A 25-Year-Fight over a 2-Second Sample

It's ironic that the sample is blended with two other well known drum loops that most likely were not cleared either. From what I understand, drum samples are rarely cleared because they don't contain "music" in the traditional sense of music = melody + lyrics.

European bureaucracy is famously slow and the red tape can be extremely overwhelming and really hinders innovation at times, but this is another level. I wonder after so many years of this seemingly trivial 2 seconds, how interested both sides actually cared or if it was more of a novelty / precedent thing.

For comparison:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_break (used in thousands of tracks; zero royalties)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Sampled_drum_breaks