clearance request - etiquette

J

jtocks

New member
New member, first post. Hopefully I wont embarass myself too much, ha. I'm a low level producer working on developing a sound. Working mainly with Logic and Audition. While I've got a demo and am shopping for a label, I'm keeping momentum up and choosing which records to sample moving forward.

My question is about clearance requests and how best to approach an artist. Go through their management, label, if they're small enough/local enough - contact them directly?

Has anyone had any experience with this, perhaps even going so far as to getting extracted samples from the original track.

Keep in mind I'm personally considering requesting clearance from an artist on an independent record label (granted a label thats moderately known, has major distribution, but still independent). I'm not going to drop names on what I'm working on or who the artist is I'm going to request music clearances from but was more looking to start a dialog about the procedures: do's and dont's.

I'd love to hear your story, or links to experiences already posted about.
 
i gave a beat away to an artist that was signed to stonesthrow records, didn't even worry about clearing the sample because he's not a major artist. plus i didn't charge for the beat, just got royalties from ascap. i'd say if the artist wants to purchase the beat, let them clear the sample but work out some sort of a percentage on your publishing. make sure you get at least 50% since you created the song.
 
The sound i'm developing is for a project for myself. I'm going to produce and cowrite a record with an artist I work with. These tracks aren't intended to be sold off or given away to major/indie artists so I can't rely on pitching the song to an artist, them liking it and dealing with the legalities later.

I need to clear the usage of the sample to some degree beforehand and was looking for advice on how best to do so.
 
Are you in the U.S.? If so, I looked into compulsory licenses a while back for an album of cover songs. Where are you in the process? There are services that will get you a compulsory license in connection with CD duplication, for a fee.
 
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