Dear J-Malice:
Your record company, if you are clearing a sample, has an "Artist Resources" Department. Here, you have a liason that works with you and subcontracted organisations that only clear samples.
However, you have to work with people that are middlemen, like sample clearing organisations that the record company works with. These people clear the samples of individuals they can represent.
If I am an artist, I want sample royalties to take out as little as possible from my overall royalty pie in a song or album. Maybe 20% of a song would go to the owner of the sample. But, the people clearing the samples also represent the owner of the samples, so they want to "sell" you the sample at the highest royalty rate, and usually ask between 80-100% of your song's royalties.
In a way, the people that work for you, also work against you. You want the sample, but then you have to play hardball to get the right royalty rate you want.
That's when you call Artist Resources back and have them transfer you to Legal. They always have the nicest way of skirting a sample royalty rate legally. Like rerecording an interpolation, which usually is 20-25% of the rate.
DON'T DO THIS...CONSULT A LAWYER... THIS IS WRONG! I AM DISCLAIMING THIS!
Or, Legal tells you to leave the actual sample in, and you have a friend's studio make a receipt showing date/time/money paid to prove that an interpolation was actually recorded.
DO NOT DO WHAT WAS JUST WRITTEN, IT IS WRONG, AND CONSULT A LAWYER ON ANYTHING YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND.
Now that's how underhanded the music biz is!
Sincerely,
God