20 Years Ago Biz Markie Got The Last Laugh

When sampling technology and practices became hip-hop’s musical blueprint in the late 1980s, the business and legal rules were a thoroughly gray area. Since the techniques created digital copies of source material, copyright holders could argue that unauthorized sampling violated their intellectual property. Those doing the sampling could argue they were repurposing fragments of recorded music to create something entirely new. Up until 1991, disputes around whose argument carried more weight tended to be settled outside of court. This is where Biz comes back in.

In 1991, O’Sullivan sued Markie over the “Alone Again” sample. This case came hot on the heels of a $1.7 million settlement between members of ’60s rock group The Turtles and the rap group De La Soul all stemming from a few seconds of a Turtles’ song sampled by De La. With the O’Sullivan/Markie case, one complication was that Markie and his label did initially try to clear the sample through O’Sullivan but when the singer-songwriter declined to do so, the label released the song anyway. This set up the eventual legal showdown which, unlike the previous cases, didn’t get settled out-of-court but instead, ended up being decided by judge Kevin Duffy in a far-reaching decision for future sampling practices.

Article Appeared @http://www.npr.org/blogs/therecord/2013/05/01/180375856/20-years-ago-biz-markie-got-the-last-laugh

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