless human beings.

I didn't know about this, but if it really is true (and it seems to be, he's rather ignorant with that statement of his), then it's really quite a shame and I hope Tempest gets the money he deserves for this.

I recenty caught Lil' Wayne ripping of a Thunderforce melody (specifically "Beast Jungle"). Also, Rick Ross copied the soundfont from Guity Gear into one of his newer songs. It mkes me so mad that I want to compose more R-Type final-esque music to asanoganawa those morons to oblivion.

Geez. I've programmed so many soundfonts that I've used composing I'm not all surprised by their plagiarism. Oh well, in the MTV world it's either plagiarize VGM or lose thier intelligence (and then 'gain it back' to the point of their music being devil worship with octaeders (NiN for example). It's even worse when one-beaters try to to instrumental only to make an octaeder that proves their music is devil worship because their souls traded places.