Okay..Time to break things down.
Yes you are legally stealing another persons work. But if you think about it are you really in the clear? Do you buy all your software? Pay for every single drum sound, vst or refill? Every DAW or piece of software? If you do thats grand, but nearly everyone has at least something that they "stole" or a friend gave them a copy. Etc.
Now from a label standpoint samples are a headache because you have to go through all these negotiations to get clearance and then after that you may not even make any real money from it.
To be clear the term "Producer" does not just mean, lets make some beats. Yes it is about originality but is not sampling original if the user creates something entirely different? Music was built off of samples so you can't say that its unoriginal. The drums you use are sampled, the sounds in your motif are sampled, the records you hear are the radio may contain samples as well. I don't mean sampling in the literal sense either. Copying someones vocal arrangements and the words they say is sampling.
Yes its great to be the sole owner and all that but if you dont even do anything with the track except
listen in your own time does it matter? If you sell it then its that persons responsiblity to clear samples (depending on the contract). If you like sampling do it, if not don't. But just because you don't sample something from a vinyl record and chop it up doesnt allieviate sampling.
Im not directing this post entirely at you so please don't get affended. Just want to share some light to everyone.
A Producer gets the most creativity out of the given circumstance and utilizes it. He works with the songwriters to see if this song is a hit, is the hook hot and catchy. They help the arangement of the song to see who fits best where. The follow the project from beginning to end. Of course in todays age that title is skewed as anyone who makes a"beat" is a producer, but thats just evolution.