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Sampling music is one of the best ways to add depth and creativity to your tracks. Artists like Daft Punk, Prodigy, and Fatboy Slim are legendary dance music artists that based entire careers off genius sampling.
So, how on earth can you clear and officially release music with samples in it today?
Well, it's unfortunately a somewhat complex answer but I'm going to do my best here to suggest one proven path forward to get your songs out legally and commercially with samples.
Step 1: We need to understand the difference between the Publishing side and Master side of a recording. Every song has 2 sides in music.
The publishing side relates to the composition itself. The musical composition as if it were written in sheet music, the lyrics, melodies. The 'Idea'.
The master side relates to the recording itself. The actual physical recording as a whole you hear coming out of the speakers. The version the record label releases.
Both sides technically need to be cleared when sampling music for commercial release separately. For example when you listen to a Kanye West song and he's got a super famous sample in it, his team has paid to clear both the master and publishing sides for commercial use of that sample. This can get very expensive and is not useful to most of us. BUT, here's what we can do...
Step 2: We REPLAY the sample exact and remake the parts ourselves. If we remake the original sample the best we can, we no longer have to clear the sample on the master side because we are not using the original physical recording. Make sense?
There are even services that remake famous samples for you! Some good ones are Replay Heaven or Scorccio. You give them the sample you used in your song, pay them a fee ($1000 to $4000 roughly), and they remake it close as they can. They can hire bands, singers, etc. Since you'll have the original sample replayed and remade without any of the original parts you do not need to clear anything on the master side now.
The big advantage this gives us too: We get to keep the streaming royalties paid out on the master side! This is how you make money with sampled music and streaming still. If we were to try to clear a master sample and use the original, they can take a big % of the master side too.
Now that you understand publishing and master side, and understand if we replay and remake the sample ourselves we don't need to clear the master, we can get on with the next step.
Step 3: We need to clear the Publishing side of the record.
Since we are still using the idea of the composition, we must clear the publishing with the writers and the companies that own the publishing. This is where a lot of music with samples get held up. Unfortunately there's no really fast way around this.
A good starting point is to get on google and hunt down the label or company that owns the record you sampled. Sometimes people buy publishing catalogs so ownership can change too. Then we need look at the song's credits and see who all the writers are.
After you have all this, send some emails to the appropriate people that have ownership and ask for a publishing clearance. You have to negotiate terms, maybe pay a fee, and the writers all have to approve of it. Usually plan on giving up most of the publishing of your new record with the sample but this can vary song by song. This is ok because you will still have the master royalties!
Sometimes rights owners don't approve requests, sometimes you can't reach all the parties. It can be a complete headache. The only real solution here to simplify the process is to work through a 3rd party clearance company that can be the middle man between you and the publisher. One company that does this is DMG clearances. This can make the process a lot easier. Record labels can also assist with this whole process too if they love your demo, this is another good option.
While a lot of this sample clearing process can be difficult, you gotta think of the risk/reward going down this path. Sometimes it's VERY worth it for certain songs to do this properly. There are other ways to navigate this whole process I didn't touch on, but in my experience this is one of the most common proven ways to legally get a dance song out for commercial release. Hope this helps you guys better understand the process!
-Henry
PS, just dropped a new free download on my soundcloud, a bass house flip of 'Counting'
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