About Covers, Samples and ‘Borrowing’ Melodies

So, I’ve been looking into some copyright issues lately, and I’ve realised many of us may be playing with fire.

This is all about covers and derivative works. I thought I’d share what I’ve found out because of the blatant thievery here in Namibia.

A Namibian musician would sometimes record a song that is clearly an imitation of another African artist’s song and get away with it.

This is because either they don’t know what they did or they don’t care – and their fans don’t care either.

Firstly, what is a derivative work? It’s basically when you take a pre-existing song and make subtle changes to it to make something new.

You might change the melody a bit, switch up the instrumentation, chop up a sample, or translate the lyrics into Damara or Afrikaans.

If your new track incorporates the original song, then you’ve created a derivative work. This includes things like remixes, mash-ups, DJ mixes and adaptations.

A cover version is slightly different. That’s just you performing someone else’s song as it was written, maybe with your own vocal flavour or acoustic guitar, but without changing the fundamental structure or lyrics.

Here the main rule I’ve learned is that you can’t just do this without asking.

So to legally create a derivative work, you need permission from the people who own the rights to the original piece of music.

They hold the exclusive rights for adaptation and reproduction. If you use a piece of their actual sound recording, such as a cool drum break or a vocal chop, you need clearance from whoever owns that master recording too.

Now, let’s get real for a second. We all know there are some well-known Namibian musicians who are notorious for lifting catchy melodies from Nigerian, Zambian, South African or Congolese tracks.

They change the beat under it and the words, and then pass the whole thing off as their own original genius. The average listener having a good time at a braai might not always catch it, but some of us definitely notice.

I literally have files on my laptop full of these ‘borrowed’ tracks. Doing this without permission isn’t just creatively lazy; it’s straight-up copyright infringement.

If you actually do it the right way and get permission, here is how the ownership is supposed to work: You don’t magically own the whole new song.

You only own the rights to the brand new, original elements you contributed. The original creators still own the parts you kept.

That means you basically co-own the new track together. When the song makes money, the income is shared based on whatever split you all negotiated beforehand.

Once everything is cleared and agreed upon, the derivative work is considered a new musical work.

You’re then supposed to register it with our local collective management organisation, the Namibian Society of Composers and Authors of Music, so the royalties can flow to everyone involved properly.

Getting inspired by other African music is completely normal. We all build on the sounds that came before us, but there’s a huge difference between being inspired and just taking someone else’s hard work.

Let’s do the paperwork, give credit where it’s due, and keep the Namibian music scene professional. It saves you from legal headaches down the road, and, honestly, it’s just the right thing to do.

The owners of the songs we are ripping off know and are watching.

They’re waiting for the day you get a good payday to set lawyers on you.

The unfortunate thing for them is that you may never rise to anything more than a nuisance.

But that’s really all up to you.

– Big Ben is a music industry expert.

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