CHANGE PITCH TO AVOID COPYRIGHT LICENSE
CHANGE PITCH TO AVOID COPYRIGHT PLUS

Ouch! What if you canвЂ™t get in touch with the copyright holders? So, you decided to put a little bit of Ray Charles into your latest dance track, and look how much itвЂ™s cost you before the song is even available for sale. (Once youвЂ™ve sold X amount of discs or downloads, youвЂ™ll owe us $X.)

CHANGE PITCH TO AVOID COPYRIGHT PLUS

The label who owns the master recording will also want an up-front fee similar to the advance youвЂ™ll pay to the publisher, PLUS something called a вЂњrolloverвЂќ - which is a royalty calculated based on a sales threshold. IвЂ™ve seen this listed on some music law sites as anywhere from 15% to 50%, depending on how prominently the sample is featured in the new song. Well, the publisher is apt to want an advance (think of it like a clearance fee) which can run you anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars or more, PLUS a percentage of all revenue generated by the song.

Both the label and publisher have listened and liked what they heard. LetвЂ™s say that youвЂ™ve presented your track to all the copyright owners. What youвЂ™ll have to pay to sample music from a major catalog But a good starting point is to look at the liner notes of a CD! Beyond that, ask the Internet. Locating the label that owns the copyright to the sound recording can be more difficult, since labels gobble each other up and catalogs switch hands every so often. How do you find the label that owns the recording you want to sample? Search for the song youвЂ™re sampling in the databases of ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SOCAN, and Harry Fox. How do you find the publisher of the composition youвЂ™re sampling? In fact, they can pretty much dictate the terms for the usage of the sample (though there are some general practices, as shown below)вЂ¦ and you can either agree to those terms or head back to the studio to remove all instances of that sample from your track.

CHANGE PITCH TO AVOID COPYRIGHT LICENSE

Unlike the license to distribute a cover song, neither of these two sampling licenses are compulsory, meaning the copyright owner doesnвЂ™t HAVE to grant you permission. and one license for the usage of the underlying composition (which is controlled by the publisher/songwriter).one license for the usage of the master recording (which is often owned by a label).You need TWO different permissions in order to legally use a sample from an existing recording in your own music:

IвЂ™ll just let them sue me later once the song is a hit.вЂќД«ut DONвЂ™T.

вЂњThis sample makes the whole track and IвЂ™m not changing it.

IвЂ™ll sneak it in here and hope no one notices.вЂќ So I understand why musicians might think one of these two things: If youвЂ™re lucky enough to reach the label and publisher, and even luckier to have them grant you permission to use the sample, those same rights holders often set terms that are financially prohibitive for the average independent artist. Is sampling legal? LetвЂ™s be honest: Sampling music law is often difficult to understand and expensive for independent musicians. Can I sample copyrighted music without permission if itвЂ™s less than 6 seconds of audio?

Change pitch to avoid copyright