I don't think some people here understand sampling in music.
You can't just grab any sound and put it in a commercial track without attribution anymore. Sure, the Amen Break from "Amen, Brother" by the Winstons became a monster outside of its own context, and birthed entire genres, but the fact that the creators died penniless had more to do with the lack of structure around sample attribution at the time.
There's a system. If you're not submitting your shit to ASCAP and citing your sample sources, and possibly paying licensing fees, and your commercial tracks get out in the world uncited, you'd better have a good lawyer on your side. And since the plagiarism trial involving the melody from "Blurred Lines," that legal precedent is even more in favor of the original content creator, not the sampler. Look up the case surrounding The Verve Pipe's "Bittersweet Symphony" for further reading.
tl;dr, No, even if this was a case of AACK releasing a song with an uncleared sample, they still did it wrong.
Source: I'm a published drum n bass producer and record label co-owner.
