{"id":805365,"date":"2020-03-17T14:15:03","date_gmt":"2020-03-17T20:15:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=968695"},"modified":"2020-03-17T14:15:03","modified_gmt":"2020-03-17T20:15:03","slug":"a-coronavirus-song-featuring-cardi-b-is-going-viral-and-may-violate-copyright-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/a-coronavirus-song-featuring-cardi-b-is-going-viral-and-may-violate-copyright-law\/","title":{"rendered":"A Coronavirus Song Featuring Cardi B Is Going Viral \u2014 and May Violate Copyright Law"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Last week, Cardi B<\/a> began to worry about coronavirus<\/a> and took to Instagram to zealously announce that \u201cshit is getting real.\u201d As Cardi B<\/a> videos tend to, her response went viral immediately. Within days, an enterprising producer and DJ named iMarkkeyz<\/a> had ripped the audio, and turned into the centerpiece of a new dance track, fittingly titled \u201cCoronavirus<\/a>.\u201d The song was officially released to DSPs on Friday, March 13th; by Tuesday it was #9 on the overall iTunes U.S. songs chart.<\/p>\n

User-generated videos set to the song quickly began to pop up on TikTok and across social media, catching the attention of Cardi, who tweeted that she wanted royalties when she spotted a video of the song playing in a Rio De Janeiro club.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that this damn coronavirus song is charting on iTunes\u2026 Hold on\u2026 let me hit the DJ up and Atlantic so I can get my damn coins,\u201d Cardi B wrote in an Instagram post that was published on Monday. At that time, her screenshot of the iTunes chart showed iMarkkeyz\u2019s \u201cCoronavirus\u201d at #96 on the iTunes chart. In less than a day, it has skyrocketed on the platform.<\/p>\n

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I\u2019m boutta tell Atlantic to put this song on Spotify \ud83d\ude29 https:\/\/t.co\/NXYgDxE2W0<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 iamcardib (@iamcardib) March 16, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The popularity of \u201cCoronavirus\u201d comes with questions of its legality. Songs that recontextualize source material are more common than ever, and the path to attention (and commercial success) is often much faster than copyright<\/a> laws can keep up with. When Lil Nas X released \u201cOld Town Road,\u201d he had unwittingly sampled a Nine Inch Nails song \u2014 he bought the song\u2019s beat from a producer on the internet \u2014 and the song was gathering listeners before the song\u2019s royalty structure was worked out (or he was even signed). In that instance, Nine Inch Nails collaborators Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross were able to walk away with producer credits and 50% of the publishing (or songwriting) rights. It\u2019s possible a similar outcome is possible for Cardi.<\/p>\n

According to one music attorney, \u201cCoronavirus\u201d likely represents a copyright violation. Copyright in any sound recording belongs to the maker of the recording \u2014 even if that recording is of a person speaking on Instagram. However, the attorney points out, it is common for a record label to put a clause in a contract with an artist that claims \u201call recordings by the artist\u201d as the label\u2019s property, which would include everything from voice notes to recordings of phone calls \u2014 and recordings of Cardi\u2019s Instagram Stories. Which could mean that iMarkkeyz will find himself negotiating directly with Atlantic Records over the fate of his viral song. When Rolling Stone<\/em> reached out, an Atlantic representative said that the label was \u201clooking into it,\u201d but wouldn\u2019t go into any detail. iMarkkeyz did not respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the beat does not have any samples except for Cardi\u2019s voice, an approval should be secured from Atlantic (WMG) and from Cardi herself on the master side, and [the publisher] may consider this a publishing use,\u201d adds Deborah Mannis-Gardner, who specializes in music clearances for film, television, samples, and new technology. This would not be a worst case scenario for iMarkkeyz. \u201cI could see her label treating this as a remix and claim 100% ownership of the master, and then pay the producer a royalty.\u201d<\/p>\n

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via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, Cardi B began to worry about coronavirus and took to Instagram to zealously announce that \u201cshit is getting real.\u201d As Cardi B videos tend to, her response went viral immediately. Within days, an enterprising producer and DJ named iMarkkeyz had ripped the audio, and turned into the centerpiece of a new dance track, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-805365","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-19 02:24:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=805365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/805365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=805365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=805365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=805365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}