Does MF Doom Clear his Samples?

[starving student]

?

[beats me]

He asked who wants to know?

[contakt321]

Some

Which album are you referring to?

[starving student]

just in general,

[H20nly]

he clears them from shite to fukin awesome!!

That dude rules!

I honestly don't know, but I would think he does. It would be suicidal not to at this point. Look at what happened to The Verve… The Stones got all their money off like 1/200th of a song.

[ethios4]

Copyright laws haven't changed. A sample that's not cleared is still a sample that's not cleared.

[ikeaboy]

I'd leave the whole thing alone. Copyright lawyers have bills to pay and they use goggle.

[contakt321]

Most artist at Doom's level and smaller (PS: The Verve were way bigger than Doom, and the Rolling Stones are huge and lawyered up) don't clear samples.

The standard on an indie selling 50k or less is basically:

- Don't release tunes with obvious samples of big artists (James Brown, Prince, Little Feet, etc)
- If the song HAS to be on the album, they try to clear it if it's obvious
- Don't clear any chopped up, heavily disguised samples from smaller artists

Basically, it's not cost effective.

Most indies don't have the money to pay a lawyer to do this, the time it takes for it to happen (they usually wan to release the record as quick as possible so they can recoup the advance), nor do they have the risk a bigger artist would have (unlikely to get radio, video, etc play so they are less likely to be exposed).

[H20nly]

^ yeah you won't be hearing Doom's tracks on the radio to tuff... unless its college radio.

The whole sample thing has me spooked to the point that I won't even use loops in any of my tunes. I build it all from scratch. Samples are fun to play with but if I ever was to have a chance to make something from one of my tracks I wouldn't want to have to worry about whether or not the rightful owner of part of "my" beat is gonna show up pissed.

Then again I don't necessarily consider sampling a single snare or drum hit as sampling... at least not in the same sense as grabbing a bass lik or whole drum pattern. Like everything, there are many facets. I would think MF Doom's fan base is growing. If he's not clearing those bigger samples he should probably get on that. Its only a matter of time... I'm pretty sure he wants to make a name for himself, but I doubt he wants to go the way of Vanilla Ice...

[convex]

.

[starving student]

I'm aware of the current philosophy in place regarding sample clearance and underground artist but Doom though underground is world wide famous I would think that he's got some hawks on his back, especialy with
the advent of sites like kevin knottinghams these days

[iflux]

I do sound fx production and I several times I have bumped into cats essentially being a "middle man". You think its bad using loops? Well those can be layered out of isolation. But when a 'sound designer' sells of a sample from a cd that just sickens me. Sure he may have pitched it or modified it a bit. But nearly every license says > HELL NO < to video games. Keep in mind I am talking about single sounds being sold to software developers for video game usage. Isolated playback.

I bumped into a guy that used to work for funimation a few years ago. I heard his reels and his music productions... I was like wow what a work horse. Thats some insane productivity. I was very impressed. But what set me off is when i heard his music productions... In particular how bad he miked a guitar. So I thought I would scout him out. Made a fake company alias, hit him up. Then things got even more interesting. I struck a deal with him to provide 2000 sfx for my massively invested upcoming (BS) MMO. He said he would cut me a deal for $3.50 a sfx, no mentions of royalties. That number is toooooo low to be realistic, wtf. I thought, well... im going to take this a step further and specifically request him to sell me productions from big sample libraries (big fish, eastwest, hollywood edge,etc). The fish took a bite and agreed. I cut off communication. There is no way any of that is realistic for that much work. A flat fee and royalties may be more viable with that amount. But 3.50 ... One company I know was doing an MMO charging 15-20$. I guess this explains why he's milking poor indy developers now and NOT working for funimation. He's also a big psychobabble whiner(AND A MOD) on a development forum (won't mention any names here). I beat this guy out of a very small gig once, and he got on a forum BASHING the developer, looking for some kind of emotional "support". The developer and him had no contract, but he said they had a verbal contract and started trashing his rep on the forum. More ironically he also added he went and bought a bunch of field work gear for the gig. Lol... it was just a small puzzle game dude. Another flag. Shouldn't he have this shit already? Anyways. I offered the developer the better deal and I beat him out of it until the whining. But thats just business. I did not get the gig. But it was nothing huge.

I understand in films and shit, thats cool. But when your selling off individual sound sfx from a source you did not create. It just does not seem right. Music is one thing. Maybe he's covering his ass, but from the reels i heard...things did not seem like it. Wouldn't modifying the sounds go under mechanical reproduction anyways?

Maybe I am just a jealous asshole for doing my own work and having a lesser resume than that dick. But at the end of the day i know did my own work. I always drop the line "first hand sound fx production". Why spend assloads on sample cds when you can buy gear. Its a noisey world.

[Illiac]

what does anything you just wrote have to do with the topic exactly?

[hurlingdervish]

^^nice story but that has nothing to do with madlib

does Madlib clear his samples?

no.
he doesn't. he doesn't make a lot of money and he has made comments saying companies wanted to sue him "like he was Jay-Z or something"

[Illiac]

DOOM, not madlib.