| I wonder if there's more to this story than meets the eye. The author claims a label offered to buy the masters by 1996. So there probably was money in the licensing of the sampling (or at least the risk of being sued, and the label was trying to cover its ass). I don't know the arrangement between the bandleader and the drummer (maybe the drummer was paid by session and was owed no royalties), but, in my understanding, the owner of the copyright definitely was entitled of royalties. In the early days it was chaos but by the 1990s samples were definitely being cleared. After 1996, when the author found out about the sample, it was used (According to WhoSampled) by Oasis, Skrillex, Prodigy, Dua Lipa, Lupe Fiasco, Skipknot, and in the Naruto soundtrack. There definitely was the possibility of the author collecting royalties from some of those from copyright lawsuits. On the other hand I remember in various communities since the early 2000s people asking "how do I clear the Amen Sample?", but nobody exactly knew who to contact because nobody seems to know who owns Metromedia Records, who put the original album. I remember articles and interviews about this from 15+ years ago, so it's weird how no lawyer got in touch with the song author, or how the song author never got a lawyer. On top of that, Amen Brother seems to contain portions of I'm a Winner and Theme From Lillies of the Field by The Impressions, so maybe that's why Spencer (the bandleader) never got any money to begin with. I guess we won't know now that both the drummer and the author of the song are dead. |