Do musicans have to?

Question

pay royalites to other singers if they sample the song like in rap. If they do a little cut of the song in a scratch do they have to pay for it? Just wondering.

Answer 1

Yes and No.

It depends on how much of a song they use - you are allowed to use so many seconds of someone elses recordings before you have to pay - and how easy it is to recognise.

For example the Avalanches debut album was made up almost entirely from samples of other peoples songs but as some were hidden well into the mix and others used were very short they did not have to pay a penny, despite almost the entire album being technically other peoples recordings.

Where as the Verve had to cough up all of their royalties from bittersweet symphony to th erolling stones as they nicked the main riff of the song form them - i heard the rolling stones donated it all to charity.

i'm sure if you go onto the phonographic assosiation website there will be some more details there.

So really its a case of how blatant you are in your use of others recordings.

Answer 2

This depends on the agreement between the artist borrowing the material & the original artist. It also depends on the copyright status of the material & the original artist's legal control of the song.
To be safe, I suggest you not borrow music or lyrics without first procuring written consent from the person who wrote the material & the person who first performed with it.

Answer 3

I guarantee you they do - they try to get away with it all the time, but there have been so many lawsuits that they'd be stupid to try it.

Answer 4

Technically Yes!! does everyone? No...

Answer 5

yeah. definitely. using copyrighted works for profit.