SAMPLING - how much do people get away with ...?

[lolalola]

Sampling - I'm really curious as to how far people have taken snippets of whatever, WITHOUT getting clearance. How far can a sample be pitched/warped/mangled before it is considered safe enough to not have to pay for clearance? I'm asking cos I see that Neon Indian sampled Todd Rundgren here in the intro (rather blatantly) - does anyone know if he paid for clearance/got permission? If so, how much would that kind of thing cost? :

Neon Indian
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlJ27Dcv4fc
Todd Rundgren
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNbE6zRGXeo

[contakt321]

Almost anything if you aren't selling a ton of records.

I view chances of getting sued for sample clearance as a probability, these factors can increase your risk:

- Using OBVIOUS samples, IE: records that sold a ton, are/were popular or are known for being sampled
- Using longer portions of songs
- Not disguising the sample
- Selling lots of records (which have your song that samples someone)
- Licensing your song which uses sample or anything that gets your music out to lots of people

[Ninja-Matic]

If you want to use samples as-is then you're asking for trouble.

The notation needs to be 1 octave higher or lower in order to be used.

However - I know many people which take samples - snippets like kick drums, snares, hats, etc then build their own drum loops. This is fair territory because there is no proof that you have stolen a single drum sound from any song seeing as how anyone can virtually take any type of percussive instrument and alter the characteristics to imitate virtually anything.

Doing things like adding and removing harmonics from a particular percussive element will alter the wave's signature.

On the subject of notation and instrument riffs, etc... I will often find ways to create new sampled instruments from neat sounds - especially from cartoons, lol. Destructively editing, say, a laser beam sound from Power Puff Girls - using a portion of that wave sample as the main waveform for an oscillator in Absynth is not stealing anything - i'm just using the wave's signature to create a new oscillator for a synth which will wind up sounding entirely different than the original sample.

Reversing, stretching or otherwise destructive editing of audio to create a new sound which is nothing like the first is fair game.

A friend of mine has a list of every single Daft Punk song and what tracks they sampled for their songs.

Example: Rapper's Delight kick and bassline were used in Daft Punk's Around the World and left unedited with the exception of arrangement of the percussion. This is not copyright infringement.

However - Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby stealing from Queen's Under Pressure was a blatant disregard for copyright as the song uses entire riffs, unaltered for Vanilla's tune.

[nylarch]

Good example of that might be Paper Planes (M.I.A.). Diplo used a easily recognizable Clash sample (probably in Ableton) to write the song. Sounds like they rushed and had live musicians re-record it before release and it sounds exactly the same but now its not (technically) a sample.

[contakt321]

If you want to use samples as-is then you're asking for trouble.

The notation needs to be 1 octave higher or lower in order to be used.

However - I know many people which take samples - snippets like kick drums, snares, hats, etc then build their own drum loops. This is fair territory because there is no proof that you have stolen a single drum sound from any song seeing as how anyone can virtually take any type of percussive instrument and alter the characteristics to imitate virtually anything.

Doing things like adding and removing harmonics from a particular percussive element will alter the wave's signature.

On the subject of notation and instrument riffs, etc... I will often find ways to create new sampled instruments from neat sounds - especially from cartoons, lol. Destructively editing, say, a laser beam sound from Power Puff Girls - using a portion of that wave sample as the main waveform for an oscillator in Absynth is not stealing anything - i'm just using the wave's signature to create a new oscillator for a synth which will wind up sounding entirely different than the original sample.

Reversing, stretching or otherwise destructive editing of audio to create a new sound which is nothing like the first is fair game.

A friend of mine has a list of every single Daft Punk song and what tracks they sampled for their songs.

Example: Rapper's Delight kick and bassline were used in Daft Punk's Around the World and left unedited with the exception of arrangement of the percussion. This is not copyright infringement.

However - Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby stealing from Queen's Under Pressure was a blatant disregard for copyright as the song uses entire riffs, unaltered for Vanilla's tune.

Sorry, not trying to be a jerk here, but almost everything quoted above is untrue (at least in the US) - so please don't use this as a quideline.

Just to be clear: ANY SAMPLE that isn't cleared violates the law.

The reality is: will you get caught?

My experience is that it's way too expensive, time consuming and impractical to clear samples unless you are selling a lot of units. Every time you use a sample (uncleared) you are taking a calculated risk (based on the factors in my earlier post).

[lolalola]

If you want to use samples as-is then you're asking for trouble.

The notation needs to be 1 octave higher or lower in order to be used.

However - I know many people which take samples - snippets like kick drums, snares, hats, etc then build their own drum loops. This is fair territory because there is no proof that you have stolen a single drum sound from any song seeing as how anyone can virtually take any type of percussive instrument and alter the characteristics to imitate virtually anything.

Doing things like adding and removing harmonics from a particular percussive element will alter the wave's signature.

On the subject of notation and instrument riffs, etc... I will often find ways to create new sampled instruments from neat sounds - especially from cartoons, lol. Destructively editing, say, a laser beam sound from Power Puff Girls - using a portion of that wave sample as the main waveform for an oscillator in Absynth is not stealing anything - i'm just using the wave's signature to create a new oscillator for a synth which will wind up sounding entirely different than the original sample.

Reversing, stretching or otherwise destructive editing of audio to create a new sound which is nothing like the first is fair game.

A friend of mine has a list of every single Daft Punk song and what tracks they sampled for their songs.

Example: Rapper's Delight kick and bassline were used in Daft Punk's Around the World and left unedited with the exception of arrangement of the percussion. This is not copyright infringement.

However - Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby stealing from Queen's Under Pressure was a blatant disregard for copyright as the song uses entire riffs, unaltered for Vanilla's tune.

Sorry, not trying to be a jerk here, but almost everything quoted above is untrue (at least in the US) - so please don't use this as a quideline.

Just to be clear: ANY SAMPLE that isn't cleared violates the law.

The reality is: will you get caught?

My experience is that it's way too expensive, time consuming and impractical to clear samples unless you are selling a lot of units. Every time you use a sample (uncleared) you are taking a calculated risk (based on the factors in my earlier post).

So just as a current example - Neon Indian sampled Todd Rundgren. It seems likely he would've asked for clearance for that sample, in that it's pretty recognizable. How muxh would that've cost, and would that have been a one-off fee (ie, no future royalties)?

[drako]

i still remember MARRS pump up the volume, omfg! they had a world wide hit in 1987, think they had to bring all their earned money to the original sampled artists.
Never heard anything from them after this.

[vicz]

(Mainly) UK info but interesting http://www.creative-choices.co.uk/knowl ... ar-samples

[contakt321]

So just as a current example - Neon Indian sampled Todd Rundgren. It seems likely he would've asked for clearance for that sample, in that it's pretty recognizable. How muxh would that've cost, and would that have been a one-off fee (ie, no future royalties)?

It's hard to tell. I don't know much about his label, how much on average he sells, or if Todd Rundgren prosecutes for sample usage (for example: Rolling Stones definitely DO, the Winstons definitely DON'T).

There is no standard fee, nor is there a standard royalty - it's all about leverage. For example, if you don't clear a song, and it's super popular and the single is doing well the SAMPLED artist has more leverage b/c he knows the SAMPLING artist can't afford to not have the song on the record. The converse would be a SAMPLED artist who doesn't have a lawyer trying to go after a digital release. The SAMPLING artist can negotiate or easily strip the song with the sample from the release in lieu of paying the artist.

The lack of standardization is definitely an issue but no resolution in sight for that.