This song is almost exclusively based around Apple Loops from Garageband.

I know it got grandfathered in, but because it's so iconic and made by the creator of a legendary Newgrounds series, it kind of gives beginner musicians a bad lesson on sample pack/loop usage around here, don't you think?

If you use royalty free samples, you never have to worry about sample clearance. And the amen break never goes out of style imo. I've been listening to and loving amens for over 20 years. That's more than 1/3 my life at this point.

Anyway regarding clearance, yes it's probably necessary for commercial release unless you want to get sued over rights once it makes enough money or at bare minimum your song taken down from NG. If no one recognizes the sample you can skate by, but you are relying on the song not popping off at that point.

You don't have to worry about clearance if you don't care to make money on your songs and just post them to yt or sc to show you your skills. YT will just transfer the ad money to the rights holder in most cases. BUT they can take down your channel if they so desire, so that's an issue too. Generally that doesn't happen tho.

You can make some pretty fire tracks with royalty free samps. Search around! If you need samps, I got hundreds of gazillions over on my page/sig. I write a monthly music mag for the purposes.

Any other rights related questions or major annoyances?