When scoping out loops and grooves, and related, I often se the words "royalty free", or maybe it's just inside my head...I thought I'd bring up the subject, because I have mixed feelings about copping grooves from someone else.
On one hand, there is no doubt about the value of midi and audio loops and patterns...so we pay for them.
But, what about if I buy NI's "The Mouth" and feed realtime Led Zeppelin into it and have it come out sounding like a raging river with a phase shifter and 2x the tempo?  Where's the line on what you can and cannot do?
I love NI's plug-ins...especially the orchestral strings, but I've always felt some kind of thing tugging at me to keep my stuff my own...even drum grooves...I'm a rebel, and I like to go far outside the sonic limits...partly because I suck, but also so I can hear with my ears the things I'm hearing in my mind.
I don't see anything wrong with disposing of groove quantize and recording to absolute time and tempo...
So I ask myself questions all the time...like, "How much is somebody's groove worth?"...

electrodome1
"How much is somebody's groove worth?"...

It depends. :-) There are different royalty rates for physical media (CD/vinyl) distribution, on-line digital distribution, broadcast and so on. And a longer sample is likely to cost more than a couple of bars worth.

Stuff declared to be royalty-free in its license should be OK to use.

Anything else requires sample licensing and clearance to avoid any chance of being sued. In the UK the body handling it is MCPS/PRS, in the USA Harry Fox’s Agency. Other countries may or may not have their own equivalents. The licensing bodies will tell you how much a specific sample is going to cost you.

Even your own work should be registered and licensed for the relevant distribution formats - it protects you if someone else decides to use your work and helps if someone else claims you’ve used their intellectual property.

Thanks for the good info...I'm sticking with my own grooves and the drum grooves I get from XLR and GM.