Sample clearance

Music sampling is the subject of many legal disputes, chiefly in the realm of copyright law as it applies to musical compositions and sound recordings.

Early sampling artists simply used portions of other artists' recordings without permission, but once music incorporating samples began to make significant money, some sampled artists, publishers, and record companies began to take legal action, claiming copyright infringement. Sometimes, after the threat or initiation of a lawsuit, such disputes are settled out of court, often with the sampling artist obtaining a license at considerable cost and making other concessions to appease the aggrieved party; other times, the sampling artist contests the infringement claims, such as by arguing in court that the copyright law does not cover their particular use of the work. The outcome of these court cases, primarily in the United States and the United Kingdom, have shaped common law, defining ways statutory law—which does not directly cover sampling—can be applied to sampling disputes.

In accordance to the United States constitution, the laws of copyright permit a number of rights to authors so that they may "Promote the Progress of Science and Useful Arts." This principle brings to light the true reason for copyright law - to develop boundaries economically and legally where learning, science, and culture can progress.

Using tape as a means of sampling goes back to at least 1961, when James Tenney created Collage #1 ("Blue Suede") from samples of Elvis Presley's recording of "Blue Suede Shoes." At the time, artists such as Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs experimented by manipulating existing works such as radio broadcasts. Gysin's work tended to favor his permutation poems as the vehicle for cut-ups with spliced repetition of the same series of words rearranged in every conceivable pattern, frequently utilizing snippets of speeches or news broadcasts. Burroughs preferred a much more frantic and disorganized sound that would later spawn similar disjointed collage material from modern groups such as Negativland. Burroughs would record, for instance, a radio broadcast about military action, then dub parts of the broadcast likely at random often stuttering and distorting the original work far beyond comprehension.

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