Sampling public domain

public domain means its free for the public to use in anyway, even if your making money from it. ive sampled some songs i found on a public domain site most of the songs were from the 1920s to 40s i think and most of them sounded pretty bad

The way copyright & public domain works is that during the life of an artist they have copyright. After they pass away the copyright goes to the closed living next of kin - this is so that the family of the artist enjoy the profits and rewards from their work.

the copyright then lasts for 70 years after the artist is dead.
after the 70 year period of copyright the artwork, composition and anything else which is a creative work goes into the public domain so that the population of the world can enjoy for free.

Anything classical is in the public domain (if the composer has been dead for 70 years) - this is why when nas used the beathoven sample for "I Can" there were no royalty payments.

This is why the mona lisa is 'price less'. its not that the artwork it literally so expensive that no one in the world would be able to afford its value. Its because legally its free. you could buy it for $1 except its in the public domain and now its here for the public to view.

This is why people still make classical compilations and why a classical compilation is cheeper then a pink CD. no royalty payments need to be made and hence the reason for a cheeper package.
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Heres the problem now tho. The public domain used to be 50 years and an international panel assembled to extened this. the reason?

here are a few...
The Revenue Elvis's estate creates is still millions. if all Elvis music went into the pubic domain so many people would loose money. no more royalties.

The estate of walt dysny make's millions over the trade marked charactered walt created. in about 20-30 years or sooner mickey mouse will go into the public domain, that means the iconic character cant be used any more for profit. it will be in the public domain which means you & i will both beable to pub mickey on a cover, put mickey on logos and never have to face a law suit.

who knows what will happen once in the future.

gzutek wrote:Anything classical is in the public domain (if the composer has been dead for 70 years) - this is why when nas used the beathoven sample for "I Can" there were no royalty payments.

That's just for the actual arrangement of a song, right? You would still have to clear something that an orchastra did on vinyl right? The recording would have a copyright, correct? If not, i need to reevaluate some things :lol:

word up.
There are usually two copyrights to be cleared.
The songwriter (which if it's someone like mozart, is now public domain),
and the copyright of that recording(preformance) (which unless is 75 years old, is not public domain yet, and will require clearing if you choose to clear your samples)...sometimes, you can hire an agency to clear both of these for you, but then you have another fee to pay - and that's just for one sample...

I disagree with regard to one point.

If you use a sample of classical music of which the composition is PD (i.e composer is dead for over 70 years or whatever) you would still be liable for mechanical royalties to the performers.


Granted....the chances of being caught are slim but there is still a legal obligation to pay mechanicals.

It is common now for speciality production houses to replay/re-create samples. In this case you would still have to pay royalties on the copyright of the compostion but you wouldn't have to pay mechanicals.