Clearing a Sample for Licensing?

[emynd]

I just gone done reading taza's thread about "publishing" etc, where Thes, Einstein, and Controller 7 dropped some knowledge for us, but I'm curious about the "CLEARING A SAMPLE" portion of all this.Basically, my dude emailed me about a song we did a while ago and he told me that some company wants to license the song for something. I presume it's for an ad or something, but I don't really know at this point. I asked the size of the company because I figured if it was a small-ish company that just wants to license the song for some bullcrap local advertisement or something, that I wouldn't even bother clearing the sample. But, dude says it's a big, rich, national company so I'm probably going to have to clear it. But honestly, I have no idea where to even start with this. I'm currently awaiting more info from the dude, so I'm still kind've in the dark about but, and I know there's probably a ton of questions that need to be answered before anyone can really give me any definitive help on this issue, but does anybody have any sort've basic suggestions on how to go about clearing a sample for licensing purposes? I'm assuming that in this day and age, there's a Sample Clearance service that specializes in doing this stuff and they have relationships with labels that will be able to negotiate something way more substantial than my inexperienced ass ever could. Anybody familiar with this stuff?By the way, I also know it will probably depend on the sample that was used (i.e. the rarity of the sample, the label that the OG sample was on, not to mention the actual artist who was sample) and, unfortunately, I can't recall who I sampled off-hand (yeah, I'm THAT guy). I'll check when I get home from work tonight, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't some private press nugget from the mean streets of Kebabistan.Any thoughts AT ALL would be greatly appreciated!I really hope this gets me momentarily rich.-e

 

[TNG]

I just gone done reading taza's thread about "publishing" etc, where Thes, Einstein, and Controller 7 dropped some knowledge for us, but I'm curious about the "CLEARING A SAMPLE" portion of all this.

Basically, my dude emailed me about a song we did a while ago and he told me that some company wants to license the song for something. I presume it's for an ad or something, but I don't really know at this point. I asked the size of the company because I figured if it was a small-ish company that just wants to license the song for some bullcrap local advertisement or something, that I wouldn't even bother clearing the sample. But, dude says it's a big, rich, national company so I'm probably going to have to clear it. But honestly, I have no idea where to even start with this. I'm currently awaiting more info from the dude, so I'm still kind've in the dark about but, and I know there's probably a ton of questions that need to be answered before anyone can really give me any definitive help on this issue, but does anybody have any sort've basic suggestions on how to go about clearing a sample for licensing purposes? I'm assuming that in this day and age, there's a Sample Clearance service that specializes in doing this stuff and they have relationships with labels that will be able to negotiate something way more substantial than my inexperienced ass ever could. Anybody familiar with this stuff?

By the way, I also know it will probably depend on the sample that was used (i.e. the rarity of the sample, the label that the OG sample was on, not to mention the actual artist who was sample) and, unfortunately, I can't recall who I sampled off-hand (yeah, I'm THAT guy). I'll check when I get home from work tonight, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't some private press nugget from the mean streets of Kebabistan.

Any thoughts AT ALL would be greatly appreciated!

I really hope this gets me momentarily rich.

-e

What it comes down to is two sometimes difficult steps with the same follow up step for each:

1. Contacting the master rights owner
2. Contacting the publisher

The follow up is generally sending in a copy of your request and intentions, and then waiting for them to get back to you about how much of the song they want to own. What portion you'll have to give up depends on how much of the sample you used vs. original music. We had a situation recently where we were offered 50% ownership of the publishing, and then 8 cents per unit sold on the master. This is a special case because they used the sample as the bed of the entire song, but it gives you an idea of what a publisher and master owner can ask for.

 

[Controller_7]

Basically it will all depend on what they want to license it for. If it's for use on their website, I don't think clearing it would be worth it. Find out what they are offering and then figure out if it's worth it. If they are talking about $5,000 total or something like that, then it's probably not worth it. It might be worth it for you if this song was on a cd that was on itunes or still in print and you might get some "I love that song" sales off of it, but if it's an old out of print song then you won't recoup on that end.

If they offer you $40,000 and you end up getting half of that....awesome. If they offer you $5,000 you might not end up getting anything and your deal could actually give the sample owner all rights for future uses. It could become the most popular commercial ever and run every hour of the day and you might not get anything depending on what the publishing owner asks for.

Also, the more people you involve, the less money you'll get.

Find out what they are offering and what it's use will be and then decide how to proceed from there. You'll have to decide if the pay off will be worth the potential headaches.

 

Also, the more people you involve, the less money you'll get.

I wish I knew this, I did a national spot for Roxio in 2001 and made $1,200.