Before we start on this subject, let me give you the definition of this two terms, that may be familiar to you.
If found on Wikipedia.com the literal definition of “sampling”, which is :
In music, sampling is the reuse of a portion of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise rhythm, melody, speech, or other sounds. They are usually integrated using hardware or software such as digital audio workstations.
On the other hand, the proper definition of “plagiarism” is the next one :
The practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own. (Found on Google)
Now that you have a clear explication of those, we can go into more details. Why are they different ? Why samples may be mixed up with plagiarism ?
What is funny is that, in fact, sampling is not illegal, compared to plagiarism. You don’t know this but many of your favorite singers use sampling. The songs you sing in the shower are based on previous ones that you may have never heard of. It is all about inspiration, renewal. With all the rythmes, the songs that has already been made, of course it is hard to come up with new ideas and totally new styles, that is why sampling is frequently used. And well used, because almost nobody recognises it and it does not harm the music industry.
Whereas plagiarism is just copying something, without any remorse or regret. It may be punished by the law if it goes to extreme plagiarism and copy-cat.
Now, when you ask someone uninformed about the subject, and make him listen an old song, and after that the one that sampled it, he may shout for plagiarism and be very disappointed in the artist and his work. At first, I was disappointed, and still am : discovering that the songs you listen are not that original and unique, and that singers sometimes encounter success when their work was already done by someone else, that was not as famous…
But in fact, you’ll find the credits written at the back of the CD cover for all these songs, which clearly makes it different from copy-cat.
Here is a non exhaustive list of songs that you didn’t know were sampled (found on Billboard.com) :
1
SONG SAMPLED: Booka Shade’s “Body Language” (2005)
NEW SONG: Jax Jones feat. Raye’s “You Don’t Know Me”
2
SONG SAMPLED: Santana feat. The Product G&B’s “Maria Maria”
NEW SONG: DJ Khaled feat. Rihanna and Bryson Tiller’s “Wild Thoughts”
3
SONG SAMPLED: Carlton Williams’ “Prison Song”
NEW SONG: Future’s “Mask Off”
We could go hours on this subject. Sampling is actually pretty technical and well thought. If international artists have used it (Michael Jackson, Katy Perry, Eminem…) it has to be a common thing in this industry.
I, myself, discovered about this way of doing thanks to a french youtuber, Seb la Frite, who made a video about it. We can see in the comments that most of the people are surprised. In the end, Youtube is also good for learning some things. Here is the link of the video, if you feel like watching it (be careful, you may be choked by your favorite artists) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGF3zxXqldg.
To conclude, we can say that sampling is honest while plagiarism is illegal and may be dramatic.
