I'm against any suit that wants money for influencing a song, I don't care if it's very damn similar because music would be stuck in maybe the renaissance era if influence was a form of stealing (legally.)
I'm also pro sampling, I do think the original artist should be compensated but there needs to be a system put in place where there are general guidelines as to how much the original artist gets paid. And if there is more than, say 5-10 seconds sampled the artists can choose to block the song completely (such as various Puffy tracks.) But right now there's ridiculous damages handed out because an artist sampled a guy going "UHHHH" on a record. (If you are against sampling delete every single hip-hop track from the years 1988-2002 in your catalog.)
I'm also pro sampling, I do think the original artist should be compensated but there needs to be a system put in place where there are general guidelines as to how much the original artist gets paid. And if there is more than, say 5-10 seconds sampled the artists can choose to block the song completely (such as various Puffy tracks.) But right now there's ridiculous damages handed out because an artist sampled a guy going "UHHHH" on a record. (If you are against sampling delete every single hip-hop track from the years 1988-2002 in your catalog.)