Excellent Point By Reader, But…
It is still breaking the law. An uncleared sample is copyright infringement and you CAN BE SUED, whether you sell one copy or 50,000. This is not just our opinion, but the U.S Government Copyright Office under Title 17 of the United States Code article § 1101.
You can bank on the chance they won’t sue you, but that is a huge if. Electronic Musician, a well respected magazine in the music production industry, published an article on this very issue (click here). They refer to the comment our reader made as an all too common myth.
Right now record labels are losing millions of dollars a day and they would love for an indie artists to pick up one of their beats, sell 10,000 copies, sue them and make a killing. Whether you sell one copy or 50,000 THEY STILL CAN SUE YOU AT ANYTIME! It’s they’re choice and legal right.
What is more alarming is that our reader’s comments confirmed what we stated in our last post, that Buythatbeat.com does use uncleared samples. Apparently some body’s uncle has cleared them to do so, but the owners of the copyright and U.S government have not. Your uncle may be an entertainment lawyer and ‘know the game’, but uncleared samples are STILL ILLEGAL. Ironically, MyBeatShop.com, one of the competitors of Buythatbeat.com, shares our opion on sampling as well. They caution their producers (users/members) not to sample. Check out a discussion in their forum click here.
That being said we recommend MyBeatShop.com, they care about the wellbeing of their customers by attempting to protect them from copyright infringement. If you use an uncleared sample you can be sued at anytime whether you sell ten copies or 50,000. No reputable company should put their customers in legal harms way.
****We urge our readers to protect themselves legally by familiarizing themselves with United States Copyright laws. Please visit the U.S. Government Copyright website. In addition here are other helpful links****
BMI Music Copyright Issues and Licensing
Harry Fox Agency Inc –Largest mechanical licensing, collection, and distribution agency for music publishers in the U.S.
Sound On Sound : The World’s Best Music Recording Magazine — The SOS Guide To Copyright Law On Sampling
http://www.dealwitit.com/store/harryfox.php —Very useful article
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