Copyright law was hijacked in the 20th century to protect Big Media.
Genuine “fair use” would have come to create new works from works older than 28 years (which is actually where a lot of the famous samples are being taken from anyhow).
But Big Media bought DC through lobbying efforts and now we are looking at 100 years which will become 130 years and so on.
If these works were permitted to lapse into the public domain (as the works of Edgar Allen Poe and Mark Twain did) our nation would still be strong and our cultural heritage preserved (anyone still singing Amazing Grace?).
Didn’t the guy who was arrested on American Idol sing it?