Yeah, the disparity between the decisions on these issues is pretty extreme. The Second Circuit in 2003 said the Beastie Boys' six-second flute sample was too small to amount to infringement even though they looped it over 40 times, while the Sixth Circuit two years later (the case Lessig discusses in the top link) took a zero-tolerance approach to a two-second sample of "Get Off Your Ass And Jam."
― dad a, Friday, 21 November 2008 20:20 (fifteen years ago) link