Why buy a drum break library if it isn't royalty-free?

[jedilaw]

Checking around on Phat Beats, as I sometimes do, I came across the following: The Complete Paul Nice Drum Library, Vols 1-6 on Vinyl for $59.99.

At first, I said to myself "$10 per LP, that's not bad, cheaper than most of the Big Fish stuff."

But wait...there's a catch, one that all the would-be samplers/producers need to keep in mind: paying that $60 won't give you the license to sample and use any of that material. You're buying the albums, that's it, no usage rights. I confirmed this today with a call to Phat Beats in New York. Further, getting clearance would be damned complicated, because apparently everything in this set was sampled from somewhere else, so who the hell even knows who owns the rights?

You could find the best beat...ever, only to discover that getting clearance would cost you your left nut and half a kidney.

Now, for a live DJ, this set would work nicely. Why? Because live performance licenses are usually covered by the venue having a blanket license with ASCAP/BMI, etc. So you wouldn't be violating copyright playing the albums in a club or concert hall. Take that stuff and put it in your own recording, though, and someone could bring some fire to dat ass in a hurry.

Note, this problem applies to any breakbeat collection, whether we're talking Dusty Fingers, Ultimate Breaks and Beats, any of it. That's a huge difference between those break collections and what you would get from something like Big Fish Audio. Find a break you like in a set you bought from Big Fish, use it all you want, no lawsuit.

I'm not gonna claim that what BFA puts out is equal to, say, classic James Brown. But at least if you do get good stuff from them, they ain't gonna sick a pack of rabid IP lawyers on you for using it...