A fantastic example is the Verve’s Bitter Sweet Symphony.

It samples a few seconds of a Rolling Stones song. For this, the former Stones manager Allen Klein sues them. The Verve gives up all royalties for the whole song. So the Stones are getting that money, right? No, Klein had the ownership of the piece in question go to himself.

Klein dies in 2009, and the rights to everything finally revert to the Stones in 2019. They think the whole sampling thing with the Verve is stupid, and relinquish the song’s rights back to them.

For about 20 years, it was not only morally OK to pirate that song, but morally obligatory. The execs of the industry don’t give a shit about the artists.