by
8bitpeoples of the world unite!
Glitch-pilfering duo Crystals Castles have responded to flak previously received over whether chief beatnik Ethan Kath illegally used the 8bit Collective’s online archive of chip music, with Kath admitting their early plagiarism but underlining that the circulation of this material was not intentional.
Rain check? Under the Creative Commons License, the community was governed by the following three rules:
You are free:
• to Share — to copy, distribute and transmit the work
• Attribution You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work).
• Noncommercial You may not use this work for commercial purposes.
• No Derivative Works You may not alter, transform, or build upon this work.
Basically, it’s all about attributing everyone their ownership rights. Crystal Castles seem to have flouted this ruling, with 8bitpeoples claiming that the Toronto-based outfit used parts of two community member’s Lo-Bat and Covax’s works as their own, unaccredited. This place (LINK) decently catalogues the accusations.
But Kath has spoken out, to Pitchfork, admitting that though the material mentioned openly features uncleared samples from artists in the community, none of the tracks were officially released and therefore the laws have not been broken.
“These infringing songs are early unreleased tracks which were never performed. They are the most awful tracks associated with the band and [vocalist] Alice [Glass] herself hasn't heard most of these tracks. I put these tracks together myself and then discarded them because I thought they were too poor for release. Labels were interested in collecting these sample-based tracks but we did not want to release these tracks because we did not like the songs. And even if we did like the songs, there were too many samples to clear. Three of the tracks sample early Madonna, three of the tracks sample Joy Division, two of the tracks sample the Stooges, three of the tracks sample Lo-Bat, four of the tracks sample Covox.”
Kath insists he was not behind the material featuring the illegitimate samples being uploaded, speaking specifically about the Lo-Bat meddling ‘Insecticon’/‘Insectia’/‘Bitter Hearts’.
“If I had put the song online myself I would have called it ‘Insectica’ (Crystal Castles vs. Lo-Bat version) but unfortunately I did not upload it. I do not regret this, the publicity we are receiving four years later is priceless.”
All seems to come to ahead, with Lo-Bat seemingly not caring branding it all “ridiculous”, but I guess the wider issue is whose work is really lurking in the muddled puddles of beats from their eponymous debut record (review).
Kath and fellow Castle Alice Glass were also previously accused of having nabbed artwork from artist Trevor Brown for the iconic battered Madonna image they’ve previously sold en masse to oikish adolescents.
Want to see their regurgitated beats? Go see them at one of the following UK dates:
June
29 Glastonbury Glastonbury Festival
August
22 Leeds Leeds Festival
24 Reading Reading Festival
29 Argyll Hydro Connect Festival
30 Stradbally Electric Picnic Festival
31 Jersey Jersey Live Festival
September
2 Newcastle Academy
3 Sheffield Leadmill
4 Leeds Cockpit
5 Isle of Wight Bestival
7 Coventry Kasbah
9 Nottingham Rescue Rooms
10 Bristol Thekla
12 Birmingham Academy 2
13 Manchester Academy 2
14 Preston 53 Degrees
16 Brighton Concorde
17 CambridgeJunction
18 London Electric Ballroom
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