Driss Kamara
ENGL 2367
Brett Novin
3/22/13
Sampling in the Music Industry

In the music industry, artists normally get paid off of royalties. When artist make new music, it goes through a process of file paperwork. This process is to be sure the royalties are distributed to, artist, song writer, engineer, producer, and label. It’s similar to process of copyrighting something so nobody else gets paid for your idea. The problem with this whole system is that most artists these days use bits and pieces of other music in theirs songs, which is called sampling. The act of this is called “sampling” which is very popular in Western music. Music sampling is very old and can date back to the late 1960s with the use of tape loop sampling in the production of psychedelic rock and fusion jazz. Even though artists have been doing this for years they still have to be careful to avoid lawsuits.
Erickson, Andy. "The Ethical Aspects of Sampling Digital Music." University of Minnesota Duluth. PowerPoint, 1 Dec. 2010. Web. 04 Apr. 2013. In this presentation by Erickson, he gives a brief history of and explains the difference between sampling and copying. After that he talks about the plus’s and negatives of sampling.
He claims that sampling music can be looked at as paying homage to an artist, but he also says that if the original artist of the song that was sampled is offended by the song they can take legal action. He then goes on to explain how music is sampled by talking about programs such as Fruity Loops, Garage Band, Adobe Audition, and Cool Edit. He states that since anyone can be a producer and sampling is so easy to do artist find themselves in trouble all the time. Erickson then goes on to name a couple artists that have been victims of expensive law suits related to the sampling of music.
Lindenbaum, John. "MUSIC SAMPLING AND COPYRIGHT LAW." CACPS UNDERGRADUATE THESIS 1 (1999): 7-8. Princeton Edu. Web. 5 Mar. 2013. http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol/studentpap/undergrad%20thesis1%20JLind. Df> This paper from Lindenbaum dates back to 1999 and talks about the same problems in the music industry that I discussed regarding the use of sampling. “Copyright law cannot restrict sampling on a theoretical basis without also restricting all music, since contemporary music itself is almost entirely stylistic, melodic and lyrical appropriation. In a certain sense, no music is completely original, and therefore claims of absolute authenticity are questionable.” All types of music can be traced back to something so with the law the way it is; all music can be called illegal and unoriginal.
Martin, Andrew. "Mac Miller Sued For $10 Million Over Sample On "Macadelic" Mixtape."Complex Music 2 Aug. 2012: n. page 4. Web. 3 Mar. 2013. . In this article Martin explains how famous recording artist Mac Miller got sued 10 million dollars for a sample he used in a song off his past mix tape “Macadelic”. He talks about the fact that even though he put the song on a mix tape, which is a free album, recording artist Mac Miller is still in the wrong. The sample that he used was a song that was originally sung by Patrick Berlinquette. Mac personally did not know the artist but gave him a shout out on twitter so that he was aware of the use of the sample. Patrick did not file the claim until a month after the release of the song and, simply because of his success he decided to sue to get some money. The article goes on to talk about how artist that are broke use this sampling to their advantage to get a quick buck.
Price, Jeff. "TuneCore." Music Industry Survival Guide: How Not To Get Screwed. SpinArtRecords, 09 Jan. 2009. Web. 07 Apr. 2013. Jeff Price is co-founder of SpinArt Records. His label is responsible for the success of several bands such as Boo Radleys, Echo, and the Bunnymen. In 2005 he started becoming angry with the digital distribution companies and started speaking out against them in interviews. In this website Price