[spacechild1]

> The essence of fair use is that it is ok if the use of the copyrighted material is transformative.

This is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition. Fair use is much more complex than you think.

[atleastoptimal]

Let’s say I created a robot that walked around the world and gathered data from its environment. On its way it heard 20 copyrighted songs, looked at 40 copyrighted works. Should I owe royalties to the creators of those 60 works if I were to sell my robot?