Kraftwerk lose sampling case in Germany

Jun 01, 2016

Written By Jack J Collins, Editor, AllAboutLaw.co.uk

The German court has ruled that a two second beat sampled from the Kraftwerk track Metall auf Metall is not enough to breach copyright laws.

The ruling overturns an original federal decision that the new song had illegally borrowed from the electronic music pioneers, and has been described as setting a country wide precedent regarding sampling and artistic copyright.

The sample was used by producer Moses Pelham in his track Nur Mir, which featured the rapper Sabrina Setlur, and Pelham has now been vindicated by the court’s decision.

The court stated that because the sampled sequences were so short, they “led to the creation of a totally new and independent piece of work”, and thus, “the economic value of the original sound was therefore not diminished.”

They also stated that by banning sampling, they would effectively be ending specific styles of music, adding that “the hip-hop music style lives by using such sound sequences and would not survive if it were banned.”

Kraftwek singer, Ralf Hütter, had originally brought the charges against Pelham for breaching copyright, but is widely thought to have accepted the ruiing against him.

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