Built To Spill – Who Is Mike Jones?

The recent leak of the forthcoming Built To Spill record shows that the band has a sense of humor yet are determined to get paid for their work. The only leak available of “You In Reverse” samples from Mike Jones, the Houston rapper who sings his mobile number all over his own records and routinely asks the rhetorical question, “Who is Mike Jones?”

That rhetorical question was sampled and is used all over the BTS record and would surely get irritating after some point with continuous listen. I suppose they understand that leaks are just the norm these days and they can’t fully combat the inevitable, but they can make it annoying for repeated listening.

The retail version will leak at some point and this one will eventually fade, but there’s not much that a band or a label can do about the problem. Records need to get to the reviewers months in advance to make it into the cycles.

The only question I have relates to the band sampling the work of Mike Jones, presumably without permission. I doubt that they asked permission if in fact it was the band that intentionally released the rough cut version of the record with the audio watermark.

Mike Jones probably doesn’t know who Built To Spill is, but he probably does care that his music is being sampled without permission. Though not a proper release, the rough cut signifies an intention to release and that may be the only thing that matters.

But such is the case today where permission to publish is no longer required even in the face of the law.

Podcasting, mashups, mixtapes, and apparently audio watermarking using copywritten samples are just the new reality.