Copyright?? Sampling From Speeches/Spoken word

[TCONELLYJOTYAS]

Hi everyone. Does any one know about sampling from Speeches/spoken word? What are the laws on this? Nothing from a released song, just a recording of a speech. For example the 'I have a Dream' speech. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks

[tadpole fingers]

A recording like the "I have a dream speech" probably has a lineage of ownership going back to the person who pressed that record button. I wouldn't be careless in using someones voice (especially outside of their intended context) without permission, its potentially humiliating and infuriating for the "victim"

[Machinesworking]

Pretty sure the I Have a Dream speech is at this point public domain.
I use vocal snips all the time, mostly it's a matter of context. You're NIN or BT and people will probably sue you, but if you're some little guy I'm not worried.
I seriously doubt Skinny Puppy cleared any movie snips they use, same with other people.
Some of it would be about time though, if you use an Avatar clip, it's probably going to be an issue as the movie is less than a year old.
You use a clip from the Brain that Wouldn't Die, and suing you would be rough.
Stay away from music samples though.

[leggzter]

I recently pulled a section of the 'I have a dream' speech from a forthcoming release. We used a 7 second sample, that was reduced to 2 seconds in the radio edit.
This was the reply we got from Mr kings estate.
"Your request for inclusion of the MLK audio sample to be included in the musical composition "What's It All About" to be released by the musical group STR8JACKETS would be approved subject to the following terms:

Master Use / Sample Fee - $1,000 USD fee as advance against royalty of $.015 per unit for all sales physical or dpd. Master Use License to be issued and administered by IPM o/b/o The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.

33.33% copyright share in the musical composition "What's It All About", listing Martin Luther King. Jr. as a co-writer of the composition with all mechanical and synchronization licenses to be issued and administered by EMI Music Publishing at full statutory rate.

Please advise if these terms are acceptable and we will prepare and forward the Master Use License and inform EMI Music Publishing accordingly.

By the way, excellent song.

With kind regards,"

[TCONELLYJOTYAS]

I know that the 'I have a Dream' Speech is quite a major. I was thinking more Tronik youth's Disko Suks, the aston shuffle remix and the original?

[3dot...]

interesting question...

well.. someone WROTE the speech
and.. someone PERFORMED the speech
and.. someone RECORDED the speech...
I'd say you need clearance..

but I remember hearing a lot of speech snippets in Ministrys' tracks..
(I highly doubt they got cleared)

maybe a public speech is public domain ? I dunno

[oblique strategies]

I recently pulled a section of the 'I have a dream' speech from a forthcoming release. We used a 7 second sample, that was reduced to 2 seconds in the radio edit.
This was the reply we got from Mr kings estate.
"Your request for inclusion of the MLK audio sample to be included in the musical composition "What's It All About" to be released by the musical group STR8JACKETS would be approved subject to the following terms:

Master Use / Sample Fee - $1,000 USD fee as advance against royalty of $.015 per unit for all sales physical or dpd. Master Use License to be issued and administered by IPM o/b/o The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.

33.33% copyright share in the musical composition "What's It All About", listing Martin Luther King. Jr. as a co-writer of the composition with all mechanical and synchronization licenses to be issued and administered by EMI Music Publishing at full statutory rate.

Please advise if these terms are acceptable and we will prepare and forward the Master Use License and inform EMI Music Publishing accordingly.

By the way, excellent song.

With kind regards,"

Excellent information. Thank you for sharing this.

Is this an isolated incident for you, or have you contacted other sources for permission to use their original material in your work? If you have, how did those negotiations go?

[leedsquietman]

http://freesound.org

lots of creative commons licensed stuff on there, most of which is free to use (check there are no 'non-commercial use' which is listed with each sample). I use them on my own free projects all the time. Most people uploading are just using their own home made samples there and not infringing copyrights, but you still need to be vigilant. Other places such as sampleswap.org are also free creative commons, but more people upload copyrighted material there in my experience.

you can also get creative commons and public domain spoken word at the Internet Archive, http://archive.org

[TCONELLYJOTYAS]

http://freesound.org

lots of creative commons licensed stuff on there, most of which is free to use (check there are no 'non-commercial use' which is listed with each sample). I use them on my own free projects all the time. Most people uploading are just using their own home made samples there and not infringing copyrights, but you still need to be vigilant. Other places such as sampleswap.org are also free creative commons, but more people upload copyrighted material there in my experience.

you can also get creative commons and public domain spoken word at the Internet Archive, http://archive.org

Thanks, some real good stuff there. Do you know if the stuff at the internet archive are royalty free?

[leedsquietman]

anything public domain is, and creative commons but check the licenses, some CC (Creative Commons) licenses don't allow commercial use or modifications (so if you're gonna cut stuff up, mess it up and warp it around, check first !)

[UKRuss]

I recently pulled a section of the 'I have a dream' speech from a forthcoming release. We used a 7 second sample, that was reduced to 2 seconds in the radio edit.
This was the reply we got from Mr kings estate.
"Your request for inclusion of the MLK audio sample to be included in the musical composition "What's It All About" to be released by the musical group STR8JACKETS would be approved subject to the following terms:

Master Use / Sample Fee - $1,000 USD fee as advance against royalty of $.015 per unit for all sales physical or dpd. Master Use License to be issued and administered by IPM o/b/o The Estate of Martin Luther King, Jr.

33.33% copyright share in the musical composition "What's It All About", listing Martin Luther King. Jr. as a co-writer of the composition with all mechanical and synchronization licenses to be issued and administered by EMI Music Publishing at full statutory rate.

Please advise if these terms are acceptable and we will prepare and forward the Master Use License and inform EMI Music Publishing accordingly.

By the way, excellent song.

With kind regards,"

Harsh terms though...

[chris vine]

"33.33% copyright share in the musical composition "What's It All About", listing Martin Luther King. Jr. as a co-writer of the composition with all mechanical and synchronization licenses to be issued and administered by EMI Music Publishing at full statutory rate".

Yeah right - 33%?

How about re-recording "I have a dream" with yr own voice, impersonating MLK....?

[Machinesworking]

Jeusu man, I'm glad there was a period in the 80's and 90's when people weren't so greedy about this stuff.
Hip Hop was waaay better IMO with free reign!

I use plenty of vocal samples, I'm relatively certain I won't be hit with fines, but the fact is I can't know for certain until I put the music out.
Sometimes it's a dead end, an X rated 80's film I sampled for instance the licensing department of the film didn't know what they would do about it?
They had never had a request like that so I just let it hang, if they want to sue etc. I have an email trail to fall back on.

Most things like MLKs speech are in fact public domain, that MLKs estate is that greedy about it is pretty sad indeed.

[MojoTwin2]

A really fun source of samples is in Archive.org. The short film collections have such an incredible variety of really weird, insane stuff. You can download a short subject into quicktime and rip the audio track.

Check out "What To Do On A Date" to see what I mean.

[chris vine]

http://www.soundboard.com/sb/martin.aspx

check this out then, just stick yr desired name followed by soundboard into google,

huge list of clips for the sample freak