i was just talking to a doctor friend of mine, and for some reason we got on to the topic of medical indemnity insurance. doctors pay a relatively small amount of money to a company that will then step up and pay out (to a degree) an amount of money that covers legal costs and even damages if the doctor in question ever is faced with nasty things like malpractice suits, which are more common than you might think.

it got me wondering whether any enterprising young music/business/law entrepreneurs had considered setting up ’sample clearance insurance’. maybe you could call it ‘copyright indemnity insurance’? scared young sample-based producers, who are nervous about the prospect of having to sell their homes or their grandmothers in order to pay legal costs and damages to evil publishers and major labels who have successfully recognised 60 seconds of “crunchy granola” in their otherwise most unique and excellent electronic work, could pay a small monthly amount to an insurance company who would agree to foot the bill (or at least some of it) when the shit hits the fan. would there be enough sample-based musicians out there to justify this business model? how many of them are so nervous about sample clearance issues that they would pay for insurance like this? a lot of sample-based producers seem indifferent, i would even say cavalier, about copyright issues these days.

then i envisaged a nightmare scenario, where a big publishing company with money to burn takes over the copyright indemnity insurance company, dismantles it, and in doing so gains access to a large database of scared sample-based producers who they can then target immediately to hunt down those uncleared samples. and then they hunt down the producers, cook their bones in a cauldron and make ramen from the marrow. irashaimase!