The argument is two-sided because one is influence the other is either direct copying or plagiarism, two different things. Say for example, a person listens to only three artists for ten years, one hard rock, the other classical the other jazz and the music they wrote ended up being jazz-rock-classical. If they copied or sampled any of it, then they aren't influenced, they are copying or the other side of that, stealing. Influence and copying aren't the same thing, huge difference.

Copyright which hasn't changed, is in place the moment something is written, not just when published or logged with ASCAP etc etc.. Then again, if marked royalty free then it means anyone can use it and reuse it ad nauseum.

Yes it's a flip side which has been used to exploit musicians for two decades now and why Spotify and others came into existence. The door got opened and they opened it as wide as they could.

 

It means "no extra cost" but only after you pay for them. It also does not mean, "use without paying until you decide to pay for them".

Most of the "royalty free" portions of the EULA are not applicable retroactively. This means you cannot use whatever you want in a track today, get "caught" by the sample being detected tomorrow, and then go pay for the pack the day after that. This is the best reason to replace every single sample in a track that you can, before ever posting it anywhere you might possibly monetize it.

The biggest irony about the entire thing, is that those who would claim copyrights on a track in a sample-reliant genre, probably made the samples using some warez in the first place.

 

What a shit show. It's a big Russian roulette is all...

 

yup. At least now we have some good polyphonic Audio to Midi utilities like Melodyne and others. We have "demixing" methods like RX, stem separation making extracting midi data easier and more accurate, spectral editing and cleanup. Almost nothing is completely irreplaceable, and if it is you should have known better than trying to get away with using it. Now we even have plugins like Visco and Synplant 2 which can rather easily re-synthesize anything you throw at them.

Even though you occasionally see some track unexpectedly blow up, go viral, whatever; most producers can get a very good feel for what might actually be a commercially successful track. Even if that just means popular on Spotify and Youtube to them. And we also know when a track is "just another trap beat" or whatnot. If you really need to keep an uncleared sample in your track, the probability is high the track sucks anyway.

 

Someone needs to learn how to spell... Maybe rudimentary spelling should be the first class taught at backseat lawyer school. Ya think?

 

Use suno, udio, riffusion to take the "royalty free" sample and have it performed in a new way. It will variate the sample enough to be unique.

 

I got thought in Music college to worry about that after it happens, it's like a good problem. Yeah it might stifle your hit and momentum but even more people will hear about it and it'll get extra attention, a sort of 'there's no such thing as bad press' mentality. And also if it happens obviously you've had a hit and your original idea worked well, so there's tons of encouragement to be had from that and other potential clients will have took notice. Sample away worry free!

 

With a good sound design effort a sample can be less obvious and harder to flag than some synth presets.

 

This has been my thinking so far. It's a good problem to have. If you keep the multi-track stems of your release in good order, you re-release with a fix, and spin it as a positive; there's so many ways to do so. I get the feeling most producers take this approach, and they don't care too much, hence not many of them responding in this thread. Those who DO care live in fear or hate for using samples, and they're most of the loud ones here.

But there have been some good points brought up ... I appreciate it, guys.

In my use-cases, it's like a top percussion loop, with a special time-feel, thrown in to add some spice, in a dense mix or something. Or a one-shot kick that came with XO maybe, and it just sounds perfect for the track. That kind of thing. We all know there's something special in "the perfect take" that can never be replicated exactly, and that's the magic of samples.

I guess it's case by case, and common sense, but with the recognition tech evolving faster than the slow-ass law, it's hard to gauge what's "common sense" practice anymore. Or it's just me loosing it... lol

 

I'd never mind using drum samples as long as they were not taken from a actual song. I mean, how many hit songs were made from the same shitty 808 snare? It would be a mess

 

Hey man, I appreciate your good intentions, and trust me, I too wish this dreamland you've copy pasted from bogus (or ai generated) web sites would be/come reality.

1. That's just not the case - nor the law - in these United States of the Gulf of America.
   
   
2. But I'm with you that it should be - and if you would kindly send me those forms, I'll make sure to forward them to my attorney.
   
   
3. Thanks very much again for your illuminating post and God bless you.

 

Sure, I just need a treated room, a drum kit, an electric guitar, a microphone, an audio interface, a saxophone and an electric bass. Oh, and put an electric keyboard on the tab as well.

Jokes aside, I have a friend who makes all his samples (on the PC), can't say I don't admire him for that. But I also have to say that no one is going to rightfully take yall music down if you're actually doing transformative work with the samples you're using.

 

I was reading the original post to mean lifting samples from songs and that sort of thing, not using sampled instruments. That's the context I meant that answer in and even there it's not like I have any kind of problem with people lifting samples from songs but it can really land you in hot water if you don't have the ability to do the clearances. That's why my response was basically well, why not just not do that; make your own sounds, etc.
If I missed the point it certainly wouldn't be the first time.

 

Maybe my fault for not being clear enough. I tried to shotgun the subject, but it's really case by case, I'm realizing.

 

Mate, I actually clicked on the highlighted digits of your "post above" and guess where those (live) links take me? Australia, dude. Australia.

Different sets of laws in the United States of the Gulf of America - very different.

For instance, 32 years later I still get checks sent to my first wife's address from recording sessions I played on (as a keyboardist) at EMI France.
Number of checks I get from recording sessions I played on in the United States: zero.
Number of checks I have to sign to musicians I hired for the records or film score sessions that I produced in the United States: zero.

You have a nice day now.

 

Never, EVER, do this. I know dudes that were banging a hit track with a sample from a Weeknd song. The song went viral, took DMCA shut down and we never knew about those dudes again.

But i'm yet to know someone that did a proper work on a royalty free sample and still got problems. As @clone said, the only people that i knew that used royalty free loops the way it is, without changing a thing, were just shitty ass trap beats. And those songs never really get an audience. For drums one shots i can assure you it's almost 100% safe. For loops, a proper work may put you on a safe lane as well.

Quick tip: always when you're working with melodic loops, when you finish, put the result on Shazam or Google. If they cannot find something similar to compare (they will always show you the average of similarity on the results), you will not get automatic shuts and very probably a claim will need a lawsuit to take your song down. But if there's 10% of similarity with another song i'd suggest not using at all, even if it's not a sample.

 

Hey, I didn't invent it...just copypasted the form from Joel's letter 15y ago and saved it on disc as is

 

I'm sure you're correct. However the person who wrote that document kind of gave away the fact that they indeed graduated from backseat lawyer school.

 

Youtube has become such a pita. The only thing you can do on that platform is sell high caffeinated drinks to children.
The content match system is complete garbage. There are bands that can not upload their own stuff on their own channel because it's getting matched against their own catalog. Insane.
It sure is different for the superstars out there, but when you're a band with some thousands fans or an individual upcoming artist you're effed.
Have one "fuck" or "shit" in your lyrics - demonetized, have some solo drumloop that could be matched against something (hello? amen break anyone?) you get a takedown notice. Have three of those and they close your channel for good.
It is terribly sad that youtube has become the defacto standard for (possibly) reaching millions of people.

 

There have been plenty of times that I've read about artists of different genres, years later admitting they blatantly stole a riff or a progression or a full musical idea or something from another artist, but it was never caught because they made it their own, and yes, obviously influencing and copying are two different things... but again, only definitely from the technical side of things, not from a musical perspective or a creative's stance. And that's the only thing that concerns me.
Most everything musical is relative so without specific examples it can be debated until death, but in many cases, the end product is the decider for me. If the milk one person is using to make cereal is also being used by another person to make pancakes, I hardly see that as plagiarism. But then, people wouldn't have to get so ridiculous with all of this if they weren't regurgitating the same cookie-cutter shit, which is often exactly what's happening, looting hooks trying to recreate a hit.

I understand copyright. The best thing to happen to me in years is people like DJ Pain 1, and to a lesser degree, Benn Jordan, Rick Beato, etcetera, taking people to school on copyrights and DMCA, and down avenues of the music business, and how intellectual/recording/performance legalities work, or even just illuminating enough behind-the-scenes of the industry to show that it isn't run by fellow musicians and artists and creatives, so I (hopefully) have to explain less to musicians I know, and can just lazily point them towards a handful of YT videos.
As a disclaimer, I'm not some all-knowing music-law guru or anything, I just don't have any aversion to reading, whereas most musicians I know or have met aren't into pouring over legalities that they don't feel they'll fully understand.
I did notice the latest edition of All You Need to Know About the Music Business popped up various places shortly after it was mentioned in a few videos, so hopefulyy people are getting at least semi-versed if they're serious about trying to make some money in the industry.

The funny thing to me?—and this has been mentioned before in other posts—most everything you see that isn't teaching you how to navigate in the industry is just click-bait garbage, demonizing GenAI and the creation of algos off user input, and condemning platforms' tracking practices and? ninety-eight percent of mf'ers are eating it up, like tech is the issue on the table, instead of recognizing the updated version of the same old story of people capitalizing off of other people's creations and giving them pennies in return, and pennies only so long as they have to give anything.
The depressing part is the fact that many people give up their rights voluntarily, either because of ignorance, or that's what it takes to slide in the door, so they can brag that they "made it," in-effect giving themselves some self-awarded trophy, which in turn sets a poor standard for people who actually take pride in their work and feel they should be fairly compensated for it.

"They [companies] always want the writer to work for nothing. And the problem is, there's so goddamn many writers who have no idea that they're supposed to be paid every time they do something, they do it for nothing." ~ Harlan Ellison ~

And another old quote that doesn't pertain to anything in particular, but everything in general, as I don't believe that all of this is anything but another problem caused by people, that can be remedied by people, but won't be—cuz profit is paramount:

"It's all bullshit and it's bad for ya'." ~ George Carlin ~