Legal To Sell What You Sample?

S

SoundIsLife

New member
Hey Guys,

So is it legal to sample parts of other people`s music, create a new song with those samples and some of your own stuff, and then sell that track? It seems like they (the person`s work you sampled) should be entitled to some royalties or something seeing how they created an original part in your song.

We mostly hear this in Hip Hop/Rap. Seems like most the samples are mostly from different genres (Classical, Choirs, Old Children`s songs, or older songs). examples: it's a hard knock life (Ghetto Anthem) - jay z used stuff from the play Annie

Can you just take bits of songs, chop them up, create an original song (with chopped parts from other songs), and sell it as your own? This seems like a pretty standard thing to do in Hip Hop, EDM, etc ...are there royalties being paid behind the scenes that we don`t know about? Or are samples free game?

---------- Post added at 01:39 AM ---------- Previous post was at 01:31 AM ----------

And further if you just completely remix someones song ...can you sell that? Or do you need to get in some agreement with them?
 
SoundIsLife,

You are asking all the right questions here. What you're talking about is intellectual property and copyright issues... can you take someone else's property and by changing it, make it into something original that belongs to you.

Like many things in life, there's the textbook answer and the practical answer. Textbook answer is, if you take someone else's PROTECTED property (meaning, they have rights to it) and sample it for your own mix, then legally you can't sell it because it doesn't totally belong to you. You can look in the forum at some other threads that talk about some famous lawsuits from the past few years... even a short sample can run you into trouble. Certain uses of copyrighted property could fall under the definition of "Fair Use" (google "campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music" for an example) but that can be hard to prove in court.

The practical answer is, depends on what you're sampling. Some music is considered in the "public domain." Think of really old music, or music that falls in the "royalty-free" category. So use it to your heart's content. Other music might not be public domain, but you might "get away" with sampling such a small amount that the hordes of lawyers won't even notice that you've ripped off their hooks, riffs, or beats. Meaning, you won't get the dreaded "Cease and Desist" letter in the mail.

And the second part to the practical answer is, what are you trying to do? If you're just starting out and trying to build some cred, then remixing some beats to get exposure (and not make $$) is probably okay. Once you want to make $$ of someone else's work, that's a different story. Lots of gray area in between.

If there's a recognizable beat or riff you want to sample, you can always try to get permission (but it could cost a lot). Another option is to just make your own slightly different riff and sample yourself. Not as sexy but a lot safer--like safe sex! :)

Hope this helped. Like I said, check out some other threadz and see what the experts have to say.

~Baby B, Esq.
Aspiring Beatz Lawyer
(not intended as legal advice)
 
No you can’t. Jay-Z probably can because he paid enough for it for the original artist(s) to say yes. If you listen to most tracks on the radio these days, pretty much all of them are covers — it’s not just Hip-Hop or Rap, it’s everywhere! They use samples but also cover entire melodies. So if you play the melody yourself instead of just sampling it, it’s stealing too.

I know many tracks that get some changes before getting released, because of some samples that need to be cleaned. So often you’d hear a version on the radio when the song isn’t out yet, and later when it’s released it might be slightly different.
 
Exactly! That would be a no. I've heard guys say that if you only use a few seconds then it's legal. Guess what? It's not. No matter how much you chopped it up. Public domain, fair game. Anything else, leave it alone. Do a search for Harry Fox Agency and get familiar with the process of clearing samples. There's no set price and it can be very expensive doing so depending on the artist you're sampling. Some artists don't allow clearances at all.
 
LOL, selling beatz that aren't yours to sell and THEN not reporting it to the IRS. This is straight thug life up in here!
 
you can sell sampled beats if you put a clousure in your contract that it's the buyer's responsibility to clear out the samples rights before releasing songs
 
Beats4Pros said:
you can sell sampled beats if you put a clousure in your contract that it's the buyer's responsibility to clear out the samples rights before releasing songs
Click to expand...

I’m not sure about that, because as soon as your sell it, you’re making some money off someone else’s work. No matter if it gets released or not… because the point here is if you make money with it or not — there’s no problems with bootlegs at all, there’s tons of them out there and they’re all free. This would be something to research on! But I don’t believe it could be possible to be honest.

Also, if the artist who bought your samples beat isn’t able to clear the samples, what is he supposed to do? Hire you once again (and therefore pay) to make the track new once again without the samples? This could cost the artist a lot again if those samples play a big role in the track.
 
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This is a good point. I think one important point is that, despite the terminologies used, you are not "leasing" or "selling" a beat. You are licensing it. It's intellectual property, not a used piece of furniture at a garage sale. Now, when I've licensed a track to a record company, there was DEFINITELY a clause in there that read something like "I certify that this work is 100% original and composed 100% by me." This is, of course, to cover their a$$ in case I ripped someone's track and they try to sue the record company/publishing company. Maybe Baby B could chime in? She's a BetaZ LawyerZ!
 
Haha, I'm a Beatz Lawyer, not a BetaZ Lawyer (although sometimes I do feel like the Beta version of myself).

When I took property law agez ago, property rights were compared to a "bundle of sticks." What does that mean? Well, in terms of selling a house, you're selling more than just the physical land or structure--you are guaranteeing other "sticks" in the bundle like clean title, no liens, etc.

Intellectual property operates on the same principles. As Huge pointed out, licensing a beat is more than just the music itself--it can include assurances of "clean title" just like selling a house. Of course, it's not always that simple. The publishing company may have some due diligence responsibilities that a disclaimer alone won't negate. But it's a start and most likely a standard clause in any music licensing contract.

~Baby B., Esq
 
This has been covered in another thread before. You can sell the elements of the song that you contributed while making the buyer aware there are other parties who he will have to settle with.

Basically you have a contract that says "you're paying me for my work, but the musical compostion you have in your possession contains elements of another work and you have to settle up with them as well."

That puts you in the clear.

It's no different than I can make a beat with a co-producer, if you come to me 1st and we make an agreement, you still have to settle up with the other producer.

Not sure why everyone acts like this is so hard to believe.

If you have things in order, you get paid for your work without accepting compensation for what you haven't done. What happens if you're a session singer and an artist wants you to sing an altered version of a song for a hook? Do you get sued or does the artist if after you leave they don't go about getting that hook cleared? Depends on your contract, because if it's not in order, they can always say you lied and said you made up the hook.

Everyday music stuff. Not much to it at all.
 
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That all makes sense, but I'm wondering what the beat maker's responsibility is in disclosing that information. IOW, I'm guessing the beat maker has to make it VERY clear in the contract that there are samples that need to be cleared and that responsibility falls on the person "buying" the beat. If he doesn't do so, he could be sued later. But once that is made clear to the beat buyer, his first question will be, "Well, how much is that going to cost?" And the answer is, of course, "I don't know." (since who knows what the beat will be used for: mix tape? CD sales? TV commercial?) Which doesn't make the deal very attractive.
 
As a beatmaker, it's YOUR responsibility to disclose ANYTHING that ANY OTHER ARTIST contributed to your track. Samples, any melody from another song you may have replayed, any other artist's contribution to the song, ect.

If you aren't responsible creatively for 100% of the beat you're selling it should be disclosed. The buyer will decide from there if he wants to do business. With samples, the buyer is gonna know a sample is in it 4/5 anyway. With from scratch compositions it usually get's scetchy, people leave out their co-producer, the fact the melody is from another song, sometimes just completely rip off another guy's track. These aren't as pricey to fix as not clearing a sample most of the time, but they're more damaging to your credibility by far.
 
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It's important to remember that the person making/selling the beat is ultimately still liable for the use of other artists' samples inside his track. There are discussions on other threads on how to define a "sample" but it can be a very small portion of another person's work. Ultimately, the value in what you the SELLER has to offer is the USE of "your" work. If the buyer has to go purchase the licenses to make it legal to even use "your" beat, then how much value are you offering? Sounds like a bad deal for the buyer.

Keep in mind too, some artists are so lawyered up that just the idea of having to deal with clearing some of their music for your beat is VERY frightening. And if it's frightening for you the seller, it will definitely turn off your buyer.
 
Yet samples are all over comercially released hip hop albums and dominate even still the underground and mixtape hip hop circuit all day, everyday, to this day.
 
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