Yeah but what one person would class as 1, someone else could class as 2. Even Vanilla Ice argued that adding one note to the bassline of Under Pressure made it something original.
well adding 1 note to a bassline is completly differant to chopping an audio file into slices, sticking them in a sampler and using the single slices as drum hits.

and to be honest about it ive lifted loops myself in the past. especially when i was starting and wasnt to confident about my own stuff. but like i said its not what you do its the way that you do it.

Also, drum&bass and its predecessors may have been based on sampling other music, but techno wasn't.
well techno has been so bastardised thru the years that it doesnt really make a differance anymore.

look, this topic has been done to death here and no-one will ever agree so just do what you do and if people like it then great.