Legal To Sell What You Sample?

[Bobcat]

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

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.

[Huge Beatz]

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!

[Baby B]

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

[deRaNged 4 Phuk'dup]

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.

[Huge Beatz]

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.

[deRaNged 4 Phuk'dup]

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.

[Baby B]

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.

[Huge Beatz]

Ugh, so true Baby B. That's why I don't sample other people's music!

[deRaNged 4 Phuk'dup]

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.

[Huge Beatz]

"Good artists borrow...Great artists steal." You just have to be able to afford the licensing