Sample Clearence

Whats up everyone

Me and some artists ive been working with have decided to form a group and help promote eachother , put on shows etc.....We were discussing a bunch of things and one of the topics was clearing samples before we use any beats with them. Me being a producer and using samples for the majority of my beats agree with this to an extent but i dont really think its going to work as we are small time still and cant afford the price people are going to want for sample clearence. My look at this situation was its not like we are on the radio everyday, were going to be using these samples on mixtapes that will probably only be in rotation in our city, so its not that important to get the samples cleared.

Am I wrong in thinking this. I mean i know that yes if someone were to hear the song and wanted to take us to court over it they could but i just dont see that happening. I know alot of you have probably been in the same situation and im wondering how youve handled it. Any advice would be great.

When you take your song that you have samples or a sample in
yes they want to know what you used to make your beat any label
especially major if they are really digging the track wants to know
if you are sampling so they can get clearance.

You may be doing your promotion on a small scale it also depends on how much of a sample you're using if it's that obvious you're gonna pay big time trust me.

Dont you want to get paid or recieve the residuals for your
work, but you wont get much if you sample unless you're "Diddy" or somebody.

try getting very creative and create your own samples like
I do make an original beat from scratch be innovative but they will
make you pay dearly if you try to play them and not ask for clearance.

Thats the thing. Were not on a label, were doing local mixtapes and stuff that probably wont even be getting radio play.

Jake One works with the artist he samples instead of having the label do it

It Doesn't Sound like your in a position to pay for the clearance of samples, Plus your kind of low scale at the minute so i dont think you will need to clear samples. Once you start gettin major radio play and your playing to release an official cd with distrubution deals etc then you will have to worry about clearing ALL your samples. You can get companys you pay to clear these samples for you or you can also do it youselves by contacting the MCPS and gettin the copywrite details from there.

It is also import to realise when clearing a sample that there is up to different copywrites you have to clear. One from the owner of the publishing and another from the record company who owns the recording rights ( thats only if you used the orginal recording ).

Hope this helps!