Rules Regarding Sampling spoken word / Movie Dialogue

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realityflaw

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I'm sure I'll get some flak for even asking but I was curious about whether samples can be used from Movie Dialogue or Famous speeches, Etc ? I have heard it done by Rob Zombie, Living Colour, Iron Maiden to name just a few. My question being: Do the same Copywrite rules apply to short samples as do for Music?
 
realityflaw said:
I'm sure I'll get some flak for even asking but I was curious about whether samples can be used from Movie Dialogue or Famous speeches, Etc ? I have heard it done by Rob Zombie, Living Colour, Iron Maiden to name just a few. My question being: Do the same Copywrite rules apply to short samples as do for Music?
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i'd think they do, to what extent today is anyones guess, less your a corp/copyright lawyer...

you'll most likely be sued if the project make's any money, if it doesn't you'll just be ask to remove the owners material...
 
this might help a bit

http://www.eastcomultimedia.com/customer/order/copyright?copyright=sample

i dunno if that'll help much. but essentially, if you wanna be rich and famous using someone else's recorded material "in whole or in part" (as it says at the beginning of every movie), be prepared to pay through the nose. that is, if it's some big money movie like the Matrix or Titanic or something.
i think there is a good chance though, that some smaller, virtually unknown movies might be happy to let you use some samples for a significantly smaller fee. in the end, you might end up helping them out, because if someone loves your track which uses the sample from said movie, your fan might be driven to rent this movie as well. kind of a "symbiotic relationship", if you will.

however, some more well known artists even, as far as i know, seem to have slipped through the cracks and gotten away with sampling. i highly doubt Tricky has ended up paying royalties on every sample he has ever used. if so, he'd be probably more poverty stricken than me.

it's just a matter of getting caught.
and God, i hope i don't get caught.
i can't afford it
 
You can get away with using dialog that's in the public domain. This would include political speeches and some older movies. It is the responsibility of the copyright holder to renew the copyrights and in the case of some old movies they don't bother. That's how 'It's a Wonderful Life' became such a big hit on TV because once it became public domain stations could play it for free.
 
I asked the same question not too long ago,

Public domain sounds like pretty boring stuff! Just the same, I wonder where one could find a list of public domain?

I was gonna sample from my DVD player, one particular quote from "altered states", another from "bram stoker dracula", couple of others..., but I decided it wasn't worth the effort in the end....
 
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