2nd Circuit Appeals Court Upholds Drake Sampling Fair Use Victory, But Doesn't Think It's Useful For Anyone Else

Techdirt: Two and a half years ago, we wrote about a nice fair use victory for Drake with regards to a track that he had sampled. As we noted in that post, it is stunning how bad courts have been in determining whether or not sampled music is fair use -- with a couple of famously preposterous rulings on the book, including one where the judge seemed more focused on giving biblical justifications for his rulings, rather than Constitutional ones. Still, in the age of Blurred Lines-like decisions, and the influx of similar lawsuits over mere inspiration, it seemed unlikely that we'd ever get a clean ruling on whether or not certain types of sampling -- such as those that use tiny bits or that alter the sample significantly -- were fair use. Yet here we are.