guys!
an interesting point was raised here that if you use someone else's work without creating original music, then you do not use your skill and thus owe something to someone.
this, in my opinion, is a vague generalization.
1. sometimes it does require quite a lot of skill. one thing to just take samples, another - make something decent out of it all.
2. taking samples and working with them is a lot of fun and i would argue does require skill, simply skill of a different sort than composing original music. a lot of people who love to do mash ups can do original music as well, me included. i have a whole collection of tunes where the principle was to use only someone else's samples. it's a very creative process and there are masters of that kind of thing around, which are admired and which do wonders with those samples.
3. i think a lot of the problems with who owes who raises from the fact that music is so reward heavy. if you are an artist, you expect money, fame and respect. but we forget that talent in itself is a great-great gift. and not all people have inspiration and ability to create something wondeful. and strictly speaking, although we do attribute from an economic perspective everything to a person who composed something, we should not be blind to spiritual side of things. many composers and talented artists in other fields often say that they feel they are driven by some power when they write their works. and this delicate spiritual experience which endlessly enriches the soul of an artist is such an important gift, that at times i think the artist benefits by simply being an artist. it is a benefit which obviously not a lot of people can or want to recognize, but it's there and those who do not see it obviously never experienced the power of inspiration and the boundless happiness that creativity gives.
so i think in general people do not owe anything to artist. if we go that rode, then we all owe to each other and artists are in a huge debt to people who build houses, cook food and, of course, we are all in debted to plumbers.
louigi.