Sampling (in music) is not theft

I was under the impression that I had shown my position on wishing to debate morality rather than legality quite clearly as the opening sentence of my first round states this explicitly: ' If you wish to debate the legality of sampling please do not accept this debate. ' I apologise however, if I have left some people confused by the two sets of definitions I used. I will attempt to clarify this again in as plain English as possible. ( I do not mean any offense or 'shouting' in my use of CAPS merely to make my points clearer. ) I presented two sets of definitions for theft and stealing, see above (for further clarity maybe I should of changed the order I presented them. ) The first pair is the full definition quoted verbatim from my source (COED), but note that there are TWO distinct meanings for BOTH of these terms: action OR crime, permission OR legal right - not AND! Clearly there are two separate kinds of stealing being discussed in the first set of definitions. (I hope I do not have to define 'or' and/or 'and' to get my point across here! ) Perhaps a good example of the first would be someone stealing your regular parking spot (an action without permission), an example of the second: someone stealing your car(a crime without legal right. ) Or maybe stealing your wife, rather than stealing your life. Either way they don't intend to give it back. Read it again and compare with the second set of definitions for these words. At the risk of boring any readers or voters who have understood from the beginning,(and not been confused by what some have seen as a contradiction in my argument) I will present again THE ACTUAL DEFINITIONS of (the PURELY MORAL rather than moral AND legal definitions) to which the title of this debate relates: ============================================================================ 'theft: the action of stealing. ' [ NOT the crime of stealing] =========================================================================== 'steal: 1. take (something) without permission and without intending to return it. - dishonestly pass off (another person's ideas) as your own. ' [ NOT without legal right] =========================================================================== Hopefully everyone [who is still reading this] is now following me. As regards what I meant when I said I was NOT referring to "a few special cases" which I WOULD consider to be moral theft, perhaps I should have given some examples. I DO consider it moral theft if a piece of music containing a sample (of another), earns a significant amount of money for someone and the owner and (much more importantly in my opinion), the creator of the original work does not get their share. I believe that whether permission was sought in the first place is much less important, but more of that later. In the real world where millions of musicians are creating billions of sample-based tunes, the vast majority (to the degree of at least 99.99999%) do not earn any big money and in fact generally no money at all. The majority of sampling is done by amateurs with no chance of their music ever being purchased by anyone and generally in a financial deficit from their musical hobbies rather than profiting from them. This is not theft. A large proportion is done by amateurs who might sell 10 - 500 copies to friends and just about cover their costs. This is not theft. A significant proportion is done by established artists, nearly all these tracks are never released. This is not theft. When pieces of music featuring samples do become hit singles, or even just album-tracks by low-selling artists,in virtually all cases every sample is scrupulously cleared and the owner of the original recording (the mechanical copyright; this is almost always a record label) as well as the owner of the composition (the intellectual rights) both receive a substantial sum. This also, is not theft. It is only in a tiny minority or a "few special cases" that an artist makes money sampling something that has not been paid for. This IS theft. I regret having to take up so much of this 3 round debate with going over the same ground, but I apologise sincerely if I have presented my points with any hint of vagueness or otherwise misled anyone. I hope this does not turn into a semantic debate because my opponent has misunderstood me. Anyway, to turn to what my worthy opponent says, rather than just what I said: 'my opponent is contradicting himself. ' Hopefully I have now cleared up this misunderstanding. "legal definitions, it is these that dictate the morality, or lack thereof, when referring to sampling. " This is an interesting opinion; that the law dictates morality, but it has nothing to do with the debate I instigated, as stated in the opening sentence of my first round. Therefore I hope my opponent will forgive me if I ignore the legal and contractual arguments that he makes. "Morally, they are undermining the work of that person" COED:" undermine 1. erode the base or foundation of (a rock formation)". .. .. .. " 2. damage or weaken , especially gradually or insidiously. " I fail to see how they are damaging or weakening the other artists work. Please explain. "The producer will likely benefit from this theft in that he/she will likely sell his/her product and make a profit. " I dispute this strongly, as I argued above, most times he samples a producer does not profit at all. "It is impossible to morally justify failing to give someone else credit for their work while benefiting from that work yourself. " I think we are agreed that it this would not be justifiable, it happens extremely rarely, these being the special cases I referred to. "My opponent is arguing, basically, that all the works of every artist, composer, publisher, etc. are public domain and free for everyone to use without repercussion. " Most musicians who sample more often than not use vinyl or CDs they have purchased. By contrast most people reading this probably have 100s or more tunes they have not legally obtained stored on their computer or other devices. Sadly nearly all music is pretty much public domain these days as anyone can get a download a song for free on a file sharing site or similar. How many popular songs cannot be found on You tube and the like? As for repercussion, if you profit, so does the owner of the copyright of the music you sampled. I thank my opponent for explaining to readers who may not have understood some of the basic elements of copyright law. Indeed the methods are in place to stop people profiting from sampling without acknowledging a samples origin and paying for it. In some cases a sample will be refused clearance. This is normally when the sampled artist objects artistically to the use of his sample or is offended by the content of a song. As most artists recognise sampling to be an excellent source of income they are unlikely to refuse clearance even if a song sampling them has lyrics they find morally objectionable. In this instance the record will not be released or will be removed from the shelves if it already has been. Nobody makes any money. I wish now I had made this debate five rounds or set a longer word limit so I could get into some more points and specific examples but I'm running out of space. Once again: Sampling is not theft if you don't make a profit from it. Sampling is not theft if you pay for it. In all but a tiny minority of cases, sampling is not theft. Vote Pro. Thankyou.