(idm) Negativland/Fatboy Slim sample tiff

From Rodney Perkins
Sent Thu, Sep 10th 1998, 14:29

I thought after all of Negativland's recent sloganeering about fair us" and
such, the following article from the 9/9/98 edition of Allstar News puts
this group of "radicals" in the proper light. If it were April Fool's Day,
this would all make sense. Dilettantes...

Negativland -- the outspoken outfit against paying rights for samples --
sent out a cranky press release Tuesday (Sept. 1) complaining about Fatboy
Slim's use of one of their samples in the song "Michael Jackson" in a Coke
commercial. While Negativland believes people shouldn't have to pay to
sample others, they're not too happy that their work ended up in a Coke
spot. But, the thing is, it didn't. Only the instrumental part of "Michael
Jackson," which is on Fatboy Slim's 1997 album Better Living Through
Chemistry, is used in the spot. The song samples from Negativland's own
"Michael Jackson" from their 1987 SST album Escape from Noise. And while
Fatboy Slim did pay SST ($1000) for permission to use the sample,
Negativland claims SST is keeping the money for themselves, though, adds
that the group would've given it to them for free anyway (again, that's
their thing). The sample in question was actually stolen by a Negativland
member from the basement of a church in Concord, Calif. in the '70s. Fatboy
Slim's label, Astralwerks, had no comment. And, seeing that Fatboy Slim (aka
Norman Cook) is a big fan of Negativland, we're sure the release (which
states that he "stupidly" went to SST Records to get permission to use the
sample) would upset him a bit. The Coke spot starts airing on television
Sept. 7 for three months and is part of a major NFL campaign, which includes
a contest to send people to the Super Bowl..