Sampling from a legal perspective

Spuntastic

Spuntastic

New member
Yo everyone,

I'm making hiphop beats based on samples for about 3 years now and I'm still asking myself how "far" you can go with your samples. If you clearly recognize a sample in a hiphop beat, that isn't chopped, pitched, played faster or slower, just looped, would you consider this as stolen? And I mean not just "stolen sample" but stolen melody, i.e. stolen idea.
I often listen to jazz or blues thinking "oh, this 4/5 seconds would make a great melody sample", without having to chop it or change the velocity. Some might say now there is no problem at all sampling a trumpet melody from dizzy gillespie back from the 50s. But what about current film scores? Just to give an example: The movie "Moon" has a brilliant score and I made a beat using some melodys out of it. Is it (from a legal perspective) more "dangerous" to sample melodys from current movies than from Jazz/Blues/Soul/whateva from the 30s/40s/50s/60s ?

And in addition to that: I use a lot of movie quotes in my Instrumentals. What is the worst thing that could happen to me, using a 10sec quote from Dazed and Confused, The Man Who Wan't There or Reservoir Dogs (etc.)?

Cheers,
Spuntastic
 
if the song blows up and makes money or just becomes popular.. you/artist can get sued... but if you're music doesn't blow up it won't reach the ears of the people you sampled.. so know one will care..
 
Using copywritten music is stealing... Unless of course you come to an agreement with the owners of the copyright (i.e. sample clearance)...

What's the worst thing that could happen? You get sued for every dime you made off of music.

:berzerk:
 
Here in Germany there is a very active underground instrumental scene and a big handful of producers who mostly sample their melodys. Some are chopped up so you can't say what the original track was, but there are also a lot of beats with known melodys. And those artists are actually selling their music quite successful.
So there has to be some kind of a gray area because I don't think those artists own all the rights.
There are a lot of Miles Davis samples in use for example and Mr. Davis died "just" 24 years ago. I don't think that's enough time for his music to become public domain.
 
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