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I'm pretty sure that copyright law protects sampled or otherwise derived works. For example, "Rapper's Delight" is mostly based on "Good Times" by Chic, but Nile Rodgers (of Chic) gets co-songwriting credit as well as royalties for both album sales and radio play. Similarly, Billy Squier gets royalties for any song that samples "The Big Beat", etc..

UK law is different from US law, but I think the principles are similar; the Rolling Stones infamously ended up owning the rights for The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony" because the song is based on an orchestrated version of "The Last Time" by the Stones. This allowed them to license it for marketing purposes, much to the dismay of Richard Ashcroft.

I second the Traxxpad comment - it's a reasonably capable music program for the PSP that seems to have failed because of its learning curve and cheesy design. Too bad, because you can make some nice music with it.

It's a nice contrast to the Korg DS-10 (which I also like, and which has an awesome synthesis engine but only two voices and a weaker drum machine and sequencer. Though it does have the bizarre and amazing ability to sync multiple systems into a DS orchestra!)

I'm amazed that you can still get Traxxpad new. Sadly, its companion web site is off-line (I think it never really even got off the ground) but you can still expand the program by adding your own samples.