Music Sampling: The Definitive Guide (2022)

How long can a sample legally be?

A common myth is that a sample is legal without permission as long as it’s shorter than six seconds. You wish! There’s no legal threshold here.

Is sampling music stealing?

Sampling is an artistic expression; a way to give music new life. As long as you treat sampling in a fair way and handle everything correctly, it’s not stealing. Full stop.

Is it cheating to use samples?

No! Why would sampling be “cheating” as opposed to playing an instrument? Sampling can be as original, intricate, ingenious, and distinctive as you want it to be. Case in point: sampling changed the face of music as we know it today. Keep on reading for more on sampling techniques, to get inspired.

Is sampling music legal?

Sampling music is legal, as long as you get permission for the sample usage from the original artists and/or copyright owners. Music is protected by copyright law, so reusing any portion of music—no matter how short or long—needs to be cleared and licensed. Luckily for you, here at Tracklib, you find 80K original songs available for legal, pre-cleared sampling. Use Tracklib as a go-to spot for digging so you don’t have to worry about clearances or copyright infringement.

Here’s a little taste:

Can you get sued for sampling a song?

You can get sued if you didn’t clear a sample or interpolation. However, with Tracklib, you are 100% covered and safe with samples. By sampling from the library of 80K+ original songs and multitracks, you cannot get sued for sampling. That's partly the reason why numerous productions these days are made with Tracklib.

Where do I start to find and contact the original artists and copyright holders to clear my samples?

Welcome to the maze called clearing samples. Choose your way forward:

THE TRADITIONAL ROUTE

You need to pay two types of licenses for a sample: for the use of the master sound recording (usually via a record label or directly via the artist), and a license for the publishing (related to the authors of the musical works: such as composers and songwriters, usually represented by a publisher). Both parties of rightsholders need to be tracked down—with the risk of not being able to get in touch, or them denying the inquiry. After all, the choice is completely up to them. For interpolations, usually, only a license from the creator(s) of the musical works is needed, as you don’t sample an existing sound recording.

Got in touch? Good. Then the negotiation starts, usually dictated by their demands based on your sample usage. This can range from an advance fee which can go from a hundred to thousands of dollars—PLUS a percentage of the royalties (think from 15% to 50%, if not more, depending on the length and recognizability of a sample). In specific cases in the past like A Tribe Called Quest’s “Can I Kick It?” (sampling Lou Reed) and The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony” (sampling The Rolling Stones), the cut of royalties was even 100% for the original artists!

In addition, a rollover fee based on sales might come into play. Sometimes the rightsholder also wants songwriting credit(s) publicly stated and added to the newly produced song. Beyoncé’s newest album, Renaissance, is a good example of this.

THE TRACKLIB ROUTE

All songs on Tracklib are pre-cleared. All you need is a subscription, a standardized sample license (from three price categories; most are in Category C for $50), and you know what the fee will be even before you download the audio. There’s no need to chase down rightsholders or to have negotiations. It’s as simple as that.

What is ‘fair use’ in sampling?

The fair use rights allow you to ‘copy’ (read: sample) a small portion of a copyrighted piece of audio for limited, practical use. Think of an educational purpose, or previewing a piece of music to comment on or criticize. A few factors weigh in when a case is reviewed in court based on a fair use claim:

• The amount sampled. There’s no fixed rule here, but a few seconds versus an entire minute obviously change the definition of “fair.”
• The new piece the ‘copy’ was used for, needs to be distinctive. Think of adding a new melody or additional instrumentation.
• There’s no financial harm to the original copyrighted work or public promotion of said piece. For example, when you sample a classical record for a hip-hop beat, you appeal to an entirely new audience. Which is unfair to the original copyright holders.

Note that this is an oversimplified take on the definition of ‘fair use.’ As court cases have shown in the past, the legal side of things is far more complex… That’s why it’s better to stay on the safe side.

Looping

Chopping / Rearranging

Layering

Pitching

Changing tempo (sped-up or slowed-down)

Time-stretching

Pitchshifting (time-independent or repitching)

Reversing

(Such as masterfully done by DJ Dahi on Kendrick Lamar’s “Father TIme,” using a Tracklib sample).

Resampling

Other types of manipulation

Add effects, equalize (EQ) frequencies, use filters… There's a wide array of options for digital music sampling and audio processing.

That’s it for Tracklib’s complete guide on music sampling. We hope you enjoyed the step-by-step guide. And more importantly, that you’re on the right track to make some beats...

Now we’d like to hear your thoughts: what are your do’s and don’ts and best practices for music sampling? Do you have any questions about something we missed in this guide?

Let us know in the comments below. We read every comment.