Just a Gwai Lo - fun within prescribed limits

Justin: “securing permission for samples used in dance music isn't anything new. Take DJ Shadow, an artist well known for digging, a term for the process of searching through rooms of records for obscure samples. Permission to use each and every sample regardless of age or rarity has to be obtained before DJ Shadow's records are released. DJ Danger Mouse himself never expected his record would be released. The permission requirement has been blamed for stifling dance music's growth in the recording industry and more generally it is one of the issues being voiced in the Grey Tuesday protest. In the case of dance music, I think it has more to do with the fact that dance music by its very nature wants to be in the club. But even conceding that limiting free use of prior work hinders future creativity, I don't think it justifies releasing music that samples without permission and the EMI's actions do not justify making the same publicly available free of cost.”

DJ Shadow does not receive permission to use most of the samples he uses, especially the really obscure ones, simply because he doesn't ask for it. He uses the samples in the hope that a) nobody will notice and b) that the sample is short-enough or manipulated enough that it becomes an instrument rather than copying. All the ones on the liner notes of his albums and productions are ones that he acknowledges using and got sample clearance for. From the man himself: “ there's probably 1,000 samples on "Endtroducing ..." and I think we cleared 10 or so.” There is an underground movement to catalogue all of the samples used in DJ Shadow's songs, and I'd link to it if the URL didn't change weekly (check the DJ Shadow Samples email list for details) since Shadow, while he knows about the site, hasn't authorized the site. I've read an interview—it may have been a chatlog—where he says the idea is cool, but he doesn't need the info getting into the wrong hands.