The topic of producers and their use of unauthorized sampling of another artist’s music is surely nothing new. Many lawsuits have been filed over the last twenty years amongst musicians who have had parts of their song taken and sampled. Sampling plays a big role in the development of Hip-Hop music, however, it is techno pioneer Kevin Saunderson who is the latest victim of the uncleared sampling battle. Saunderson has recently accused Italian producers Supernova of using a piece of his 1987 song titled “The Sound”, released on his own imprint KMS. The Detroit producer states that the producers from Italy used an extended loop of his song and is claiming it as being originally produced by them. Saunderson took his own form of action in the matter. Here is what he stated on his website www.kevinsaunderson.com:

Dear friends, fans and members of the music industry

Today I’m giving away as a free download one of the productions I am most proud of :

“The Sound” – Reese & Santonio (KMS) 1987
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD NOW

I recorded “The Sound” back in 1987 and released it on my own KMS Records label. It was a massive hit at New York’s Paradise Garage and in Chicago and of course Detroit. Once it hit the UK it became one of the earliest Detroit anthems right acround Europe, a huge underground record across the globe – a true desert island techno track. It is such a special record to me because it was one of my first really successful productions and I hope that you all will enjoy this free, fresh digital download of my original 1987 version.

The reason I have decided to give this track away for free is because of a situation that recently developed involving the unauthorized sampling of “The Sound” by Italian producers Giacomo Godi & Emiliano Nencioni (Supernova) in their release “Beat Me Back” on Nirvana Recordings. It came to my attention that they are licensing and selling, with considerable success, this track which is nothing more than a continuous loop of the main hook from “The Sound.”

For me to hear ‘Supernova’ taking an extended loop of “The Sound” and claiming that this is their own original composition and production is both dishonest and disrespectful. My first thought was that they were perhaps naïve, but as they have apparently been recording together since 2002 this seems unlikely. In any event this is completely unacceptable, we cannot continue to let this kind of wholesale rip off go unchallenged and tolerate “artists” who completely sample recordings, add nothing of their own and then release the results as their own work.

I have a huge affection for sampling, it’s how some of the most inspiring and ground breaking tracks of our times were created. We’ve pretty much all sampled records at some time, and cleared the sample so we can use it on our releases, but it is just not cool to take someone else’s music, create a big old loop of it and then put your name on it and try to have success entirely off the back of another artist’s efforts. This really has got to stop. For this reason, I have uploaded the Godi/Nencioni version of “The Sound” to Soundcloud so that you all can download this for free if you so wish. These producers and their record label should not be profiting from my back catalogue… this is not their track to sell.