>And he's absolutely right: that's not "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching [..], scholarship, or research", so it does not fall u

>And he's absolutely right: that's not "for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching [..], scholarship, or research", so it does not fall under fair use, and the length and nature of the sample is completely irrelevant. That's simply untrue. Firstly, there is a concept in copyright law called de minimis that potentially defends this kind of sampling in cases where it is so small it does not reproduce the original work in a substantial fashion (e.g. [1] in which copyrighted photos used in the background of a commercial film without permission were ruled to be de minimis and not infringing). This would not apply in every case of sampling, but would depend upon the length and substantiality of the sample used. Secondly, such a sample could arguably be used under the parody fair use exemption. Something being released commercially does not preclude it being a parody. [1] Sandoval v. New Line Cinema Corp., 147 F.3d 215 (2nd Cir., 1998)