Here's my little illustrative analogy of the use of samplers, continuing on bubblicious' thread about jungle beats....
Let's say you took 10 paintings by Michelangelo and scanned them into your computer. If, by cutting and pasting, you merely took the head of one person in one painting and put it on the body of another person, your creation wouldn't be all that much and somebody could say "he's stealing".
If you were to scan each painting and cut them all up down to the individual pixel, though, add some weird color processing and whatever else you can do with a scanned image and then rearrange it so that nobody could ever know (unless you wanted them to) that you used Michelangelo, is that not creative? Are you "stealing" something? Maybe you're creating something using elements of things that have existed before, but I challenge anyone to show me an example of a creation of ANY idea that is not influenced by and does not include elements of the past. The best creators are people who understand what has come before and take the next step...it's a constant, ongoing process.
Point is, people that put down music created via sampling have generally only had exposure to compositions by people that are content to take a recognizable riff from a song and loop it and put a beat under it. To me that doesn't necessarily imply theivery but it surely implies laziness. When I listen to electronic music, I am most satisfied by the people who can destroy whatever sonic matter they use in their creation and reconstruct it in a way that shows originality and thoughtfulness, as well as an understanding of harmony, melody, and all the other things that make the creation of music in general one of the most beautiful things in this world.
Enough....
Jay B