Quote Originally Posted by The_Laughing_Man View Post
Actually the law isn`t too clear.

US is possibly the worst and downright most against creativity and art (surprise surprise), but european law isn`t quite so clear due to some interesting cases.
Were "worse" in that we require less protection than the rest of Europe signed on to with the Berne Convention and other treaties.

My best mate is an expert on international copyright law, and wrote a recent paper on Fair Use and copyright.
Unfortunatley one of the most respected people in copyright law (he`s a bit of a guru in this area)in terms of fair use recently quit pursuing this direction and in a statement on his website cited the draconian and disgusting US precedent in ths aweful legal area.
I linked to a subject all about this here ages ago.
Thing is, though, "fair use" simply does not apply to sampling copyrighted recorded works in music. There's no debate about that internationally. Europe has been more protective of the authors' rights to their own works than the USA was for a long time. I've yet to see a decision come out of a European court that claims the use of a protected and owned original recording in another song does not constitute infringement if permission was not obtained.