CHICAGO – The late 1980s and early 1990s represented the “Golden Age of Sampling” in the music industry. Hip-hop groups such as De La Soul, the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy made music with snippets of existing music without many creative restrictions or copyright worries. 

But that is far from the case today according to Peter DiCola, assistant professor of law at Northwestern University School of Law and co-author of a new book, “Creative License: The Law and Culture of Digital Sampling” (Duke University Press, March 2011).