Germany’s Federal Court of Justice has ruled partly in favour of Frankfurt producer Moses Pelham in his decades-long legal dispute with Kraftwerk over a two-second sample from the group’s 1977 track “Metall auf Metall.” In a ruling made today, September 3rd, the court found that, under German copyright law as amended in 2021, Pelham’s use of the sample can be considered a “pastiche” and therefore doesn’t require permission from the original rights holders, Hessenschau reports. Pelham took a short rhythmic passage from the Kraftwerk recording, slowed it slightly and looped it in Sabrina Setlur’s 1997 hip-hop track “Nur mir.” Kraftwerk cofounder Ralf Hütter subsequently took legal action, beginning a dispute that has passed through German courts, the European Court of Justice and Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court since 1999. Presiding judge Thomas Koch said the relevant question was whether listeners familiar with the original work could recognise the borrowed element. The court also noted that Pelham had transferred the electronic-music element into a different genre, creating what it described as an artistic and creative dialogue. Today’s ruling builds on the European Court of Justice’s decision in April, which established that sampling can fall under the “pastiche” exception to copyright law. Germany’s Federal Court of Justice has now applied that framework to Pelham’s specific use of the Kraftwerk recording, finding that the sample was permissible under the law in force since June 2021. The wider dispute is not yet over, however, with a constitutional complaint concerning the earlier period still pending. Listen to “Metall auf Metall” and “Nur mir.”
German court rules Kraftwerk sample legal in landmark Moses Pelham case
