Apple Logic Pro /LogicExpress Discussion

> Lets take this situation to more ridiculous extreme.
> Say you sampled one drum 
> hit from Madonna, and included that on your greatest
> pop song that made 10 
> million. Would it be fair for Madonna to demand all
> the money and you get 
> nothing?

No, but then if you had only sampled one drum hit, she
wouldn't win a 100% royalty in court, either.  I'm not
familiar with the Vervepipe song in question, but the
impression I get from the discussion here is that the
Stones riff is pretty integral to the song and not
modified to a significant extent.  And the award given
in court is almost inevitably far higher than a fee
negotiated up front would be.  There are, I believe,
some unofficial industry standards for how much to
charge for samples of varying length and
recognizability, or at least that's the impression I
was left with after reading a Beastie Boys interview,
recently.  

The point is to negotiate reasonable fees for EVERY
sample up front, to avoid costly lawsuits and punitive
damages later.  Even on a song which consists 100% of
sampled music, there would still be money leftover for
the artist who combined those samples in a new manner,
because the 'standard' percentages are very
reasonable.  As a musician, if someone else comes to
me and says I really like some aspect of your work and
I've used it in a song, let's negotiate an agreement
as to how much I should pay you in order to release
it, in all likelihood, I'm going to let them use it
for free, providing they aren't just blatantly ripping
off my song, wholesale.  However, if they release
without permission and the first time I hear it is
when it reaches number 10 on the charts, I'm certainly
going to take my pound of flesh in a courtroom.  I
don't fault the Stones on that one at all.  And if the
jury and/or judge felt that the Stones' contribution
to the Vervepipe hit was worth 100% of the royalties,
then that's the risk they took by releasing without
permission.  As musicians, I find it very hard to
believe that the stones would have charged 100% for
the riff in a pre-release negotiation.

But then, I don't download mp3's or rip friends cd's
either, because that's stealing from people just like
me.  I may have a listen via mp3, and I'll even rip a
cd at a friend's house when I first hear it, but if I
haven't bought a copy of my own within a couple of
weeks, I delete the mp3.  It is just a point of honor
for me, as a musician, to not steal the work of other
musicians, either via mp3 or sampling.

--sam



		
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