How do I know if I need to pay royalties from my song/remix?

[JeLL-HO]

I just made a very dopen deep house song with a group of lyrics by Notorious BIG. Here is the thing, we got the lyrics from acapellas4u.uk.co which is a completely free site. But, I don't know what I'm looking at here. The more information the better!

[hacktheplanet]

Honestly, copyright holders won't give a heck until you're either making money or affecting their paycheck. Sample away!

[Stromkraft]

Honestly, copyright holders won't give a heck until you're either making money or affecting their paycheck. Sample away!

That's not entirely true as there are algorithms, but the worst thing that can happen at places like Youtube or Soundcloud is that the track is taken offline. I think.

Incidentally this also happens to your own music where you played every instrument yourself.

[Angstrom]

Just because you got the samples from a free site doesn't mean you can use them in a sale-able product. They are providing them for non-commercial reasons.

https://acapellas4u.uservoice.com/knowl ... gal-notice

What will happen is - if YouTube or Soundcloud can detect the sample it will get taken down and you'll get a strike. If you start to actually sell a few copies somebody will take an interest in actual money.

A friend of mine used a vocal sample and a bass sample, each taken from two different artists. When the single started to sell the representatives for both got in touch and each sued for 100% royalties. A total of 200%. So, every record they sold they had to pay double their cut right back out. It lost them a bunch of money. It would have been more fun to just burn it in a field.

That was in the late 90s when lawyers were just getting wise to this rich goldmine. Now its worse. Now you get sued for "a feeling"

[Shift Gorden]

Yep, I agree with all these guys.

You use somebody else's work without their permission, then you're in breach of copyright. Simples.

But yeah, legal things won't happen unless you're making money from it...

[Pitch Black]

I just made a very dopen deep house song with a group of lyrics by Notorious BIG. Here is the thing, we got the lyrics from acapellas4u.uk.co which is a completely free site. But, I don't know what I'm looking at here. The more information the better!

I agree with the above advice. It might interest you to know that there are two copyrights at issue here. The first is for the "composition", in this case the lyrics/words written by Biggie [and/or his writing partner(s)]. That's one copyright.

The other copyright is held in the recorded form (ie the actual recording that you're sampling from). This would usually be owned by whoever paid to make this recording - probably Biggie's record company.

So, strictly speaking, if you're going to earn money off your track, there are actually two permissions you would have to seek, and two negotiations/deals you would have to make with the respective owners.

A fun fact I always regurgitate when these questions come up is that "Firestarter" by The Prodigy credits all 5 members of The Art Of Noise as co-writers. Why? "Hey!!!"

Wikipedia:
"The songwriting credits—among Liam Howlett and Keith Flint—include Kim Deal of alt-rock group The Breeders. The looped wah-wah guitar riff in "Firestarter" was sampled from The Breeders' track "S.O.S." from the album Last Splash. Because of the use of a sample from a 1984 single "Close (to the Edit)" songwriting credits also list Art of Noise's then-members: Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn, J. J. Jeczalik, Gary Langan and Paul Morley. The "Empirion Mix," which does not include these samples, is credited solely to Howlett and Flint."


Where there's a hit, there's a writ.


/grizzled veteran mode

[beats me]

I just made a very dopen deep house song with a group of lyrics by Notorious BIG. Here is the thing, we got the lyrics from acapellas4u.uk.co which is a completely free site. But, I don't know what I'm looking at here. The more information the better!

I agree with the above advice. It might interest you to know that there are two copyrights at issue here. The first is for the "composition", in this case the lyrics/words written by Biggie [and/or his writing partner(s)]. That's one copyright.

The other copyright is held in the recorded form (ie the actual recording that you're sampling from). This would usually be owned by whoever paid to make this recording - probably Biggie's record company.

So, strictly speaking, if you're going to earn money off your track, there are actually two permissions you would have to seek, and two negotiations/deals you would have to make with the respective owners.

A fun fact I always regurgitate when these questions come up is that "Firestarter" by The Prodigy credits all 5 members of The Art Of Noise as co-writers. Why? "Hey!!!"

Wikipedia:
"The songwriting credits—among Liam Howlett and Keith Flint—include Kim Deal of alt-rock group The Breeders. The looped wah-wah guitar riff in "Firestarter" was sampled from The Breeders' track "S.O.S." from the album Last Splash. Because of the use of a sample from a 1984 single "Close (to the Edit)" songwriting credits also list Art of Noise's then-members: Anne Dudley, Trevor Horn, J. J. Jeczalik, Gary Langan and Paul Morley. The "Empirion Mix," which does not include these samples, is credited solely to Howlett and Flint."


Where there's a hit, there's a writ.


/grizzled veteran mode

I’m quite astonished at the amount of sampling they did, mostly in how they even picked up on the tiny snippets they decided to use and the fact that they decided to give credit when 99% of the general public wouldn’t even pick up on it.

[Angstrom]

I’m quite astonished at the amount of sampling they did, mostly in how they even picked up on the tiny snippets they decided to use and the fact that they decided to give credit when 99% of the general public wouldn’t even pick up on it.

But you know how this works right?
You sign a contract that has words to the effect of

"We the band, and everyone connected to the band including all the management team, representatives etc. swear that we have cleared every sample on here, and we absolve Our Record Company of every financial penalty. We the band will bend over without complaint and take it up the anus for all eternity if we missed just one sample, and our childrens children will pay the price. We agree to fellate the lawyers for the next million years. We agree to take the full force of any penalties and say #thank you with every thrust."

Your manager & legal representatives say : "Guys this is really serious, tell us again ... truthfully this time ... The record company say they are going to shelve the whole release unless you can cough up every last attribution" . So then you tell your engineer dude to go through your sampler looking at samples called "Bootsy Bass" and "JB scream" and writing them all down in a little notepad.

It's not from the kindness of their hearts. It's because legal people put the fear of god into everyone that they will sue you all to oblivion if you miss attributing just one 0.001 second of "brrp" noise.

It's why Sample Replay became an industry. So that DJ Fartpockets could avoid paying the mechanicals on his 2 second loop of Golden Years

[Pitch Black]

and say #thank you with every thrust."

When I last perused a major label contract in the late 90s (30+ pages of what-the-label-may-do and what-the-band-may-not-do) the lawyer acting on our behalf said "well, you realize, recording agreements are punitive documents..."

You could have knocked me down with a feather.

TL/DR: didn't sign

[Stromkraft]

Yep, I agree with all these guys.

You use somebody else's work without their permission, then you're in breach of copyright. Simples.

As I hinted above, it's not always "simples". As there now is money in this there are companies that will attempt to use YOUR music and pretend it's theirs until you, or your record company or manager or solicitor or whatever, get on their ass or you'll have to complain to the service, like Soundcloud, until you're blue in the face. I'm not talking about sample-based music here or "lifted" phrases. Original music not controlled by the companies claiming they do.