How did Alchemist

kwality wrote:Man, I'm glad you guys aren't lawyers! The reality is that samples should be cleared no matter what, according to the law.

same could be said for smoking trees or painting graf or speeding or even robbing someone. what's your point?

madlib's label doesn't clear his samples. indy artists don't need to worry about clearing samples because they make very little money from cd sales. for an artist or label to sue you for using their sample will cost them more than they could hope to get from you so they don't do it. BUT... if you have a hit record and it's all over the place you're fuucked.

if it's on a major clear it, if it's on an indy don't.

How long is this post gonna go on? Im not telling my opinion. I put the link up read for yourself. If some one sues you ,you dont get paid from the song until the case is over ,not one dime. Most likely lthey will get part of your publishing ,so how does it cost them? It dosnt.Of course they cant sue you if they dont know about it.You never know who will hear your music,people werent born stars,somebody discovered them.

it is a know fact that u do not need sample clearance unless u are moving over 100,000 units.

If a plaintiff were to sue somone over a song that sold 20,000 coppies, his legal fees would surpass the amount of money he would win from the case. Therefore the plaintiff would lose money.... Why would someone go out of their way to lose money???

The Song "northern touch" by the Rascalz sold over 100,000 coppies. They sampled a well know break from the BT Express. it was also the same sample epmd used 10 years earlier. even though the Rascalz record went gold they did not get sample clearance and they also DID NOT get sued.

the moral of the story is, dont worry about clearance. everything will work itself out. ask any major artist and they will tell u the same thing.

My point is that you're naive to think that only people selling heaps of records get screwed by copyright. Do you think if a cop catches you with a small amout of weed he'll let you go? Nah, he'll make an example of you.

You'd be surprised about how much Stones Throw clears. An "Indy" label with world wide distribution isn't really that indy. Sure, it's not Roc-A-Fella, but it's not hard to get a hold of it.

If you're making money, why should the artist you sampled? Put yourself in their shoes...

scum bag wrote:it is a know fact that u do not need sample clearance unless u are moving over 100,000 units.

If a plaintiff were to sue somone over a song that sold 20,000 coppies, his legal fees would surpass the amount of money he would win from the case. Therefore the plaintiff would lose money.... Why would someone go out of their way to lose money???

The Song "northern touch" by the Rascalz sold over 100,000 coppies. They sampled a well know break from the BT Express. it was also the same sample epmd used 10 years earlier. even though the Rascalz record went gold they did not get sample clearance and they also DID NOT get sued.

the moral of the story is, dont worry about clearance. everything will work itself out. ask any major artist and they will tell u the same thing.

That makes sense to me. Take Dilla's Donuts for example - he had nearly 30 tracks on there, a lot of the the tracks were almost straight loops that went on for about a minute. He even sampled stuff like Three Degrees and Isley Brothers for that album. The album has received a lot of attention and definately has a lot of recognizable samples - but Stones Throw don't get in trouble for it. Anyways, I don't think Stones Throw would pay sample money for about 30 1-minute tracks.

I just gotta ask ,how old are all of you that beleive that. Everybody that keeps saying its a know fact this and that, you really dont know who cleared what sample. Tell me how you know? I put the link up there for you to read.Did you read it,thats not my opinion thats the law.Some one that made a record that someonelse used that is a popular record im sure can afford to sue someone.How much money do you think it takes to file a law suite? Millions,Thousands,Billions?

You seriously think they'd risk their business because they don't wanna clear some samples? Just because a sample isn't listed, it doesn't mean for one second that it's not cleared. There have been numerous cases, especially in the U.K of legal action being taken for people pressing up 10-20,000 copies of a record.

Think about it, 100,000 indy records, minimum $4 profit each... Yeah, why would a company worry about almost half a million dollars? The majors have a full time legal team so it's as easy as pie. Not mention it warns others off. They're going after people who file share, why wouldn't they go after people who are profiting from their property?

stones throw has to clear there samples. they use more obscure shit though so the clearance is cheaper. Its one thing to sample the jackson 5 then to sample a record that only pressed 500 copies.

People don't just sue for money, alot of times they sue for publishing! What ever song you sample there are two copyright owners, the person who owns the publishing, and the person who owns the rcording. You ave to clear both. The label or record company often owns the rcording but the artist may own the publishing. That artist might hear your song in passing and sue you personally in a small claims court. That artist might want money or to just own the publishing on that beat u made using their song (or a percentage there of)

It happened to blockhead!

ALSO if your work contains uncleared samples it CAN NOT be legally licensed for anything! That means no tv commercials radio commercials or video game soundtracks can use it!

Usually if ur moving under 50k ur gonna be cool...
but there are exceptions to everything!

Just remember, if your giving it away for free they can't sue you for it... Just look at Dangermouse, he didn't make a dime on the grey album, but the publicity he got off that you CAN"T EVEN BUY!!!

COSINE ON DLFs POST.
If you not moving units like that, then there's no money for them to get anyway. They can sue, but for what money?
Also, some people just roll the dice. Also, that alchemist album really has alot of keyboard beats, and very small samples of very obscure sh**.
If you really have a one note sample that's not a 'signature' like james brown or something, I think it's whack to sue over that. You can't copywrite one note. Sh** there are only twelve of them in the whole western keyboard! That being said, again, if you not pulling numbers like that, don't worry about it. WHAT IS THE NAME OF THE BOOK HE WAS TALKING ABOUT UP THERE?

kwality wrote:Man, I'm glad you guys aren't lawyers! The reality is that samples should be cleared no matter what, according to the law. And just because it's not listed in the liner notes doesn't mean it hasn't been cleared, the labels want money, not recognition.

There are independant sample clearance companies out there that will do all the legwork and negotiation for you, it's not like you have to call the Winstons direct and ask if you can jack the Amen break.

Just be sensible, and dig deep. You aren't gonna get away with much these days. And I'm sure Madlib doesn't clear his samples. But I bet the label putting out his releases do!

Yeah , so you are telling me Stone Throw Peanut butter Wolf is walking after Madlib, askin him " So, Mad, this last beat cd you gave me ..yeah , the one you made in Brazil ,last year, in the hotel room, while high as shit with 30 records you bought that day ... yeah ,...Listen , I need to know where you sampled from that trumpet in beat nr 23 ..
cause MF Doom loves it and he gonna use it for his album.."

give me a break!!

I dunno. Lawyers are expensive. Even a small litigation costs alot of dough. So if a particular label feels that the cost of litigation outweighs how much they can actually get from you, it's in their best interest not to even persue it. That being said, the larger the entity, the more they can afford it. So yes, if an obscure label is a subsidiary of a large major, then they just may pay a few grand to serve you with a cease and decist, and see what you do. If your pushing units, they may even watch soundscan to see what you rack up, then bag you when they actually stand to gain something by it. Then again, there's always the artists personal integrity. Maybe they were never popular, so their own music is all they really have. That person may just go out and spend everything they have to make sure you can't sell any copies of what you made using thier material. They may have no intention whatsoever of getting money. They may just hate rap music and want to stop you from taking their sounds. I suppose anything goes. Just playing devils advocate here. I love sampling, but damn, these cats are suing everybody!! I think it's also relevant that alot of crap music made by newbie synth users has inundated hiphop music, and my theory is that, they got a shot becuase there were very few samples to clear, and thus no liability. From a legal standpoint, makes a good case for buying crappy beats that sound very swiss cheesy, if you know what I mean

There must be a reason you guys wont read the link that I posted. Because you know Im right. I wonder why there are companies that all they do are clear samples for labels. I wonder why some tracks never come out cause they cant get the sample cleared.Common sense should really end this debate. Go to an artist website like the HEATMAKERS WHO ON MYSPACE THAT ARE ANSwERING QUESTIONS RIGHT NOW AND ASK THEM. Read the link I put up before anybody post anyt thing else .

we peep the link, thank you. Informative, although most of these are well known. ALso, your underlining my point right there...look at the grey album. An underground remix album, using what might be the most expensive shit you could even TRY to sample (if they would even liscence it) and what can they really do? "Cease and decist"? That means, "stop selling it". Because there are no heavy sales off of barcoded units that he can reap any dough from. Who knows what's going on with that case now, but now he has international success off of two pop albums, so he don't need to try to liscence that. Intersting point: DId Jay sue him?

No your not wrong, but all we saying is...no body can actually GET any money off of someone who didn't MAKE any money, so no people do not often bother with small timers. That's all I'm saying. btw: heatmakers are cheeze

trupro wrote:

...That's all I'm saying. btw: heatmakers are cheeze

My pick for quote of the day!!!