Wendy DayCEO/Coach, PowerPlays Coaching, LLC · Helping rappers make money with their music. Building millionaires in the urban music industry since 1992.

You should know this!! Sample Clearance...

19 Aug 2024 · 1 min

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In this brief conversational excerpt, Speaker A asks about sample clearance and learns that it involves two distinct components: publishing rights and master rights. The discussion introduces the term "interpolation," which refers to re‑recording or re‑singing a portion of a composition; for interpolations only the publishing rights need to be cleared, not the master rights. When a producer lifts the original sound recording (the master), both publishing and master clearances are required. The speakers also reference Ian Allen, a long‑time industry professional who popularized the term "interpolation" while at Jive Records, highlighting his reputation for having "the best ears in the business." The dialogue clarifies when each type of clearance is necessary and provides a practical industry anecdote.

Chapters

Will you explain what sample clearance is? So there's two parts to it. There's the publishing side and there's the master side. And so I remember back in the day we used to call it a replay. Now we use the word interpolation. I don't even know who came up with the word interpolation. I keep thinking Ian Allen.
Somebody who was good at spelling, apparently.
I remember Ian Allen was using that. Ian's been in this business since the beginning. He was at Jive Records as an intern and now he's got the best ears in the business. And I'm like, interpolation, who came up with this word? So an interpolation is that you either have resung or replayed elements of a composition, and therefore you only need to secure consent and a quote for those publishing rights.
So you don't have to clear the master side when it gets replayed, if it's replayed or resung.
If you lifted the original recording from the master, wherever you've lifted something from, there's two sides. You need to clear the publishing, but you also need to clear the master.