Yea same, I filled that form out for shits to see if anything comes out of it, This alias dude calls me today while I'm astro travelin, sounds like bullshit I wouldn't get involved with these scheming fools

If you aren't making $$ no one cares. Most see it like this:
If you're selling something with some copyrighted material within it & the copyright owner discovers it, their attorney can send you a 'cease and desist' letter. That could be no problem if it's digitally distributed only- but if you made 10,000 CDs and you only sold 25 so far - that means you have 9,975 CDs that you can get sued if you attempt to sell.

You can read up on historical landmark sample clearance cases. De La Soul, Biz Markie, Beastie Boys, Lord Tariq & Peter Guns, Dre & DJ Quik and more have all been involved with big cases. It's essentially a cost benefit analysis. The Beastie Boys had a docu-movie concert movie that came out in theaters. It was delayed in release cuz they had to get every bit of audio that Mixmaster Mike used in a DJ routine legally cleared.

It brings up all sorts of ethical issues, cuz this means you can easily sample the fuck out of indy underground groups, cuz chances are they won't have counsel, but if you reach the threshold and it becomes cost-effective for them to sue you for a sure win you never know. Check the Lord Tariq & Peter Guns case (their uncleared sample song got played on commercial radio-bringing publishing rights into the mix)- if it's a small group & you can make a 'bigger' song with the sample they will be all about it- there is a legal way to go about it- you simply have to contact the publishing owner of the song with a "letter of intent" (what you are doing with their sample) different publisher owners have different opinions about sampling.

If you're doing the free download thing- getting a 'cease & desist' letter can be great publicity. It just means you got enough buzz that the copyright owner found out- so if you didn't $burn$ any vinyl or CDs- no loss..

I should have just said- If your joint has a barcode on it, or ends up on http://www.whosampled.com/ you need/needed to get that ish cleared.
hXc

^you talking about that "uptown" track that sample Steely Dan?


uptown baby, uptown baby!

yeah- it got played on Hot 97 before the SP was cleared- I think it might've been settled out of court though- still- Steely gets gwop every time you hear that song on commercial radio~

shit im down for this i dont care i aint got shit to loose and i give away my tracks anyways lol but if this fool at all ask me to come out my POCKETS pfff im out.... shit what else am i gunna do just make tracks and tracks to fill up my hard drive fuggit ima have some fun with this and other shit from now on ima try to get my feet wet statring now a new day a new way fugggit

well, i'm disgusted now. after watching some of their videos (since i finally had the time), i'll have to say screw it with this group. i think they might be half way legit BUT they want to groom you fo the 'business' of making music. that just ain't me. if i have wear this and say that and change my song like so... what's the fuckin point? i'll just get into sales or politics. nah that just ain't me.

thanks for the feedback, at some point i'll start thread on how you copyright and sell online but for now i7ll just laze out and wear my absolutely non "brand" style fitting clothes.

i also usually get baked and sample like a fiend... i couldn't remember whats in my songs even if you asked ha

making music is 1 thing...distributing another.

if u wanna sell ur stuff you 1st of all have to get it licensed. Here in Germany it´s called GEMA (Gesellschaft für musikalische Aufführungs- und mechanische Vervielfältigungsrechte)

that´s the 1st thing...it´s like a patent on a new invention...so nobody can steal it and sell it as there own (very very important)

I sometimes sell some tracks ...mostly when i do remixes and I get 10 cents per track for every sold record. That might not sound like much but it sometimes becomes up to 550€ in a month...so it aint that badfor a "hobby". I am mostly posted on techno/trance and house compilations here in Germany and sometimes Europe.....now I have a track going on in the states.

I usually deal with good underground recordlabels like SPV here in Germany ( http://www.spv.de ) ...just sorta slipped in there....you know someone who knows somebody that knows someone who knows the boss sorta thing.

that seems to be the best ways these days.