# Music clearances **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [April 21, 2017, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-clearances/784918 "2017-04-21T12:01:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DesertDog](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desertdog/32/11503_2.png) [@DesertDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DesertDog)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2017, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-clearances/784918/1 "2017-04-21T12:01:53Z")
This isn’t [sampling](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/3337/when-is-it-legal-to-sample-music) per se but it involves getting music clearances. Finally saw [_Sing_](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3470600/combined) when it reached the dollar theater (It was better than I expected). About halfway through the film I pondered, “Man, Clearances must have worked their collective tails off for this one.” I counted about 65 music credits at the end; IMDb Trivia says over 85. All these were over two seconds, though; enough to be recognizable or there wouldn’t be any point. ---
**Author:** ![JoeW\_01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/7ba0ec/32.png) [@JoeW\_01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoeW_01)\ **Post date:** [April 21, 2017, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-clearances/784918/2 "2017-04-21T19:30:55Z")
_All Day_, Girl Talk’s 2010 album, was composed entirely of samples from 374 songs by 301 artists. The artist did not pay for any licenses for the use of the songs; he released the album at no cost on his label’s website, [http://illegal-art.net](http://illegal-art.net). ---
**Author:** ![glowacks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/glowacks/32/5548_2.png) [@glowacks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glowacks)\ **Post date:** [April 22, 2017, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-clearances/784918/3 "2017-04-22T03:08:27Z")
I’m glad to know that one of the things I picked up in one of my college fluff courses “History of Rock Music” isn’t complete bullshit. Much like the R&RHoF, “Rock Music” for some reason included hip hop, and one of the more important lessons was just how big of a deal the Biz Markie ruling was. What we were taught was pretty much exactly what Cecil describes. Among our listening assignments were particular tracks that were made directly after that ruling, showing how once the artists had to pay for their samples, they would use the one (or few) they got the rights to quite heavily, instead of just splicing up a whole boatload of different snippets of sounds. I think it definitely made a huge impact in the level of creativity that was possible, at least in music recorded for profit, as the new tracks were much less interesting than those that came before (if you ask my opinion, the whole genre is crap, but at least the ones with 100 different samples were interesting). Sure, it was still possible to _make_ such tracks, but without being able to distribute them on a wide-scale without facing legal backlash, a good deal of the public could be missing out on some clever combinations of sounds. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [April 23, 2017, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-clearances/784918/4 "2017-04-23T20:24:08Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > Among our listening assignments were particular tracks that were made directly after that ruling, showing how once the artists had to pay for their samples, they would use the one (or few) they got the rights to quite heavily, instead of just splicing up a whole boatload of different snippets of sounds. I think it definitely made a huge impact in the level of creativity that was possible, at least in music recorded for profit, as the new tracks were much less interesting than those that came before (if you ask my opinion, the whole genre is crap, but at least the ones with 100 different samples were interesting). I fail to see how losing the ability to copy and paste other people’s work for free or cheap makes an “impact in the level of creativity” possible. Unless you mean people were forced to actually be creative, and it turned out they really weren’t very creative. ---
**Author:** ![Marplots](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Marplots](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marplots)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2017, 5:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-clearances/784918/5 "2017-04-24T05:03:00Z")
> [@Doug\_K](#): > > I fail to see how losing the ability to copy and paste other people’s work for free or cheap makes an “impact in the level of creativity” possible. Unless you mean people were forced to actually be creative, and it turned out they really weren’t very creative. I didn’t invent any of the words in this post, but I want credit for the way I have ordered them to express my own artistic vision. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2017, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-clearances/784918/6 "2017-04-24T12:57:54Z")
> [@Marplots](#): > > I didn’t invent any of the words in this post, but I want credit for the way I have ordered them to express my own artistic vision. We’re not talking about words. We’re talking about lifting phrases, sentences and paragraphs. The way somebody else ordered them. ---
**Author:** ![boffking](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/858c86/32.png) [@boffking](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/boffking)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2017, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/music-clearances/784918/7 "2017-04-24T17:40:28Z")
> [@glowacks](#): > > I’m glad to know that one of the things I picked up in one of my college fluff courses “History of Rock Music” isn’t complete bullshit. Much like the R&RHoF, “Rock Music” for some reason included hip hop, I’m actually taking a similar college course. Hip Hop is included because it is basically a grandchild of rock. Reggae started as a fusion of 50’s rock and traditional Jamaican music. About 10 years later, In the early 70’s DJs of street break dancing competitions in the Bronx created hip hop when they added Reggae style “toasting” to the music they were playing.