In the absence of a clear set of rules, the music industry has developed its own practices to deal with sampling. These practices have resulted in extremely high license fees for those who wish to use samples with the blessing of the copyright holder.
As a general rule, samples that are recognizable by the ordinary listener have to be licensed, no matter how small the sample. The license fee for a single, three second-long looped sample of a sound recording can be as high as $5,000. The sampler usually has to pay an additional amount for sampling the underlying musical work, which is typically a percentage of the ownership of the new compositions, as well as an advance on expected publishing income. If an artist wishes to use multiple samples in a single work, that artist may be forced to give up a substantial amount of ownership over the final work in order to clear all the samples.
Excessive sampling license fees are especially onerous for indie labels and emerging acts. In some cases, the cost of clearing samples can equal or exceed an album’s entire recording budget. These excessive fees can have a chilling effect, essentially stifling creativity in certain genres of music.