Hi guys. I am a beginner producer and I have some questions about pirated sample packs.

What happens if I use pirated sample pack and my track and it became populer. Can the sample pack company ask proof of purchase if they found out? Will be in trouble if I cannot provide proof of purchase receipt.

Or when I try to upload through distrokid, routenote to the major platforms, will it be a problem?

 

First of all I would avoid words like "piracy, pirated" and similar.
Not that a sample pack distribuited on the web without paying the author is "something good", but just because "true piracy" is something else belive me...
SHARED is the right word imho

someone will disagree but thats what I think

anyhow lets get into it and consider 2 different situations

1 the SHARED samples packs you used are 100% royalty free
2 the SHARED sample packs you used are NOT royalty free

lets talk about situation 1
if you upload your production on distrokid, spotify, or selling platforms nobody will ever come and ask you anything, even if the song will get many views. Seen that the packs are SHARED would be a good idea if you INSTANTLY go and buy the package if someone buys your production or it starts to get attn with many views (4-500k) or something viral, it could help the original composer anyway and you will feel better, But as stated in case 1 you wont have any problem using shared packs

situation 2 is a bit more complex, it can be sorted out anyway but I would suggest a beginner to just avoid it for now, there are tons of royalty free packs flying around.

 

You probably won't have any problems at all.I would just go for it.

Nobody asks for the receipt, there has to be a reasonable suspicion to ask you to delete the piece. You know from YouTubers where people constantly use pictures that someone else has taken. In the case of professional photographers, it can happen that they ask YouTube to delete the video, but usually YouTube asks you to delete it and then they delete it.

For over 20 years, the band Kraftwerk argued with rapper and producer Moses Pelham about the unsolicited use of a 2-second sound snippet. In simplified terms, the issue was whether it was permissible to sample short sound sequences for one's own music. Did the long dispute pay off? A matter of opinion. Is the legal situation clearer than before? A little. How can the result be reconciled with the recent 15-second rule discussion? Hardly.
https://www-musicaustria-at.transla...l=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

There are also legal sample packs that are not allowed to be used publicly: You can read about this in the terms and conditions of the sample producers. There is a term called Royalth-Free, which means you can also use the samples publicly.
It also has something to do with copyright.

Worth reading: Royalty-Free Samples
https://clarkaudio-com.translate.go...l=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=wapp

 

tbh it's a complicated matter and there's no one answer fits all. like every complicated matter in life the best answer is "it depends".

99% of the time you wont get in trouble if you follow certain guideline to how to properly use the samples but there are too many threads here regarding that matter. Search for it.

you can start early, by using those royalty free sample. check the sample pack legal notice, the dev website and all to see if they are royalty free before using it.

You'd get better at it slowly, in few years you'd understand how to play with fire without getting burned. It's too complicated at your stage of development for now. Not even half of it will make sense. I'd say stick to Splice packs that are 100% royalty free 1st, then slowly move on to other packs that you like but understanding the pack limitation, legally. Also, NEVER use any of that long loops from construction kits like it is, without any mangling and tearing it to pieces. It's lame. Be creative, use those as guideline, learn the art of sampling, don't be lazy.

one more thing, if you become big, other people will sort this matter for you. so, chill and enjoy piracy.

 

Actually I forgot to mention the sample packs I was talking about that ones %100 royalty free ones(from shared on loopmasters, producer loops, vandalism samples)

 

dont worry, dont need to mention the exact sample pack, better not to mention also, keep it for you

if the packs is taken from a site that sells 100% royalty free packs you are 100% safe anyway. As Stevie wrote if the production gets big someone will sort it out for you

dont forget to TAKE NOTE of the pack where you took the sample from and SAVE THE LINK of the page selling it, you never know a track gets attn after years and you dont remember where did you take the sample lol so archive all your sounds, projects and LINKS as well

 

If you finish something somewhere like release worthy, pay for them or replace them. Replace them anyway if you want; it is good practice.

 

Another way to go is to re-record the "loop's" elements with VSTi or other samples, even layering over them, or slicing them up and rearranging them. There are so many different ways of taking a loop into a personal creative direction and making it different from just triggering the original throughout the arrangement. The question is "how can I get away with this as ethically as possible?" ......"how can I use this idea and not kill this guy's dog and make him feel bad?" ..."musicianship" - not just for traditional musicians.

An alternative to sleeping with a guy's wife is to sleep with his wife's sister instead.

 

Last edited: Oct 12, 2024

Agreed mostly.
Piracy meant a whole lot of criminal activities. Originally of course the killing, pillaging kind. In software they were known as people who re-sold something they got for free or stole. Shared software though was originally known as having a 30-90 day cutoff period of full usage with freeware being and still being how it sounds.
Now the lines are completely blurred because law enforcement decided to call people pirates who never sold something they got freely through shared sites, never robbed, pillaged or killed anyone and they subsequently got labelled poorly. There could be an argument for fair usage too, as sure as there is an argument that if people have not purchased it, then it is stolen. There is so much sharing, neither fits adequately.

 

Last edited: Oct 12, 2024

There is no telling how tech and the law will evolve over the next 50 years. If at some point it becomes trivially cheap, accurate and easy to id and persecute pirated samples, then that is exactly what companies will do. You can't assume that if it can't be done in 2024 that it still won't be possible/profitable/cheap in 2042.

Samples are thrown out by the hundreds for free every month anyway. Just make sure those free samples are also royalty free and don't require attribution (if that matters to you).

 

unpopular opinion, not worth the risk. somebody coming after you can and does happen, although rare. You have to be more worried about somebody bigger than you using the same sample from a royalty free pack, and their team / label issuing a take down notice. Even tho the sample is royalty free, if they are from a major label, and have the influence and power behind them, your song will get taken down. This is also rare, but worth knowing.

Now, if you are just having fun, releasing songs with friends, getting a few thousand streams here and there, playing some shows etc, use all the samples you want. If you are taking this seriously, with the intention to get your songs to blow up, tread with caution. Like Stevie said, wait until you know how to play with fire without being burned.

 

I started to write this kind of reply, because we have so many ways to make something unidentifiable, which is just part of making anything you use "your own". Wether that is using effects, chopping and editing; it should ideally go unnoticed. But in theory, it's still waveform data you got from somewhere. What I like to do is rejoin all the audio regions back to one file, extract the notes as midi data, and then reassign the midi to a synth. Do some sound design in the context of the track, and then bounce it. This way you are not making every single patch from the start, for stuff you will just delete or not use later. Like all those packs that have pre-recycle'd files of every loop. What a colossal waste of effort and storage space.

 

If you make a track featuring a sample from one of those sample packs, and you're very happy with the track that you want to keep the loop/s intact and want to release it commercially, it's best you simply purchase the sample pack/s in question.
If you have instead chopped it up beyond recognition etc, then you should be ok without needing to buy it (you can do so later once the money rolls in), but if it's the whole sample/loop as in the sample pack and easily recognisable, to avoid any potential problems, buy the sample pack.
Sometimes a loop from a sample pack completes the track, remember, effort has gone in to make these loops. If you're one of those who doesn't value the effort to make all those samples/loops, you shouldn't expect anyone to value your music!

 

I have like 10 friends in the last year who've have their stuff taken down for "suspected botting" and/or had their money seized with zero review or oversight despite having legitimate followings. Distrokid has been playing an extremely shady game these days.

 

But this isn't about using samples. They are just accusing people of outright cheating to get view numbers, like paying for "click farms" to run up numbers. It doesn't even bother to address the content of the tracks. We can all have differing views about sampling, royalties, etc; but if your song gets taken down or demonetized it's because you "got caught using samples". It has some basis in reality. What you are mentioning skips all of that, and just claims your streaming numbers are bs or tampered with somehow. It's not because they are worried about the correct artist getting paid for content.

 

do whatever you want with whatever you want
your only concern is if it triggers automatic copyright protection so services will automatically delist your stuff
there's almost no chance your song will ever be successful, and if it is your record company can clear the samples for you
if it isn't there's no money in anyone coming after you

 

I think it's weird how some people here are talking about pirated sample packs being an issue. I've never heard of anything finding it out unless you literally flash to others that you pirated the pack and now whoever sells it is trying to expose you.

It's way more likely that you will have a problem paying a ton of money on Splice and then you end up picking a sample that a million other producers used which will end up in your track getting flagged by bots because someone else's track used the same sample. So even if you pay and you use 100% royalty free you won't be totally "safe".

If you don't want issues then just don't show that you obviously pirated stuff to other people. Don't record your screen showing R2R as the registered user of some plugin, or your browser showing a tab of the sample pack on a piracy site, and if you're using samples that a bunch of other people have access to then make sure to change it significantly to lower the chances of bots flagging your track.

 

If you manipulate and layer the samples properly, nobody should recognize where the samples came from.

 

If your track ever makes money and you feel guilty using that sample, share a piece of the profit with the author in return, just buy a sample pack.