In general, the permissions process involves a simple five-step procedure:

If you’re not up to the task of tracking down the copyright owner of the musical work(s), you can purchase a royalty-free license. Note that royalty-free doesn’t necessarily mean the license itself is free, just that you won’t pay royalties for using it. There are free royalty-free options, however.

4 tips when publishing your own music

1. Compare PROs. Registering as a publisher with a PRO is one of the first steps you’ll need to complete, but don’t just go with the first PRO that sends you an email.
2. Investigate becoming a publisher.
3. Know when (and when not) to self-publish.
4. Keep track of your music’s use.

1. Determine if permission is needed.
2. Identify the owner.
3. Identify the rights needed.
4. Contact the owner and negotiate whether payment is required.
5. Get your permission agreement in writing.

Unfortunately, this is not true and there is no bright line rule that says a use is an acceptable use as long as you only use 5, 15, or 30 seconds of a song. Any use of copyrighted material without permission is, according to U.S. copyright law, copyright infringement.

Some artists have to pay 50% of all the recording royalties just to use a sample which may be a few seconds long. These three amounts all vary widely, though. In order to pay the least possible amount, use as short a sample as you can. Use it as few times as you can.

In order to legally make a remix from copyrighted music, you need to: Obtain permission from the copyright holder. Each piece of recorded music has at least two copyrights: one for the song and one for the master recording. You need permission from both copyright holders in order to legally remix a copyrighted song.

So no, using samples, loops and clips isn’t cheating, but if you’re not prepared to look beyond your comfort zone, you might just discover that your skill set doesn’t equip you for the kind of position in the music industry that you hoped for when you started out.