snow lizard wrote:

Peter Larsen wrote:

You have been quite thorough in what you have listened for
and most helpful.

I'm glad to be of help, but I doubt that I could have listened
to any of this as thoroughly as anyone involved in writing any
of it.

There are many many ways of listening to recordings and music, and
listening to recordings and listening to music are in themselves very
different.

It's quite obvious that my first response in this thread was on a
clearly stupid level, but if you're willing to try to rationally
discuss the issue, I'll be honest about what it is that I'm hearing in
these things.

It was quite obvious that some read me as digging for gold.

[huge skip]

By this example, I take it you mean 1 minute, 26 seconds of
"Soundscape M79" - the track I downloaded has a running time of 21:01.

Yes, there is a similar sound effect here - the pitch is different,
but the delay rate seems to be pretty much the same. Again, there are
other examples of similarities, but in this one example, there is a
similarity, but also a difference. Did Primus record their own
performance, or digitally modify yours? Can such a thing be proved? Is
it a particularily difficult effect to arrive at?

I think it is fairly difficult to replicate the sound of any individual
hand built instrument, as what what I think they did: I think they
worked on top of my music and modified it on the daw.

I will admit that I have not, but the context of the point I was
trying to make is that the Primus arrangements work themselves into
things that are not in your recording. Traditionally structured
compositions with verses, repetition, that sort of thing.

Agreed, they have expanded what is - by design - a sketch into something
way fuller. I don't mind that per se, but there is the issue of getting
arrangers permission prior to making an arrangement and there is the
droit morale issue of claiming original ownership to what is not their
creation.

Your composition does not go in that direction,

Not only that, its aim is contrary to it by it being a spontaneously
improvised recording. It is not contiguous because I discarded some
segments of it to make it fit an LP side without the need of additional
processing.

although pieces of both are clearly going in an entirely
similar direction. There are also a few unique effects in
your recording that I don't find in the Primus
stuff.

Yes, and from a musical point of view it is a shame that they did not
contact me for permission and guidelines for how to work with it and its
imagery and on top of it.

No problem. I've compared and commented, as the thread requested.
From an unbiased perspective, I hear a lot of similarities in
the effects used, but also a lot of differences. I hear nothing
as far as "riffs", or "arrangement" or anything like that that's
been taken from your stuff, nor do I think that's what you're
claiming.

My claim is that they loaded Soundscape M79 into a daw, modified it and
worked on, recorded on, segments of it using it as the initial track.

While in theory, it is possible that they could have modified your
performance, it would mean almost as much work as performing it
themselves. That doesn't quite make sense.

It is not an awful lot of work to add a bit of more echo in a day and
play a wee bit more around with playback speeds. It is simple, it is
fast and it is tempting to record variations of it on top of it. I can't
see what difficulty that should preclude that being done, it would be
extremely simple on my Audition equipped Athlon.

I can understand a protective instinct from anyone who
writes music, and there are many similarities, but from
my perspective, the question seems ambiguous at
best.

Such issues unavoidably are. Don't read me as detracting from what they
have added, it is not all my stuff they play, of course not. What I mind
is not getting credited and not having been asked. There is enough
information in the ID-tag on the mp3 file from mp3.com to find me via a
bit of googling.

I don't think it's impossible for more than 2 people to arrive
at a string scrape with delay on it, unlikely as it may be.

True some of the way, but sound of hand built spanish guitar is less
easy to replicate and I would be very surprised if their studio contain
a Beocord with its distinctive delay time.

Nonetheless, there are sections that clearly sound remarkably
similar. I'm not sure if it's within the spirit of Primus
to use someone else's work, and I'm not sure of the spirit
of what you're trying to achieve,

Multiple things, credit for my work comes to mind.

but I don't think I've heard evidence of your recording in theirs.

A very early comment made by someone was to the effect that a LARGE
artist like the Great Primus Group could not possibly have - ahem -
borrowed from some overseas newbie, and implicitly that I was just
making the point to dig for gold. Not at all your point, but it did set
the tone of the early feedback.

In summary, perhaps that horse does need a rest, we agree that we
disagree, and isn't that what usenet is really all about?

What I think happened was that they found the mp3 file and assumed that
it would be public domain by being found on mp3.com or perhaps even that
it got relayed to them without the mp3.com source reference and just
used it in ignorance of the actual copyright rules that apply and
possibly without ever getting the ID3 tag displayed. It was more or less
by chance that I discovered that it contains the info I put into the on
site questionnaire, and I am glad that I downloaded the file from
mp3.com to verify that it was OK.

Good luck to you, Peter.

And to you indeed, thank you again. Life would be simpler if I could
agree with you that "borrowing" has not taken place and that the
similarities are random, my opinion has to remain that they are too many
and too close to be anything but partial identicality, i.e. that some
things are completely identical.

Because of your points - and because getting a spare CD/DVD box from the
US took extra time (first shipment disappeaered en route) - I ended up
giving it a longer rest than I had planned. The difference between the
sound on the CD and on the EP is surprising due to the overcompression
of the CD, it is technically fascinating that the mastering choices are
so dissimilar. Some details are more audible on the CD, but I have found
it most fair to compare with the EP version, also because it is way more
pleasant to listen to.

sl


Kind regards

Peter Larsen


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