Music Clearances

The number of clearance agents that extend their service to clients has grown in the last several years.  One sample clearance agency in Delaware, DMG Clearances, has been in business for almost 20 years and works with some of the biggest stars in the music business.  Owner of DMG Clearances Deborah Mannis-Gardner, had this to say about sample clearances in a recent blog interview:

“If you’re at a stop light and hear a song and a portion of the song is recognizable as something else then you need to clear it.” (personal quote blog interview 2011)

The blog interview that Deborah did for an Alaskan blogger will be published in March, one of her many blog interviews.  When proofreading the article there were many more points made about when samples need to be cleared.  Deborah was very clear when being asked about what she thinks about indie labels taking advantage of sites like Band Camp to distribute and publish their music through unofficial channels (2011): 

"Just because there are means to sell your material independently as easily like Band Camp doesn’t mean you don’t have to clear your samples. Do you think this means you are under the radar? Copyright holders scan the Internet and look for un-cleared samples.  Publishers and labels are constantly scrutinizing the Internet for places that contain un-cleared samples." (personal quote blog interview 2011)

Further changes in the industry will force lawyers, musicians, publishers, music societies and anyone else sampling music to change their way of thinking about sample use.  Eventually sample use could mean using as much as 1 second of a song and having to clear that song with the owner.  Advances in technology will surely change the way samples are cleared.  Computer programs will soon be able to recognize small parts of songs that are sampled no matter how drastically they’ve been changed.  The experts of the industry have spoken and it seems the general consensus is that if you sample you have to pay for that sample.

Mannis-Gardner, D. (2011). Personal blog response proofread by Isaac Mitchell on March 1, 2011