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Sampling (usually with blatant disregard for copyright) is essentially the foundation of all genres of electronic music. Certainly it is responsible for breaks, drum 'n bass and hip hop, the last item in particular being largely what made the record companies and their copyright lawyers so powerful in the first place. How ironic that they are trying to squelch the same creative drive that, in a manner of speaking, gave birth to them - it's like an artistic Oedipus complex.
While I very much agree that it's wrong to try and rip vocals from a commercial track without permission for your own remix (the original artist/singer should be compensated in that case), I think the point gets rather silly when we're talking about a 5-second drum loop or movie quote. We can always find new ways to mangle and rearrange beats and tracks, but when it comes to the basic elements of music, everything has already been done before, somewhere, by someone.
For anyone who works/has worked in software or engineering, you'll know one of the fundamental principles: "Don't reinvent the wheel." If you know something's been done before, then use the existing code/design, it's simply a waste of time to redo it yourself. It's really the same thing for electronic music - if we're capable of "reverse engineering" someone else's sound by listening to the chords/notes/words/whatever and making an almost perfect recreation from scratch with a synthesizer, then what's the difference between doing that and just using the version that already exists?
Of course it depends on the complexity... as I said, this rationalization doesn't work when you're talking about a 2-minute acapella or a full-length track, but it's a question of where to draw the line. And while I admit there's a lot of gray area, I think we all know that the line's been drawn in the way of progress.
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My party schedule:
2009-02-21 - DJ Attention @ I'm So Popular
2009-06-18 - DJ Annoying @ People Need To Know Where I'll Be
2012-11-32 - DJ Insufferable ɸ Or At Least the Stalkers I Complain About
2048-06-66 - Spastic & Whocares ¶ Although I'm Actually Flattered
9999-45-81 - Tweaker Gimp ☼ I Probably Won't Even Go To This But I Have To Make Sure I Fill Up All The Available Space Here
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