This is a happy ending, but it's also a rarity. For every track like this - where the rightsholders decide to grant permission, even if it takes decades - there are thousands more that can't be officially released. This serves no one's interests - not musicians, not fans. The irony is that in the golden age of sampling, everyone operated from the presumption that sampling was fair use.
29/
High profile lawsuits and gunshy labels killed that presumption, and today, sampling remains a gigantic, ugly mess:
Which is all to say that the ongoing growth of the public domain, after its 20-year coma, is a most welcome experience - but if you think the public domain is great, wait'll you see what fair use can do for creativity!
30/
I'm at the end of my tour for my new book, the international bestseller *Enshittification*!
My last two events are CCC in #Hamburg, Dec 27-30:
https://events.ccc.de/congress/2025/infos/index.html
and the Tattered Cover in #Denver, Jan 22:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/cory-doctorow-live-at-tattered-cover-colfax-tickets-1976644174937
I hope you can make it!
31/
Image:
Jennifer Jenkins and James Boyle
https://web.law.duke.edu/cspd/publicdomainday/2026/
CC BY 4.0
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
eof/
