I wasn’t suggesting that Fair Use was a surefire way to avoid court, just that it should have been touched on. It’s just when you put up a title like “SAMPLING MYTHS BUSTED” and “HOW TO SUCCEED AT HIP HOP” its a good idea to go a little more in depth than just pluging the beats channel (which – by the way – most of the beats are sample-based in there..) and creative commons – which is a bit of a moveon.org type deal – only people who are down with the cause join, so its kind of just preaching to the crowd.

Thanks for your feedback! These are all great points and things I’d like to talk about on the blog in the future. It would have been impossible to tackle a comprehensive history or sampling as an art form and its legal consequences in one blog post so I decided to focus this post on an issue close to many artist’s hearts, how to avoid lawsuits when sampling.

Fair use can and has been used in defense of sampling, but is extremely subjective. If the copyright owner of the recording you sampled doesn’t think your use of their work was fair, they can still take you to court. While artists like 2 Live Crew have won copyright infringement cases with a fair use defense, many others have lost. The only way in today’s current legal climate to be 100% sure that you will not be brought to court is to get permission from the copyright owners for your samples.

The point of this post was not to condemn sampling. Using old music to make new music through sampling is easily one of the most interesting developments in music in the past 50 years. One day I hope to see a system in place for legal sampling that benefits both the sampler and those being sampled.

Nothing on sampling as an artform.

Nothing on the bullsh!t replicheck software/hardware that most duplication/replication houses use that automatically search for “sampled” material – but which are not accurate at all.

Creative Commons is a good idea, but as a crate digger, I have to say, its just not the same. There’s a reason why people sample professionally mastered music – its because it has a quality to it that you can’t get elsewhere. I can have my sax and trumpet players come in and record – but theres no way I’m getting the feeling of horns recorded in a dingy 60s studio.

And what about the White album? No one would touch Beatles’ material for fear of lawsuits, and then here comes Danger Mouse, and he blows up off it. So if you want to sample – go ahead. If you end up in court, it probably means people are listening.