#121

One thing I wonder is, how unique were all the samples used? Surely in many cases artists could get similar-sounding samples from local bands and friends etc. with a lot less hassle. Maybe there could even be a service that replaces all your samples with legally-obtained ones for you while keeping the feel of the track, and supporting unknown artists in the process!

This was a major one recently, and a bit crazy for a couple of reasons. Minaj didn’t officially release her song, and although the article doesn’t mention it, apparently she actually sampled Foxy Brown’s cover, not the original recording (nor Shelly Thunder’s track which also gets a mention):

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#122

this raises a good point

please forgive my rant because it’s not directly tied to your post and i probably could’ve shared without you reminding me to say this stuff

hip-hop isn’t always about doing something “hassle-free” or legal, or even doing something similar to the idea in your head…it’s about doing what you want, how you want

it’s like graffiti and street art

painting a commissioned wall with legal permission is not the same as old school bombing, for some people the joy of painting or sharing their work is enough

others would rather quit than go the risk-free route

the same is true of producers in my opinion

even if they have the time and resources to get a legally usable sample interpolation made, do they want to? for some the answer is clearly no

7 Likes
#123

Yeah, honestly I think the “stealing” is the fun of it. With sampling you can collaborate with any artist in the world and from any time period. Imo it is the most efficient way to riff on an idea.

I could take an alice coltrane midi file and run it through a wavetable VST. But the audio file directly captures innumerable imperfections that give something.

That said, in 2021 if you’re making money off of it you should obscure the sample with some rearranging and effects, which luckily there are a million ways to do.

#124

There is at least one company who have been doing ‘sample recreations’ for some time:
http://www.replayheaven.com/
They have an impressive list of clients! :open_mouth:

#125

interesting side note but iirc
dam funk was part of a group which replayed tracks for dr dre’s camp back in the 90s

some people still don’t want to mangle (for a variety of reasons)
which brings me to my next point

a common misconception is motive of a producer
i feel most people don’t really grasp the reason for sampling in the first place

i can’t speak for all beatmakers but i have personal very difficult to explain relationships with many songs ESPECIALLY the ones i sample from

sampling the original bottles the essence of that relationship in a way that’s tough to describe…and sometimes the way you want to preserve that essence is in a simple loop

the other consideration is that from day one
when turntables, mixers, tapedecks and drum machines were being used for hip hop production they were not the easiest ways to make the beats!

these tools were not cheaper either

guys decided to go down a path that nobody else really had tried and they did it (misusing/misappropriating gear and sound) because they wanted to

if they wanted to learn drums or start traditional bands they very well could have
and the same is true now

take somebody like madlib
ynq albums make clear that he could play keys and drums and bass guitar on his own if that was ALL he wanted to do

there are plenty like him who just have fun sampling
they like a simple loop
they often mess with uncleared tunes

it’s just part of hip hop culture

7 Likes
#126

Yeah I was thinking about Madlib as a caveat when I wrote that. There’s something about his loops that can recontextualize a whole sound though. You can hear his voice through it.

#127

The difference between sampling and interpolating is similar to the difference between a documentary having footage of an event or filming a reenactment.

I really wish sample clearance wasn’t a thing at all. The original artist should automatically get a cut of the songwriting credit (split based on the percentage of the song that includes the sample?) or something. It shouldn’t be a negotiation. You don’t have to call up someone to get permission to quote them in your book. I know documentaries have to get clearance for footage to be safe too since fair use isn’t super clearly defined but I wish that wasn’t a thing either.

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#128

I like madlib and mean no disrespect but this is true of any good producer

There’s just a lot of mediocre producers and, frankly, the audience reaction is what changes things

Madlib has less to prove as far as skill is concerned and sometimes he samples stuff so obscure that a simple loop seems less simple than it is

No solution is fair and though this thread is about legal implications I’ll share my radical view once again: nobody owns sound and money shouldn’t be exchanged for music

all these issues arise because we treat music and intellectual property (ew) as commodity worthy only of trade

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#129

A lot of it is about what you can get away with and the context of the source material. Madlib is one of my favorite producers. Some of his beats are just loops. People gave Bad Boy’s producers shit in the 90s for how obvious their loops were. Those songs are still classics. There is no difference between Juicy and a lot of Madlib beats besides that he picked an obscure record and not a song his audience knew. But picking a song people know is a good trick too…

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#130

I 100% agree with this!

So my journey with beats and sampling has led me to sample only infrequently when I (1) feel reasonably certain nobody will find my song (2) or the song I chopped or (3) can mangle it beyond recognition

I’m getting back into flipping samples more because i cleared one sample for cheap and have some obscure stuff that i’m 99% sure nobody will catch

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#131

I agree fully from a philosophical view. I was trying to come up with a solution that while a compromise could work under a capitalist system and still(?) provide money for artists to pay bills. Either way, I don’t see major labels and lawyers lobbying for changes to intellectual copyright law.

I just want more albums like Paul’s Boutique and Nation of Millions to come out. Right now it doesn’t make financial sense.

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#132

yep

totally agree…confronting that reality is why i stopped sampling for so long

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#133

This conversation between Alchemist and Just Blaze is gold. They talk a lot about the type of stuff we’re talking about but it’s interspersed throughout the video so I can’t give you a timestamp. You’ll just have to trust me that it’s worth a watch/listen.

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#134

Thanks, that’s the half of the picture I omitted. If that’s the route they choose, it seems the producers and labels are being tracked down too easily compared to graffiti artists and need to be more untraceable. I imagine the music being on a service programmed to be as impossible to shut down as The Pirate Bay, perhaps with fans donating Bitcoin to artists.

The other difference with graffiti is that it actually damages the property. I’m with you in that I don’t think sound should be protected to such an extreme. I’m happy to pay money for music, but finding out where a sample came from is free publicity for the original artist, hardly damaging.

1 Like
#135

This whole thread has been about sampling copyrighted music. Does anyone have information or opinion about other broadcast material/

What if i want to use some snippets of donald trump or of his crazed supporters in a track, that i sample off the news? Do i have to clear that? Whith whom?

What if i want to sample a few seconds of amanda gorman’s poem/recital at the inauguration? Do i give her a co-write? How much?

What if i want to use the sound of gunfire in tigray as a snare loop?

Serious question, non-rhetorical,

‘asking for a friend’

Just do it? <———(dont sue me for this mail please)

#136

You could use Alex Empire’s old trick of claiming in the sleeve notes to have played all the guitar samples yourself when they are BLATENTLY Slayer samples :smiley:

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#137

Maybe Alec Empire meant that he sampled the guitars and played them in his sampler all by himself? :wink:

#138

i think this would depend on who originally broadcast the material… r u taking news clips from cnn?? probs would have to clear w cnn/parent company… tbh i dont think ur proposals r too dissimilar to copyrighted music, someone still holds a copyright to that broadcast material, just different parties are at play.

where this may differ: who has the right to broadcast a particular event. say u went to the inauguration, recorded the audio of the poem on a personal recorder, its ur own recording so surely itd be okay to use as a sample??? but often broadcast companies will pay for the rights to broadcast an event, meaning if someone else records that event, that company will have the autonomy to decide when/how ur personal recording may be distributed. & usually by attending the event theres some terms that come w purchasing the ticket that will lay out recording/broadcast rights in the tos.

ianal so take w a grain of salt, but i did work in this industry for quite a while and specifically dealt w copyright claims from media companies. looking into how sports events are allowed to be recorded/shared/distributed may give u a firmer idea of how the actual legal logistics of broadcast copyright works. thats where it seems to be most active w this type of content in the us.

at the end of the day, just as w copyrighted music, i think it comes down to how litigious a copyright holder wants to be abt their copyrighted material, and how able they are to recognize your sample as being their copyrighted material.

3 Likes
#139

yeah, makes sense. thanks

1 Like
#140

hey! wanted to see what people thought of this possible sample discovery. So the melody in one of Post Malone’s most popular tracks ‘Rockstar’ seems suspiciously similar to the opening riff of a track my father composed in the 80s. He was a library composer for the company DeWolfe in the UK. Someone on youtube has suggested its been slowed down. Do you think its the same track?

Here are the links:

cheers!