Every wondered exactly what the deal is with sample clearance and music copyright infringement?
What’s legal, what’s illegal and what falls under the grey area of ‘fair use’?
We recently got Julian Hewitt of Media Arts Lawyers in for a Q&A at our quarterly producer’s conference ‘INPUT’ to clear up once and for all, the exact laws and processes behind using samples in your music and sample clearance. Julian goes through tonnes of scenarios and case studies of copyright infringement and sampling, while also explaining a lot of the terms, moving parts and concepts involved along the way.
As their name suggests, Julian’s company Media Arts Lawyers represents a host of artists and businesses in the media and entertainment industry, with clients including FLUME, The Presets, Flight Facilities, & Gotye. As you can imagine with his clients, when it comes to music sampling laws he’s seen it all and admits to spending a decent amount of time in his job making sure his artists are staying on the right side of the law when using samples in music. Julian also makes great tunes with his band Clubfeet.
Watch Julian’s Q&A with Liveschool’s Adam Maggs below, in which he explains everything you need to know about the legal ins and outs of using samples. Please keep in mind that Julian’s talk is discussing Australian copyright laws, laws may differ slightly between countries.
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