Dance Music Business Resource

Sampling

Any sample whatsoever without permission is an infringement and needs to be cleared with the holder of the copyright. No "5 second" rule (that's a myth), no nothing. Needless to say, if you grab a single drum sound, who can tell ? Many riffs and bits are untraceable, and many copyright holders will not bother to chase you or don't even care. (or appreciate the flattery and the invigoration of their back catalog).

It is perfectly legal to use samples in a live show. The club's PRO (ascap/bmi) license will cover it. Only manufacturing copies of the recording containing the sample requires licensing.

Sample clearance fees usually are $250 to $5000 upfront, plus %15 to %50 of song income. Only majors can afford to pay for a straight up obvious sample. If you are independent, the license holder may not even bother with you unless you are signed to a major.

Using instruments (even electronic ones) and actually replaying any riff or drum break is completely legal. There are various small studios where guitar and drum dudes sit around and re-record classic songs so that hip-hop artists don't have to sample a recording. They only have to pay for the composition. If its just a riff (not the melody), then its not even the composition.

Copying and then innovating is how music has always developed. But when you use a sampler to do it, you are actually playing the recording that somebody else owns the rights to. Singing off-key ragga versions of Walk Like an Egyptian does not violate the Sound Recording Copyright, but it does use the composition. Thus in a purely technical sense, the composer should get paid, but the record company (who probably own the copyright on the sound recording itself) doesn't have to. The composer should (in theory) get paid by ASCAP/BMI, but how much ? In practice, I don't think any money ever exchanges hands for such little uses.

But in the UK Elastica got sued by Wire (well lawyer vs. lawyer anyway) over an intro guitar riff. It was a deliberate grab on the part of Elastica (a tribute). A drum break isn't considered musical enough. Overall style or fashion sense can be freely stolen; its not considered intellectual property. Rerecording a spoken phrase is fine unless it can be claimed in a court that it constitutes enough of an integral part of the original composition to be considered a cover version, and therefore publishing royalties and mechanical royalties need to be paid. i.e. don't grab the chorus unless you are prepared to pay.

Really its all so extremely subjective that it has to be pretty obvious, and you have to have made some money to be worth getting legal about it. But if you stand to make some money, you should clear it first. Because if the copyright holder doesn't think your shit is fresh, they can legally bar you from selling the record and even impound and/or destroy all extant copies.

Bootsy says he is only now starting to get paid.

You should worry more if you are hiding behind somebody else's achievements because you don't have the guts or the substance to create anything worthwhile yourself. Ethics. Soul.

More info on clearance at :
http://www.nolo.com/