Question

Clyde Stubblefield, the most sampled drummer in hip-hop, worked as a session musician on James Brown's records, and never received publishing or composing credit for music on which he was prominently featured. Is this fair? Why or why not? Should he be compensated for the use of his drum hits and patterns in sampled music? If you wanted to make a song, should you have the right to be able to sample? Should you have to pay the artist you sample? Why or why not? How would you feel if someone else sampled your song? Does money affect the way you feel about it? Does it make a difference if the person who sampled your song is making money from his/her music? Does it make a difference if you are being compensated financially for it? What would you want someone sampling to do in return? What impact(s) does sampling have on the original artists? Is the effect generally good or bad for the sampled artist? In what ways?

Answer 1

Clyde, famous drummer in hip hop never received credit for work he have done in Brown's records. This is actually not fair. Sampling in music refers to reusing of the recording of others song in your song recording through software and hardware. According to fair use law, if sampling is done without permission, guilty person must have to pay compensation to the singer for using their recording. That compensation depends upon the level of mutual consent they have reached.

If I wanted to make a song, i do not have any right to use other person recording. If i will sample any other recording in mine recording, i will ask for clearance from the prime singer, which is taking their permission to use it, no matter how long the process is. If they clear it, i must have to pay the compensation as everyone in this world is running for money. If i am using that sample recording, there must be something good in it, if yes, then take clearance, pay them compensation amount ( sharing a amount of what you will earn in the future) and enjoy benefits.

It feels bad when sampling is done without your permission. If i were there, i would have filed a case against them under fair use law. But if it is done with my permission and i being fully compensated for it, i do not have any legal issues with them, because it makes a clear difference when i am being paid for the work i have done no matter who is using it and in which way.

If there is a case of sampling being done to original artist, then there can be a case of artist releasing less albums of theirs, they have less incentive to work on a new project because no matter how hard they work, their work will be copied by someone else in the future. Sampled artist takes benefit of this thing, they pay compensation or not, they get recording to use in their recording and get fame easily and because there is perfectly competitive market, sampled artist becomes a competition to original artist which becomes a problem.