Research Paper: Is Music Sampling Helpful or Harmful?
Songwriting is an art that most people take for granted. The ability to have a vision, much like a painter, and then produce a final product that all can enjoy, is very special. The art of creating something that a large audience of people can relate to is wonderful. Music sampling is a songwriting tool that has been used for a while, but does the use of sampling existing works in popular music further greaten or take away from the final product?
The definition of sampling according to Michael Aczon is, “ the technique of taking a small piece, or “sample,” of a pre-existing piece of music and using the sample to create or enhance a different, new piece of music.” Sampling music has evolved greatly since its popularity in the early 1980’s in Hip- Hop and earlier Jazz. Jazz musicians have always borrowed other musicians riffs and used them in their own individual way. However, the act of piecing together existing works can be traced back to the 1940’s. Before sampled music was as accessible as it is today, artists would have to use disk cutters to piece together uniques works of art. Artists such as Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry would also use sounds made not only made by instruments, but by other objects such as trains and mechanical noises (History and Evolution of Music Sampling). This movement of music was known as, Musique Concréte. Although this movement was started in the 1940’s, the recognition of popular music sampling did not start until the 1960’s. Many people believe that Hip-Hop is the genre that popularized this method of creating music, but it was actually popularized by electronic musicians in the 1960’s (Sampling is Cheap, Easy, and Essentially Just Stealing Someones Work).
The 1960’s track, “Amen, Brother” by The Winstons is the most-sampled track in history. It has been sampled more than 2,000 times in all different types of music (It Only Takes Six Seconds to Hear the Most Sampled Song In the World). This unique drum pattern which was later named the, Amen Break, is the most sampled drum pattern in history. A popular song that it was sampled in is, “Straight Outta Compton”, by NWA. If you listen to the beat in the background it is the same Amen Break.
There are many pros of sampling music, it can be very helpful when creating songs for one. Songwriters are special artists that sometimes need to use every tool in their toolbox in order to create an amazing work of art. Sometimes when creating a song, there is a specific sound and feel that can really drive the song to the finish line. Sampling can really help in this case, because if you hear a sound and think, “wow that would really sound awesome as the hook,” you have the power to use it to help your song. Sampling could also help because instead of hiring a bunch of musicians to recreate a specific sound, you could just save money by purchasing the existing sound and save people's time. If the song contains a popular hook or phrase, listeners will relate more quickly which could boost your songs popularity (Music Sampling: To Sample or Not to Sample). If a variety of listeners have already heard the existing sound, it could draw in a more varied audience who maybe would not have heard your music in the first place. It gives your song more exposure to different genres and could potentially bring in more revenue. Now, if you sample music from an indie artist, or a less popular artist, your sample can be cheaper. When sampling with indie artists it is a win win for both parties. The indie artist gets more exposure by allowing different artist to use their sound in a new space, but also the artist sampling the song gets it for way cheaper and could also potentially bring in more listeners. Along with purchasable samples, there are many clearance free sampled music that you can get for free. Anyone can put up loops and sounds for anyone to use. According to the article, “Music Sampling: To Sample or Not to Sample,” simply by doing a Google search for “Sampled Music” you can get many loops and clips that you can use in your music. Overall there are many pros to Sampling music.
There are a couple of cons including, most of the time, price. Depending on who you are purchasing the sample from, it can be very expensive. To, “Clear,” a sample, or to purchase it, is a very lengthy process and is pretty costly. Roughly speaking you can hire a sample clearance company for around $250 per sample. If you add a couple of samples to a few songs on your EP or album that can really add up (Music Sampling: To Sample or Not to Sample). If you decide to use someone else's music in your songs without clearing them, you could end up with a lawsuit which is extremely expensive and can also give your music a bad name in the industry. If you think that you can go around the law and not spend any money on the samples then you could end up paying a large amount of money for someone else's music because it is considered stealing. Besides the price of sampling, there are not a lot of cons.
When it comes to sampling, there are a lot of laws that need to be followed. When someone creates something and puts it out into the world, it is their property. If someone wants to use their created work, they have to do so legally. If you just take someone's work and use it as if it was your own, that is illegally and against copyright law.
There are a lot of steps in order to obtain sample music and to use it properly.
If you want to use a sample legally, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. The copyright owner is usually a publishing company or record label. Usually if the artist's work is private labeled, or if they are not signed to a specific company, it is going to be a lot cheaper because you only have to pay one party instead of two. You must obtain permission from both the owner of the sound recording and the copyright owner of the musical work. The fee for a license to use a sample can vary tremendously. The fee will depend on how much of the sample you intend to use, the music you intend to sample, and the intended use of the sample in your song. Depending on how long the sample is used in the song, or how much space it actually takes up, the price can vary. It is a better idea to use the sample sparingly and to feature it instead of showcasing it. In order to Legally sample music it usually cost a certain amount of money so that the creator of the music is actually making profit off of their work (The Law Regarding Music Sampling). Then, in order to start using the music, you have to purchase a sampling license. You can either pay a flat fee for the usage or do a buy out fee. A buy-out fee can range from $250 to $10,000 on a major label. Most fees fall between $1,000 and $2,000. Another way to pay for the license is a percentage of the mechanical royalty rate. According to, Michael McCready, The mechanical royalty rate is, “the amount a person pays to the copyright owner to make a mechanical reproduction (copy) of the song. A license which is a percentage of the mechanical royalty rate is generally between ½ ¢ and 3¢ per record pressed. Everything is negotiable and it is not unusual to get a license for free.’ There are many ways to pay for a sampled piece of work. If you want to sample legally you have to either pay straight up or a certain amount depending on the amount of records you are going to be selling. It is important that you do this processes responsibility in order to save as much money as you can. If you do not purchase the license the right way, you could potentially make no profit off a sampled music track record.
However, if you try to go around the system and do not legally pay for someone's work, you can end up paying a lot more money in penalties. A copyright infringer is liable for "statutory damages" that generally run from $500 to $20,000 for a single act of copyright infringement. If the court determines there has been wilful infringement, damages can run as high as $100,000 (The Law Regarding Music Sampling). Beyond the money, the court can also ask you to cease production of the record and to also destroy all copies of the illegal work.
All the work that you have done using someone else's work can just be destroyed in front of your eyes when you could have just created your own work in the first place with less of the hassle. “Sampling potentially violates the law regarding two separate copyrights, the copyright of the musical composition (the PA Copyright) and the copyright of the sound recording (SR Copyright). You need to obtain the permission of those copyright holders before using the original song or master. The process of getting that permission is known as clearing the sample (The Law Regarding Music Sampling).” There is a very long process in general to even just use a 5 second sample. Is it really worth all of the hassle to use someone else's work?
Now, even if you haven't sampled someone else's music, the owner can file a copyright on your song if it is substantially familiar. If you create a sound or song that is subsequently similar to someone else's work, than that can raise some issues. How you judge whether something is committing copyright infringement is whether or not the newly created works is substantially similar to the existing works. You could commit copyright infringement without even having knowledge of it. If something that you create is similar to something that already created you could have to pay reparations. The judge is the one who decides whether or not you are infringing on someone else's work. Some popular cases where this has happened would be Vanilla Ice vs. Queen and David Bowie. Vanilla Ice came out with the song, “Ice Ice Baby,” where he is clearly sampling the bass line from popular Queen song, “Under Pressure.” Vanilla Ice argued that he changed the tempo of the bass line therefore it was not the same. Although this case was not actually brought to court, it was so obvious that Vanilla Ice was ripping off Bowie so it was handled outside the court between the artist. Now when the song is played all legal measures are being taken into effect and there are no laws being broken (Famous Copyright Infringement Plagiarism Cases in Music).
Another popular case is the case of Michael Bolton Vs. The Isley Brothers. The Isley Brothers released their song called, “Love is a Wonderful thing,” in 1966 and Michael Bolton released a song with the same name in 1991. A copyright suit was brought against Michael Bolton for supposedly lifting lyrics and parts from their original song of the same name. In 1991, despite Michael Bolton’s argument that there was insufficient evidence supporting the jury’s findings, the district court found in favor of the Isley Brothers. The Isley Brothers won the case with the most money won in a copyright case of its kind in history. The Isley Brothers were awarded 5.4 million dollars, the calculation was based on all of the future and past royalties. The money that was payed was also based on the profit that was made off of Bolton's song and his album.
Overall there is so much knowledge that you need to have in order to use even the smallest sample of music in your songs. You have to know who it is you are trying to sample an if they are private labeled or if they are signed to a record company. If they are signed to a record company then there sample is going to be more expensive because you have to pay both the company, and the artist. You have to be carefull with the way that you pay for the sample, and that you are using it wisely in your song. If you want to sample even the smallest sound you have to make sure you follow all of the legal steps or else it will harm you financially and could also harm your music. If you are known as the person who steals someone else’s music, nobody is going to want to listen to you and youb probably won't get signed to a Label. Sampling is a very tricky thing to do correctly, and if you become an artist that does it incorrectly it can be very harmfull to your career.
Although sampling is a very tricky thing to do correctly, some artist made it into the light by doing it properly. One of the best sampling artists in my opinion, is Kanye West. He made his way to fame by mixing and producing all of his music and his most popular songs were created by using sampling expertly. “Kanye West’s songs have always been huge, elaborate affairs that either build off of an existing song or pick out the best parts of several others to create one coherent and cooler whole. And while West may be known for his early work with soul, his choice of samples has now made it all the way to Elton John and Bon Iver” (A Listenable History of Kanye West’s Samples). Kanye West is one of the most popular artists to focus on sampling in a wide variety. Almost all of his songs use samples of at least one existing song. Most people when they hear Kanye's music do not even realize that he is sampling. Could Kanye still be famous if he did not use music sampling as his main focus? Is it fair that his climb to fame was fueled mainly by the creation of others? I believe that the art that Kanye has created with his music is a breakthrough. The way that he experiments with different sounds from all different genres is what makes him such a well rounded artist.
Some examples of Kanye West's amazing work using sampling is when he samples, "Mystery of Iniquity," by Lauryn Hill in his song, “All Falls Down.” This is one of his more popular samples and it is very noticeable which part of the song was actually samples unlike some of his other songs. Another noteworthy song is, “Jesus Walks,” where he samples, "Walk With Me," by The ARC Choir; and "(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go," by Curtis Mayfield. Kanye actually gets the choir to record their tracks specially for his song. Kanye uses this song by this choir to lay the grounds for which he raps on top of and gives it a solid base for the whole song. Is Kanye's excessive use of sampling genius, or uncreative? One last example of his sampled music, although the list could go on forever is, “Heard Em’ Say.” In this song he sampled "Someone That I Used To Love," by Natalie Cole; and "Candy Maker," by Tommy James & The Shondells. He uses artist Natalie Cole a lot in his songs, and his use of her music evolves through this song. Kanye West proves through his music how, if done properly, you can really create amazing works of art through sampling. However, there is always that blurred line of creativity that comes when listening to his music. Some believe that he is not being creative, while others believe by using others creativity and putting into his own platform he is being even more creative than before.
However, Kanye West is certainly not the only artist who uses sampling in today's popular music. Drake’s “Hotline Bling,” for example, sampled 1972 R&B hit, “Why Can’t We Live Together,” by Timmy Thomas. I found this so interesting because I feel like so many people aren't even aware that drake used a sample in this song and I just think it is so strange how he re-creates this sped up drum beat in this new song. Some more examples of hits that have had music sampling in them are, "Anaconda" by Nicki Minaj ("Baby Got Back" by Sir Mix-a-Lot), "Good Feeling" by Flo Rida ("Something's Got a Hold on Me by Etta James), "The Time (Dirty Bit)" by the Black Eyed Peas ((I've Had) the Time of My Life from Dirty Dancing). (Music Sampling, Good or Bad).
Many people question if sampling is morally correct. Taking someone else's hard work, whether done legally or not, and using for your self can be kind of selfish. Compared to when music first started, the title of Songwriter has been taken to a whole nother level. Songwriting no longer just consists of writing a couple of chords and writing words to sing over it. In order to engage a large audience there are many tools that you have to use to engage them. There is so much music out there and not everyone is going to like the music you create, however, there are still things that you can do to achieve that. Is using someone else's hard work to further the popularity of your music ok? In my personal opinion, no. However I understand the effectiveness in Sampling. It is a great thing that many artists in the 21’st century use and I don't disagree with their tactics. As a musician and as a songwriter my goal is to portray myself and my life through my music, that doesn't really entail using other people's works. Overall, I do respect the art of sampling and the wonderful music it can create.