Cannibal Cheerleader

youy are incorrect in stating that the 8-bit chiptune scene”steals beats from video games and swap stolen sounds back n forth..” i paraphrase.
but chiptune is made with pure synthesis making the sounds from scratch wuth the chip in th console/gameboy etc. and it is not so easy to do. there is a genre called nerdcore that samples from games a lot, but pure chiptune does it from scratch. these are the sounds crystal crassholes stole.

also, at this point its not about$ at all, it’s about the fact that ‘ethan’ (claudio palmieri) from crycraps said in countless interviews that they had no idea the chipscene existed, which has been proven to be a lie since even their label manager “andy” acidentally admitted they had all these songs with these samples back in 2004/2005…and the lie from clauio that he triggered an atari chip w a broken keyboard is pure bullshit and the whole scene knows that and reidicules them ..
these creative commons artists put their music up for free, even free for the cryscraps as long as they credit the artist. that’s all they had to do. they could have been darlings of this scen had they not lied in interviews.

I think your obvious vehemence about the subject clouds your argument and you seem so wrapped in scene politics that you fail to see that perhaps it does make sense that perhaps Kath wasn’t aware of a proper ‘musical movement’ when he listened to individual tunes years ago. Profanity is the last refuge of the inarticulate and I think you still fail to explain why exactly CC would lie about such things. Do you think they are genuinely evil people? Your narrative about the band makes me think you imagine Kath with devil horns snickering before every interview. I genuinely believe that not only does taking the chip from a console not count as ‘music from scratch’ but that the only way CC could have been ‘darlings of the scene’ would be to continue to wallow in obscurity. Ask yourself – had the band not become well-known, would any of this matter? Of course not, so it’s definitely not about supposed principles. Anyway, that’s my take on it. Thanks for reading the blog!

stealing others work was the 1st refuge of these inarticulate artists and unimaginitive that you patronise.

you are in denyal. they would lie to avoid crediting and then having to pay these artists possibly.

how telling is it that all the recognizable samples on the album were credited and cleared , yet the self-supporing artists with no pull were ignored.

just like they thought that ‘the artist would come forward’ when they stole trevor brown’s art.

but you are right that i am taking these 2 little shits and there ilk too seriously.
o shit i said shit

seriously though, thanks for not removing my posts and taking the time to play devils(kath?) advocate:0

No problem and while I still disagree with you I won’t take down your comments. Everyone needs to form their own opinion on this one. Again, thanks for reading (hope you continue to read!) and let’s agree to disagree.

Hi John,

You’ve made some interesting and valid points here, but I feel compelled to re-iterate the way in which chip-tune music works, so that you can understand the difference between using an 8-bit device as an instrument, and sampling a composed sound from a machine. Here’s an example for Gameboy music:
It is possible to create a program and place it on a cartridge, which is then inserted into the gameboy.
The program can then be used to generate music through the sound chip of the machine. All of the music (the pitch, volume, timbre, etc) of the music is composed and controlled by the musician.
Basically, it’s no different than using any synthesiser, albeit a limited synthesizer with a very distinctive sound.
To say that this process is stealing sounds is like saying someone writing a song on a guitar is stealing sounds: whether its strings and a magnetic pick-up or a gameboy chip, it just the means by which sound is produced and controlled.
You can probably tell that I am not rabidly up in arms about this matter: there are bigger problems in the world! However, taking an entire piece of someone else’s music and presenting it as your own is not sampling, it’s stealing (just my opinion).
Crystal Castles should feel a little embarrassed about this (getting caught sucks!) but they’ve written plenty of their own stuff, and the major song in question here wasn’t even released on a record (perhaps because they foresaw that issues would occur with copywrite?), so I do think certain internet blogger types are being a little bit over the top on this one.
Thanks!

Hey Ben,

Thank you for your point, I clearly did not understand how ‘chiptune’ music works and after your explanation I feel compelled to say that you are correct and the basis for this musical movement is obviously not stealing the sounds from console manufacturers. I was definitely wrong on this point and I appreciate being enlightened.
Now, I hope you don’t take this as me being stubborn, but I still feel that Crystal Castles’ use of other people’s songs is in fact a form of sampling rather than outright stealing. I base this assertion on two points, the first being that they’ve sampled only portions of songs (beats and melodies, etc) and have not taken an entire song made entirely by someone else and made it their own. They have added portions to it: vocals, additional instrumentation, etc. This creates a new product and while perhaps it is a gray area, most of these songs in question have been fully fleshed out chiefly by Crystal Castles, making them in my opinion, a CC product. An example of this would be an underground rapper sampling beats from a Parliament song in a rap.
The second point is in fact dealing with this gray area known as sampling. I feel that electronic music is based in exchanging sounds and that for the community to lash out at a practice such as this is hypocritical. I feel that to sample a portion of a tune is encouraged if an artist is not in the limelight, somehow ‘underground’. However, once the hype around a band begins, so too do the wolves come out to try and take a piece of the cake. That’s my take on this situation: scene politics and greed are overshadowing what is some really good music.
Public domain and sampling are gray areas both in the law and in the realm of personal philosophy. I don’t think even a calm discussion can make people who fundamentally disagree about the nature of sampling can come to full agreement on this. Which is not to say I don’t wish to continue this conversation, but that we may have issues at the core of our arguments that will not allow us to come into agreement. However, I do completely respect your opinion and your take on this matter. Again, thank you for informing me about chiptune music and I hope you continue to read my blog. Your readership is flattering and means a lot to me. Got any jobs for aspiring music journalists in the Atlanta area? Haha, talk soon!

The truth is that the infringing songs are unreleased and unperformed tracks that the girl in the band hasn’t even heard. The guy in the band made the songs in 2004 and then scrapped them because they suck.

This is a good point for most of the supposedly ‘offending material’: a good portion of the songs have not had a commercial release. However, one of the songs in question “Love and Caring” is on their s/t debut album so I feel that this issue still deserves some coverage.

many of the arguments here FOR CrysCrass are irrellivant beacause there are 2 tracks actually on the official album release that sampled the same guys..not to mention the reason this track 1st got noticed is that they started laying it live and it ended up on youtube. anyway the dumbass naive girl and the old man dj ‘Kath’ are still talking lies in interviews and badmouthing the very people they stole from. this shows what kind of people they both are.
yes go ahead and dance end enjoy their stolen music, after all it’s only music. you should also ejoy your sweat-shop manufactured sweaters too, very comfy.

http://myspace.com/crystaltheft

here’s the real deal

http://8bitcollective.com

nice thread though

Haha, well now I think you’re being a little dramatic about this but I did link to the crystal theft myspace in the post and yes, this was a good discussion to have. I’ll have to do more Crystal Castles updates in the future (still like the band though!).

It’s ok to sample, it’s like telling an old story with a different point of view. There is a difference between sampling and stealing though.

Sampling, and not giving proper credits = stealing.

None of this drama would’ve happened had Crystal Castles adhered to the rules on Creative Commons.

Plus it doesn’t help that they remain arrogant in interviews and continue lying.

As far as sampling goes I would refer you to the decision of Folsom vs. Marsh in which the intricacies and ideas of ‘fair use’ are discussed at length. While some of the songs (specifically the non-commercial ones) seem to fall outside of fair use, songs such as “Love and Caring” seem far more transformative than derivative. Opinions?

Agreed.

Covox himself has mentioned that he doesn’t feel ripped off just because they sampled “a kick and a snare”.

The real issue is with Lo-Bat’s tunes.

Although it would’ve been courteous to send Covox a message stating they were using some samples of his work.

It’s about proper etiquette and respect as a musician.

Well I think that Crystal Castles have effectively cleared up the Lo-Bat issue by reposting their Insecticon tune on their Lies Records page (www.myspace.com/liesrecords) as CC vs. Lo-bat. Also, these particular songs has no commercial value so really there’s no point in arguing over their legality.

However, whether CC owes people an apology is up to debate. I’m not one to lecture on morality but some people can be rude, even if they’re not necessarily in the wrong. Still, just because someone can be a jerk doesn’t make their music less enjoyable.

well i hope i’m never so desperate for an enjoyable little tune as deny myself adherance to any sort of artistic ethics. dance away w idiot glee, dance away.

According to Creative Commons there must be proper attribution (which is specified by the author of the original work), it can’t be used commercially, and the song must be released under the same license.

They’ve failed on 2/3. I’m not sure if Lo-Bat has agreed that “CC vs Lo-Bat” is proper attribution or not so I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt. But they’ve played Insecticon at gigs before, and the song doesn’t use the same CC license.

As far as their music goes, it’s a matter of opinion. In my humble opinion, arrogant jerks & liars make music less enjoyable. It’s a shame too because I actually would’ve loved their music.

I like to think Creative Commons is superseded by the US Government and its terms of fair use myself.

I for one don’t think of Crystal Castles as jerks. Perhaps they’ve worked through these matters privately, perhaps they just genuinely feel they are in the right and chiptune artists are being predatory. Regardless, the music IS good and often time in popular music we have to separate the artist from the creation.
It’s hard to imagine not enjoying the Ramones because they’re conservative, “Freebird” because Skynard are a bunch of racists, or Death Cab because they insulted Roger Waters. Artists do things we find disagreeable or morally wrong but their music is nonetheless enjoyable. If I were to only listen to artists who I fully agree with politically, philosophically, and morally I would only be listening to squatters or crust-punkers from MRR. I have personal ethics of course but I don’t require everyone around me to adhere to the same ones as me.
Also ‘Anonymous’ I haven’t deleted any of your posts so far but please don’t call me or anyone who posts here an ‘idiot’. I think it’s rather insulting and doesn’t contribute to what has become a very intelligent discussion.

Also, there are different types of Creative Commons licenses. The bottom rung license only requires 1 thing and that’s proper attribution of the song to the artist, which I believe the Myspace ‘CC vs. Lo-bat’ denotation does.

the Ramones or Skinnard didn’t steal their music. i’m not saying to judge artists on their non-artistic beleifs as you incorrectly analogized, i’m talking judging the artist ONLY on artistsic merit, after all what else is there? when the artists work starts out insincerely motivated then the human experience of that work is cheapened… they and their supporters of the indefensible obvious theft and infringement, are no better than vanilla ice and his ‘dum de dum dum’ explanation of lifting ‘under pressure’. what’s hilarious is that their latest defense i’ve seen posted by their sock puppets is ” oh their songs with the samples in ‘04 sucked anyway, who cares”
how lame is that? these songs were used to tour with , get a following, get signed..i guess back then they didn’t suck. well they didn’t suck til cryscrass cut em up and put naive faux-wave angst vox over em.

btw your writing skills appear to have been spotted

http://8bitcollective.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=4417&p=31

Perhaps they have worked out things privately. Although from previous experiences, the Trevor Brown case in particular, things never worked out. Also, there hasn’t been any word from Lo-Bat himself.

I’m a fan of Ramones, Death Cab, and Lynyrd Skynyrd myself. But I dislike Timbaland for obvious reasons. An artist doesn’t necessarily have to posses my moral standards for me to like them…

…it’s just like I said earlier, in their case, it’s become blasphemy. I refer to their “modified keyboard”, the origin of their name, and their disassociation from the scene.

Would those ‘obvious reasons’ for disliking Timbaland include the fact that he too used part of a chiptune track and failed to credit the producer?

Is this the start of a trend to steal from chiptunes? Creative commons doesn’t mean its free, it means its free IF you follow the terms of the license.

I think the reason for disliking Timbaland is he makes wack ass beats. Just saying… ;D

Also, I was reading through that forum anonymous and I came upon this message from the CC myspace:

“hey

sorry you feel that way..

crystal castles doesnt steal music..they have 300 songs..100 of which are based on samples..200 of which are original pieces..in 2004 they used sampling but now they strictly make original work..regardless its my job to clear all the songs with samples for credit so that we can officially release them..we only put the songs that i could clear on the album..but there are obviously many songs that i still have no idea where the samples came from (neither does CC) cause their so obscure and the tracks have no credit..so obviously we dont release these songs..but at the same time..songs do get leaked just like the album got leaked before the release date..and then there are songs that we DO know who the original artist is and we are still in negotiations with them…but obviously some people in the scence like to over react to unreleased demos..and now we must deal with comments like yours.

again..sorry you feel that way..but we dont rip people off.”

So the songs on the album are all cleared and they’re not making money off of the other stuff, which from the tone of the message, was just naive sampling that they’re trying to correct. I think this message pretty well sums up my opinion on the whole subject.

john b you conveniently use the lies that cc quoted as convenient gospel truth for your srguments. yet pick apart the truths layed out by the chip commucity as if it’s all heresay and opinion, which it’s not. it is fact and law. we all saw that cc response , it was the 1st in a string of track-covering lies that just embarrased them further. if read up past that bit of the 8bc thread .this is one of the quotes that pissed everyone off and you refer to it in defense of your argument. you already know as you acknowledged in a post above that they did not clear all samples on the officially released album. they only cleared the recognizable samples they knew would be recognized from artists with $ and legal pull. if a young chipscenester named Dispyz had not cought this cry craps would still have it proudly posted, improperly named and exploiting the song they now call a bunch of crap they disowned in 2004.

To me this has nothing to do with the chiptune scene at all, but rather more intune with goatslacker’s views.

I’m a music purist and sampling (or stealing in this case) never really made sense to me. I know it is this electronic sharing iniative and what not, but to me that is not creation, but rather paraphrasing other’s works. Sure, do that if you want to, but you have to place credit where credit is due.
Thus, these ‘awesome sounds’, ‘modified keyboard’ and ‘whack annoying glitches’ does not equal this amazing revolutionary band. They merely took from others, said they made new sounds and now NME and all other ignorant (oblivious in your case) followers continue to herald them the second coming.

Also, in context with the people that create the music. If Crystal Castles had been nice, credited folks, say they sample, not lie and such, I would’ve definitely listened to them. The fact that they are arrogant, lie and think they are the revolution totally put off.
However, like you say, music is music, but just you can’t put any creative work on it’s own. One must take the context into consideration when analyzing it. Everytime I listen to their tracks I feel this horrid arrogance breathing down my neck.

This is my views and I hope some confirm with mine, because I just can’t think that some people respect them.

I understand where you’re coming from being a ‘music purist’ but I think that even the most innovative of music owes something to the past and often employs homages to artists that the music maker holds in high esteem. If you don’t find the nature of sampling to be in and of itself creation, I invite you to check out artists like Girl Talk, who use completely unoriginal works to create completely different pieces. I don’t think I’m oblivious, I just think I have a different opinion.

And anonymous it’s clear to me now after the discussions on this board that all the samples were obviously cleared to be on the CC album.

Lastly, I apologize to Nezzar E. for deleting his or her comment but I felt that it didn’t add anything to the conversation. Please refrain from name-calling and bickering. Even though I disagree with the viewpoints of many people here I feel the need to provide an open forum for discussion on this and am trying to be fair and balanced in the discussion. I am not an ‘idiot’, ‘oblivious’, or a ‘little boy’, just a person who disagrees with you.

Crystal Castles themselves will be responding shortly to this article and I’d like to see what they have to say on the subject.

yeh sure they’ll respond..so far every response has revealed more half-truths and lies, expecially from the andy label mngr guy.

ultimately this is all about laziness in art, music, journalizm and fandom.. journalists too lazy to do the research (you included),fans too lazy to search fo real musical heroes, and cc themselves too lazy to create their own sounds or style. they are 2nd rate elecrto-clash wannabes who got signed 8 years too late for that little surge.

respect yourselves by patronizing artists who respect the fans and other artists. crystal castles are and will be nothing but a footnote
in the end, but the real chiptune/8bit scene is one for the history books for real! so i predict that all cryscraps will be known for in the end is this very act of trying to steal a whole scene’s sound, lying about it, getting caught, lying more about it and generally being unproffessonal, undeserving of any attention at all other than their disregard and disrespect for other artists and the fans. in the end it’s fault of ‘journalists’ who come to tthe defense of the indefensible.

sorry , didn’t mean to call you lazy, you did work hard on this..i mean you could have dug further without the seeming bias you display twrds cc.

may i also add that it’s time disown crusty ol Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Fails.. this loser still hasn’t taken a stand re the inclusion of cryscraps on tour…what a walking contradiction! now he’s a multi millionaire he claims he’s so behind creative commons. great choice for tour mate. what a tool. it’s like obama choosing romney as a running mate. makes semse though , nine inch fails hasn’t done a relevant thing since ‘92. no wonder he’s become so naive as to fall for this poseur garbage

John B.

you article is full of distortions and misrepresentations. Most of them have been addressed piecemeal in the comments, but I fear your bad journalism will leave people grossly misunderstanding the situation.

The facts:
1. Crystal Castles did steal music from Lo-bat and release some of it commercially, without credit and not under the same Creative Commons License as was required by Lo-bat.
“Mother Knows Best” and “Love And Caring” were both commercially released.

2. They also sampled some beats from Covox and used them repeatedly in various songs, released and unreleased. To some, including Covox, this falls within the allowable bounds of sampling. As electronic musicians, we all realize that sampling is a legitimate technique and a little leeway there is a good thing. Still, they should have given credit after using the beats in 5 (?) songs.

3. (and perhaps most importantly to chiptune musicians)
Crystal Castles have continued to act as if they didn’t know about chiptune music. Did they invent it? They obviously knew about Lo-bat, Covox and X-agon, probably from 8bitpeoples.com or Micromusic.net. If they had been to either of those sites, they would have seen the enormous output of this movement. Still they insist that they did this “BEFORE” they heard about the chiptune movement. This is, frankly, a lie.

*It is this point that shows that Crystal Castles DID, in fact, do this with malicious intent. Honestly, how can you steal something without malicious intent? But to also disrespect the people further in interviews betrays a shallow, callous nature.

4. Chiptune music is NOT made by stealing sounds from a game console. Benhenge explains it well above. It is original music made using a game console as a synthesizer. This movement has an enormous amount of goodwill and integrity. It is unfortunate that some will learn about it through this issue, which makes many of us appear angry and defensive. If so, it is our right. We have seen this kind of theft over and over now. It is apparently attractive to steal from chiptune artists for two main reasons:

-The music is original and inventive.
-There are usually no vocals, which would make it MUCH easier to trace as a sample.

I hope that this stands as the corrected record and articles like this that distort the facts are replaced by thoughtful, well-researched articles like the one from Create Digital Music.

Sorry I hated your article.

Chris Burke/glomag

I feel like these last few posts are reiterating stuff we’ve already covered (except now we’re starting to get personal with me being a ‘bad journalist’ and ‘lazy’). Of course, you’re all entitled to your opinion. Chris I would recommend reading through the comments and finding where I admit I didn’t previously understand chiptune music. However, this does not change my opinion on the issue at hand. Stay tuned for further developments.

“Never Being Boring said…

The truth is that the infringing songs are unreleased and unperformed tracks that the girl in the band hasn’t even heard. The guy in the band made the songs in 2004 and then scrapped them because they suck.”

They were not unreleased. They were posted on myspace. That is publication. Publication of unauthorized music is copyright infringement. Regardless of how crappy the songs are.

Oh, and publication of unauthorized works is also in violation of the myspace user agreement… which is less significant i guess.

Hey guys,

Please don’t admit you only read one post and then post a long rant. Backread a little bit, a lot has been discussed here.

Also, Crystal Castles gave an official response in the update I did today. It can be found here – http://www.cannibalcheerleader.com/2008/06/this-band-could-be-your-life.html

John B.

As I suspected, you did not argue a single point in my post. I did read ALL the comments before posting, as you would know if you read my post carefully. People here keep talking about the stuff that was posted on myspace only, which is bad enough. WHAT ABOUT THE COMMERCIAL RELEASES? Please re-read my post and then defend you abilities as a journalist if you can.
Getting personal? Yes. Some of us take it personally when our friends in a community of such good will are taken advantage of and then someone without any idea about the situation makes accusations against those calling fowl. I think you owe us all an apology frankly.

chris

Well Chris I think taking this matter personally is unnecessary. I felt like the comments on this post, while there were many I disagreed with, were very constructive. I believe we’ve discussed at length the commercial releases and how Crystal Castles has not released commercially tracks they could not clear all the samples for (see “Insecticon”).
If you continue to be personal and frankly a little hostile I will continue to delete your posts. I feel I’ve been very fair with letting everyone voice their opinion on this matter and no one should have to apologize for having an opinion. I’ve changed the part of the post where it read that ‘chiptune’ artists “stole” beats as I was clearly wrong on this fact. However, my opinion on this matter still stands that Crystal Castles is in the right. My journalistic integrity is not in question because this is an op-ed piece, which means it is an expression of my opinion and not necessarily fact. I believe the facts of the situation are presented very fairly at the beginning of my article where I include links to several websites and videos that disagree with my sentiment. I hope to continue to have an intelligent conversation on this matter but I fear that I will only be greeted with further hostility.

Its not the fact that they’re just “sampling”. They’re taking the the most important parts of the song and just overlaying some vocals.

Now how can they be in the right if they claim copyright to songs that are almost complete rips off established artists?