Quote:
Originally Posted by MarcusCarab
The industry seems to have shaped itself around Bridgeport, and though most sampling on free mixtapes goes ignored (though 50 Cent was recently sued over one) all commercial stuff gets licensed. Thankfully, as you say, and as Mazzone says, there are still plenty of ways that fair use could be re-asserted in the courts - but at the moment, thanks to the far-reaching implications of Bridgeport, it is effectively toothless when it comes to sampling.
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I hear you on Bridgeport. I spent a couple of years of my life a while back writing and publishing an article on that case and sampling generally. Still, although Bridgeport's impact on de minimis copying and substantial similarity definitely sets the stage for what kinds of samples record companies think need to be licensed, that has more to do with the risk averse nature of record companies than it does with the law. You can see that in cases of unsigned groups that sample: most institutional copyright owners don't go after them because they
really don't want a precedent setting case on fair use in sampling. They know the logic of Bridgeport wouldn't apply. That's not to say that courts aren't also conservative in evaluating what is and isn't fair use, but the defense stands as it applies to samples.