Clearing samples in free music?

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

I chopped up some samples from an album I “bought” (Leased? Loaned? Exchanged tokens for?) on TrackLib and used them in a track I had meant to submit for WeeklyBeats. The thing is, I have no idea how to register or clear my song or samples used with TrackLib. Their whole thing seems to be set up expecting I’m releasing through a label or something like distrokid to a service that will pay for plays. WeeklyBeats is just, like, a web site. I’m not making any money on it. And this seems to break TrackLib’s brain.

I’d like to pay whatever licenses are required, and I’m happy to share revenue — it’s just in this case (and, given my talent, likely all cases forevermore) the revenue is “none”. Anyone have experience navigating sample licenses when there’s no money involved?

1 Like
#2

Im not sure of the actual law so dont take this as advise, but if you theres no money to be made, they arent gonna care

#3

Exactly. We’re so scared of copyright nonsense that we’re self-censoring. I wouldn’t bother if it’s not for any commercial use.

#4

Why not start a ticket at TrackLib asking this question? Because otherwise the answer is you probably won’t get it cleared and its upload at your own risk.

4 Likes
#5

We had a discussion about this in the Hip-Hop thread as well: The Big Elektronauts Hip-Hop Thread: production tips, sharing our music, feedback and inspiration - #58 by Jedilicious.

General consensus seems to be that you shouldn’t worry about it if there is no money to be made.

4 Likes
#6

But also if your sample is recognizable, an algorithm somewhere might jump on it. So possibly no youtube etc.

3 Likes
#7

Folks get sued even for buying bootlegs online,… I would just stay far away from publicly sharing music made with uncleared samples.

1 Like
#8

No money no problem
Never cleared samples. Even when i got a bit of money out of it. Don’t worry! It’s like being scared of police coming to arrest you because of smoking a joint at home. Nobody cares.

5 Likes
#9

As a general rule of life, i learnt to not ask for troubles beforehand. If someone has something to say, then i’ll correct the thing instead or auto-censoring myself.

1 Like
#10

Yep, I agree with the general consensus here. It’s always better to ask for forgiveness than permission!!

But here’s a thought, what if the sample is for example an entire verse of a commercial record (i.e. very identifiable), but I make no money from, and don’t charge, for my track which includes it? There’s going to be a point where somebody notices and objects to it surely? Just stimulating a chat here, not trying to be objectionable.

#11

I hear you, and generally subscribe to this philosophy. But in this instance it runs up agains another principal of mine, “Give credit where credit is due.”

If someone promoted their Bandcamp here, I wouldn’t post a bunch of free samples from it online without reaching out to them first. Same applies to dudes who cut a record in the 70s — they’re just harder to reach.

Services like TrackLib take care of that for me. They’ve contacted the 70’s dudes (actually their representatives, but still) and negotiated under what terms they’re cool with me using their music/how they’d wish to be credited. But I guess just not under the conditions of free distribution?

2 Likes
#12

Thing is that copyrights properly killing the creativity at some point.

If i put out music somewhere, i’ll never pretend gaining royalties from someone’s job who used a part of it to make it his own. Credit and recognition can be understood in both ways. Many covers have been better than the original and some styles like hip hop would have been born dead if copyright would have been so intense in that times.
It’s a tribute, i like it. If copyright would not be there to track and hunt any single penny, one could mention the author’s name but reality is that so far money is driving everyone completely mad.

#13

There are too many djs gaining undeserved popularity by releasing shit remixes based on unlicensed acapellas though.

1 Like
#14

:man_shrugging: If my cover is so much better than the samples in it, then it ought to be no big thing for me to just recreate the samples, right? Nothing’s stopping me from punching a breakbeat in my groove box or strumming a guitar with a vinyl filter over it. I could easily sound like 100 things that come up when crate diving. So why sample at all?

Because it’s not just a generic beat or feel that gets sampled. It’s a sound. A sound that jumps out to you and makes you say “woah, yeah!” Someone worked to get to that sound. Me doing something subjectively better with it doesn’t change that work or their right to respect and credit howsoever they choose.

1 Like
#15

If your music don’t generate big money nobody will care of the samples used. I know some artists who have millions streams and gold sales without clearance and never had a problem with the rights owners.
Algorithmes will not detect if the samples are pitched/chopped/filtered and layered with other sounds.
But if you take a part of an existing song and don’t do any modification on it, you can be sure that the Algorithmes will detect it and delete it from the streaming services.

#16

What’s better is totally subjective.

In the case of people sampling brazilian record from the 70’s, you won’t recreate a brazilian jazzy band from scratch.

Here i was more pointing at copyright madness where people pretend to make money out of stuff already released for the century to come. Soon someone will copyright the notes and the 4 to the floor :wink:
Let’s not confuse money-craving with respect/credit. I just deplore that the latter is sometimes prevented by the first.

#17

Let’s not discount it, though, either. 9 times out of 10, you ask an artist if they’d like me to say “thanks” or give them money, they’d opt for the money.

That doesn’t make them “craving”. Anyone can say “thanks”. Someone forking over dollars is sincere.

And an artist can’t live or make music on “thanks”. Money is required for that.

And when a person says something like “I shouldn’t pay for someone else’s work because they’re being greedy” it’s self-defeating. It’s only excusing their reluctance to pay what’s owed, which is just greed from the other side.

But this is all sort of beside the point. I want to pay. The question is, is there a way to do it when my model doesn’t generate revenue to share?

1 Like
#18

This is what copyright protection is for. Chopping bits out of somebody else’s work to sell or give away is definitely not cool.

But chopping up somebody else’s song and transforming that into your own creation is totally cool, no matter what the law says about it.

I used a CC licensed bit of spoken word for a song I made. Then I made my own song CC (it was a share alike license), and sent a link to the artist. They were super stoked about it :slight_smile:

Edit @jemmons my first paragraph isn’t meant to say you’re selling samples! I’m just agreeing and expanding on your point.

2 Likes
#19

This is kind of what I’m coming to. If an artist doesn’t license their work under terms that explicitly spell out permitted non-commercial use (like CC or pub domain) then only commercial use is licensable.

Or, to put it another way, there’s no way to squeeze non-commercial use to fit under the terms of a commercial license.

Of course non-commerciality is one of the legs of a fair use claim, so it may well be perfectly legal. Just not licensed, if that’s a distinction that’s important to anyone but me.

1 Like
#20

Non-commercial doesn’t just mean not profitable though. It has to be educational, or for purposes of criticism or review, not just “but I’m not charging money for it”.

2 Likes