pouët.net

Most of these insurance policies do not cover intellectual property disputes. This must be insured separately at least in Germany. This is really very expensive.

If you want to be an ass about it: nothing is allowed and everything is forbidden. Don't get me started about trivial patents. Don't let it hinder you though.

Naturally this is anecdotal, but back in the days I made happy hardcore covers of a fair number of hit records (incl a particular Mathias Reim cover that made it to a demo). I didn't get intro trouble, and I know why: nobody cares. Not even the Germans!

Like JCO says, nothing is allowed and everything is forbidden. That 909 snare you used there probably wasn't licensed to you either. The fonts in your demos, the fonts on your album covers. Rest assured that anything creative you make on a computer will probably give somebody a sufficiently reasonable case that a court will hear it (remember a case doesn't need to be very reasonable for that).

There's this idea floating around certain (cough, German) corners of the internet that it's possible perfectly color inside the lines, that the rules are clear and fair and that a deep and thorough effort to stay within them is always warranted. I Am Not A Netpoet, but I'd propose that you only do this if it makes you sleep better at night. That's a good reason.

Reality is that, unless your work becomes an enormous popular success, you won't see legal action. Even copyright trolls knows that amateur artists can't be milked for much. You're not worth their time.

And if your work does become an enormous popular success, you'll get a cease&desist letter first. Well, if they're right, then just cease and desist! Remove the Youtube video, pull it from Spotify, tell your fans on Twitter / the Pouet oneliner. It's not that hard. DJ Promo did that for the No Doubt song Okkie linked to and I don't think he lost a single minute of sleep over it (or any money for that matter).

Sure, if it's also a commercial success, then maybe the copyright holder wants some or all of your cash. But let's be honest, are you Timbaland? Are you producing Nelly Furtado's guaranteed platinum new album? No you're not :-) Don't worry man :-)

Afaik the vast majority of amateur/semipro artists follow a rulebook similar to this. All art is inspired by other art. Some genres and artforms got built on uncredited sampling (hip hop, anyone?). I'm super confused to see this discussion go this way here on Pouet.

Another anecdote about sampling, from my brother: Just because the original rights holder doesn't care about your work doesn't mean that you won't get flagged. He used a movie speech sample almost verbatim, put his track on YouTube, and some years later someone else used the same sample, their label put it on YouTube, and my brother got his video demonetized as a result, because the almighty YouTube algorithm decided it's a ripoff of the other song.

He actually even re-released it as a single with re-recorded vocals under the name WIthout A Doubt and scored a minor hit with it :D

It always annoys me that Texas gets taken down on youtube

loaderror: encode the audio with a 101% tempo increase so the algorithms won't pick it up, oh and time shrink the video accordingly to stay in sync. see how long that'll hold! ;)

That is actually a good trick. Don't know why I never used that before when sampling. I mean if it works for all those pirated videos on the internets,.

sample whatever you like, filter lowpass->distort->reverb&delay(s). works every time.

Ten seconds to transmission...

just put some autotune, fuck the settings until unrecognizable anymore, release, get hate for using autotune! ;)

P.S.: once it sounds like old/scary cher its unrecognizable enuff!
P.S.2: no1 will listen to it, except stupid ppl that enjoy autotune for no apparent reason! (i will puke every time i recog it!)

Rerecord your friends quoting the lines and call it homage.

I'm guess the text is also copyright protected. Alienation won't do that much.

Skinny Puppy's "Rabies" album is an orgy of movie samples, I wonder if they licensed them all?

El Topo: you can bet on that. For example Front Line Assembly's "Millenium" was delayed for months due to clearance of one sample.

(I am sorry, i must switch that to allegedly since i don't find a source for that, but i swear i heard them say it in an interview on Grenzwellen in the 90s).

Same for Hoodlum Priest's "Heart of Darkness" they probably paid for them as a bunch of lawsuits had already happened. but yeah, fair use with vocal snippets is a v grey area.

"Rabies" came out in 1989.. sampling lawsuits didn't really take off until the early 90s. "Paul's Boutique" was also '89 and is nearly all samples, but they managed to clear them back when it was much easier and cheaper to do so.

Gilbert O'Sullivan ruined everything.

Now prove to me that I did not write the samples myself using a hex editor - which I always do ;D

Interesting thread, good read, reminds me of Liam Howlett saying if a sample could not be cleared he had to throw away the whole track... he is basically all about sampling, check out Making of "The Prodigy - Smack My Bitch Up". But that's commercial scale of course.

At least 4k intros and below should be in the clear, *pheeeeew*...