That's mine...pay me.

September 26, 2013 2:32 PM

How much might one make over the course of decades from sampled music? In a dizzying exploration into the internets last night, I discovered that not only did Jay-Z sample the drum riff from Billy Squier's The Big Beat in his hit 99 Problems, but the same song has been sampled over 100 times. What might be an estimate of what a sampled artist might make over the course of several decades? Thousands? Tens of thousands? More?
posted by teg4rvn to Work & Money (7 answers total)

Welcome to the wild world of royalty payments. The short answer to your question is somewhere between $0 and millions, depending on how well the musician's business affairs are managed, the rights the musician has to the song, etc.

There are a lot of stories out there about old R&B and blues singers being denied royalties on music they wrote.

The guys who wrote the song "Bittersweet Symphony" lost a lot of money in royalty payments to the Rolling Stones (who, of course, have a management system second to none in the entertainment industry).
posted by dfriedman at 2:36 PM on September 26, 2013

You will probably want to watch this video about Clyde Stubblefield, the musician behind the 'funky drummer' sample.
posted by Jairus at 2:45 PM on September 26, 2013 [1 favorite]

George Clinton, one of the most prolific and sampled musicians ever, has spent years trying to get the rights back to his music. It's estimated that, had he owned those songs, they would've generated millions of dollars in royalties for him.
posted by girlmightlive at 3:37 PM on September 26, 2013

Following on Jarius's suggestion: Living Legend Tries to Make a Living (NYT).
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:39 PM on September 26, 2013

I only know (a little) about music licensing for TV, and I can tell you that it varies wildly.

I think it's interesting to contrast the wild west of music royalties to the highly regulated world of SAG residuals.
posted by ablazingsaddle at 4:18 PM on September 26, 2013

There's two major components to the copyright protection of sound recordings- the copyright of the actual recording, and that of the songwriting. Melodies fall under songwriting (called publishing, and from a time when sheet music of popular songs was a profitable- once the most profitable- form of distribution) and are the most likely to be litigated. Generally when an agreement is made- before or after the release of the infringing song- the original artist has a share of publishing on the new (ostensibly hit) track, which is where money is made with sound recordings. This would be the case with the more egregious examples of the 90s- U Can't Touch This and Ice Ice Baby. These would theoretically be your million dollar examples.

Generally- but not exactly quite always- drum sampling alone can be arguably not songwriting, so I know of very few examples where percussion alone was considered infringement. Drum sampling is crazy widespread- or at least was. Even rock records you may never suspect have sampling have triggered samples, sometimes from records, mixed in to beef up the natural drum sounds. The Funky Drummer referenced above, as well as Apache by the Incredible Bongo Band and Amen, Brother have been sampled thousands upon thousands of times for a couple of decades and I don't think any legal action has ever come of it.

That said, this is a total crap shoot. The case that generally killed free for all sampling in Hip Hop was brought against De La Soul when they sampled a Turtles song for a goofy intermission. On the other hand, when 2 Live Crew sampled Roy Orbison's Oh, Pretty Woman for ESSENTIALLY A COVER SONG called... Pretty Woman, 2 Live Crew won the case.

This wiki page provides a good overview: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_issues_surrounding_music_sampling
posted by tremspeed at 4:16 AM on September 27, 2013 [1 favorite]

For Syl Johnson, being sampled by the Wu Tang bought him a house.
posted by Gortuk at 6:30 AM on September 27, 2013