anyone ever worry about uncredited/uncleared sampling?
Hector El Father, the reggaeton artist who’s track was sampled for Harlem Shake, says he’s considering legal action.
am i right in assuming it’s pretty much the culture of electronic music to use samples without crediting them? i see way more instances of this than the reverse. even at the “bigger” labels.
TONS of producers have gotten away with this.
the reason is usually “i didn’t expect this track to ever blow up”. i totally understand that. dance music labels usually don’t make enough money to clear samples. but once the song blows up, shouldn’t you clear the sample? i’m surprised mad decent hasn’t done it yet. harlem shake is way too big right now.
everyone seems ok with sampling sounds though. laidback luke recommends this when he critiques tracks on his forum. he says it’s better because those sounds have been mastered perfectly for the club. then i was reading oliver money’s interview with little white earbuds about doin’ ya thang he said everybody “steals” his sounds. as if to say if he had the money to get those songs taken off the market, he would.
[quote=“Patch, post:3, topic:53960, username:Patch”]
I am not.
But I don’t get PAID. If you are using samples and gettng paid, you should get them cleared. Otherwise, you’re just stealing.
It’s always been the way. If you use an uncleared sample on a release,that people can buy, you should expect to get chased.
[/quote]it seems the trend in electronic music is to expect NOT to get chased. as far as i know michael calfan hasn’t chased guetta and nicky romero over metropolis. i think baauer felt he was safe as long as the song didn’t get big in the mainstream. before the videos happened, el father had never heard the song and probably never would have.
I used to worry about un-credited/uncleared samples. There’s an easy way in my opinion to get around this.
If you sampled something, just release it for free. In anything else, make your own sounds.
Here’s where it gets fun. Lets say you want to sample something but can’t due to not being able to clear the sample. Try re-creating the sample from scratch. Figure out how it was made. also the freesound project exists for just this reason. Want to sample a guitar riff? get a guitar and learn to play, sample yourself. Ask a friend to play it. get a guitar soundfont and add necessary EQ and effects, and re-construct the loop. want that strange metalic sound? find something that makes a simmilar sound or tone and sample it. and effects… I find that you actually learn alot doing this, and the process is quite satisfying.
To give you a different perspective on this. If you take the time to create every sound you used, and fine tuned them yourself, You have done a great deal of work creating something, and you would personally want to be credited for it, right? after you’ve done that a few times, whenever you do something with sampling, it’s just not as personally satisfying. and with that you can more comfortably give that away for free, which is what you really should do. I mean clearly there are exceptions to this, i mean, i’m pretty sure daft punk wouldn’t still exist if not for sampling, and they do some amazing things with it, but we can’t all be thomas and guy.
So no, I don’t worry about samples because once you stop using samples, you don’t usually start again. at least not in my experience.
man you couldnt be more wrong. No matter what you use it for, or even if its to be sold or free, you CAN NOT release it.
The golden rule is you “CAN NOT DISTRIBUTE” the sample in any size, length, format, or type.
It all boils down the the regulations finally set in place, and in short they state ( in laymen terms )
The wording of the law claims they dont care how many times you download the song
but once you upload it a single time, you are distributing, and thats a no go.
So basically, they want to stop the CREATION of new ways or files to be downloaded.
If no one is uploading, there is nothing NEW to steal.
Incase you (all) didnt know, there is also a rulling which states, well,
lets say you are doing a live broadcast, and you are announcing music to come up.
You are only allowed to announce (2) of the upcoming artists but not their titles,
You cant announce more than 2 artists
and if your live show is going to happen pre-programmed, you arent allowed to post a tracklisting with timestamps that people can follow, to figure out “exactly when” a specific run or artists and their songs are going to play.
Now im sure there are going to be many of you who dont believe this. Ok here is an easy way to see it in action.
DI.fm does pre-programmed live broadcasts.
When it is happening, the dj who made the mix comes into the forum for his mix, and posts just that opening song.
As the mix goes on is when he continues to post more tracks but NEVER does he post the rest of them until the mix is completed.
but as for being allowed to use a sample just because you offer it for free, or don’t get paid for it, totally bogus
That is up to the interpretation of a jury, and who is more persuasive, if it ever came up. I’m not talking about straight sampling, I’m talking about cutting up and re-arranging.
As for not being legal to release it for free, Wouldn’t that be covered under fair use? doesn’t it also depend on what nation in which you reside?
yes it depends on which nation you reside but always ALWAYS air on the side of caution because its not like the places we live in are going to always inform us of when the rules change
Do you have any prove of that? Can you name any specific artits/tracks/labels? Dou you have any insight into “bigger” labels licensing practice we don’t have? Because I highly doubt what you’re saying is correct…
[quote]
the reason is usually “i didn’t expect this track to ever blow up”. i totally understand that. dance music labels usually don’t make enough money to clear samples. but once the song blows up, shouldn’t you clear the sample?[/quote]
If you’re planning to commercially release a track you should clear the samples right at the beginning. If you wait until it blows up it’s too late. This would give the rights owner pretty strong leverage against you, as he could not only sue you for money, but also demand you take the track off the market. Even if he agrees not to sue you or take any other legal action but give you a license, the price will probably be much higher than before the track went big.
Besides: if you don’t think a track will generate sufficient sales to pay for the license, maybe it isn’t really worth being released at all…? (I don’t want to imply that you should use uncleared samples in non-commercial releases, btw…
I’m almost shocked he says stuff like that… What is he going to do if any of the members of his forum follows his advice and gets sued - pay the fines?
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^^THIS!!
The legal status of a track containing uncleared samples is similar to that of a DJ mix, in which you use other people’s tracks without holding the rights to them.
This can easily be understood when looking at e.g. soundcloud’s terms & conditions, which clearly state that, if you don’t hold the rights to every single bit of your track/mix, you’re not allowed to upload (i.e. publish) it.
The term ‘publish’ includes all of the following forms: commercial release, free download, stream (!). Yes, you read right, legally you’re not even allowed to have tracks that contain uncleared samples on your soundcloud page, even if the download option is disabled…
(Of course the probability that someone will come after you is higher for downloads and highest for commercial releases)
Generally I would say, that using uncleared samples is kind of a grey area, like DJ mixes. It’s not legal, but chances are you won’t get in too much trouble, even if someone finds out.
Chances of getting in trouble are higher if you ‘escalate’ the level of distribution by making it downloadable.
So my advice would be: if you want to release a track commercially, clear the samples!
If you just want to use it for promotional purposes go ahead, but be aware that it’s not legal and be cautious.
Even as an internet radio station, i need to carry a Mechanical Use license / and / a performance license just to broadcast these major dj mixes as well as the mixes from djs i know personally because some of them are recorded or streaming LIVE as they happen.
And they contain 99% commercially licensed, typewritten music.
Just wanted to add that because you mentioned DJ MIXES for promotional use
I guess the monitoring should even be much closer for internet radio stations than for e.g. people who upload their mixes to their private soundcloud account.
Probably because radio stations are more likely to be of ‘commercial nature’…
Oh man… This is just off the top of my head and it’s daft punk and the prodigy. I don’t think it’s possible for anyone who does ANYTHING with ANY electronic music to not know who either of these are, so I don’t think you can get much bigger than that.
—Edit
As for more recent stuff, I’m not to sure off hand, But I can go through and find more on youtube all day long.
I didn’t want you to show me songs that contain samples from other records, I know plenty of those myself.
What I was asking for is tracks (by big artists) containing samples you know for sure haven’t been cleared!!!
I’m 100% sure that for each and every one of the tracks you posted as well as the ones you may find on youtube, the samples have been properly cleared by either the artists or their labels!
it’s impossible to know 100% for sure if a sample has or hasn’t been cleared on a major label unless you are:
A) the artist the sample was from
B) the artist who used the sample
C) the label who owns the sample
D) the label who the artist using the sample is on.
so really, that’s a trick question.
There are these things called liner notes, which should contain a list of where samples are from, if any, but these are never filled.
Here’s another example of uncleared sampling. Every occurrence of the amen break, or funky drummer.
This record samples one of the biggest acid house records of all time, when I tell people that they still don’t realise and the record is practically a remix.
There have only been 3 tracks i’ve ever made that i’ve been ‘worried’ about uncleared samples. (remixes don’t count, especially not when they released masters publicly). Of the 3 tracks I’ve made that use samples at all outside of remixes, some are more obvious than others. and for the record, each of those where just made for fun. Nothing serious. just kinda… goofy things that I made when I was bored. from a simple lack of quality and effort I am pretty confident that they’ll never get big.
The thing that worries me about ‘uncleared samples’ are when people release free sample packs, and I don’t know if they actually made the samples, or if they actually sampled them from something and distributed it, like ‘nah, it’s fine’. I’m getting to the point where I might have to delete 80% of my drum-loops because of this. as it stands from this point on I think i’m going to be making all my drums from scratch now, Just in case… It’s also kind of why I joined this forum. So far my only communication with other musicians has been going on /mu/ on 4chan, and their morals and ethics are… questionable at best.
Another thing is, When I started posting, I didn’t expect this to become a debate over what is or isn’t legal, and I’m sorry for that, however, here’s a few more big examples of larger groups that you know used uncleared samples.
-Nine Inch Nails
Album : Purest Feeling - (the demo tape that became Pretty hate machine) The whole album samples all kinds of movies, but one notable one that I recognized right off…
Track : Twist (AKA Ringfinter) towards the start of the song… all the screaming/screeching is that sample pitchbent and distorted, but it plays much more clearly at different points.
Sample - Malcom Mcdowell, screaming in “A Clockwork Orange” (the scene with the eyedrops and the films)
I know it isn’t cleared because as far as I can tell it wasn’t in the actual album release (unless it’s in the sounds at the end of the album version)
-However The demo tape is available online for free, and trent himself posted it, which means, Unlicensed samples… everywhere.
Whenever trent samples now, he not only has the money, but would pay for the sample rights, but he also encourages his fans to pirate and steal his music, so I’m pretty sure the RIAA hates him.
-KMFDM
Liebeslied / Leibesleid (One translates as ‘lovesong’ the other as “physical suffering”)
Sampled carl Orff’s O Fortuna. from Carmina Burana
Legal action was threatened (despite it being a sample from the 1930’s). the album was re-recorded without the sample, and the track was renamed from ‘lovesong’ to ‘physical suffering’ by just reversing a few letters.
What is he going to do if any of the members of his forum follows his advice and gets sued - pay the fines?
