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Yes, exceptions exist. But while you can use a small sample of a song in a review (say), you can't take the same sample and use it in your own song, even if it's just a few seconds.

Perhaps PII for commercial use could be treated differently than for private use?

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You can measure the duration, key, BPM etc and publish that which are all facts.

A recording of a song (even if it falls under fair use) is not a “fact”, it’s information that took creativity to produce, multiple people working independently would not produce the same exact song - unlike going around and measuring the height of bridges where if multiple people did it they would arrive at the same measurement

Just as it's a fact that PI is 3.14 when approximated to 3 digits, it's also a fact that a particular recording can be represented by an MP3 file when approximated to about 3 MB.

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