Copyright

Should musi­cians be free to use sam­ples from the work of oth­ers in their songs with­out hav­ing to pay for them, or should sam­pled artists have a right to get paid for their work? In this Con­tri­bu­tion, Lee Nis­son (’18) unpacks the copy­right issues around dig­i­tal sam­pling of music, explor­ing the doc­trine of de min­imis use. Despite the artis­tic mer­its of sam­pling in music, the Con­tri­bu­tion argues that all sam­pling con­sti­tutes copy­right infringement.