Published
Tue, Jul 30, 2019, 17:15
- The European Court Of Justice's decision could have repercussions for future copyright issues in the music industry.
Kraftwerk have won a nearly 20-year-long copyright battle.
The dispute arose over a two-second clip from the German band's 1977 original "Metall Auf Metall," which producers Moses Pelham and Martin Haas allegedly sampled and looped on Sabrina Setlur's 1997 song "Nur Mir." Since 1999, Kraftwerk's founding members Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleben have sought damages and an injunction to the song in the courts.
This came to a close on Monday, when the European Court Of Justice ruled in favor of Kraftwerk, Billboard reports. The decision upheld a previous judgement that "Nur Mir"'s percussion track used a clearly recognizable work of Kraftwerk. Furthermore, the ruling outlined that recognizable samples taken from an existing recording, even if very short, must be authorized by the original producer.
However, there are some exceptions. Under "freedom of the arts" rules, samples used "in a modified form unrecognizable to the ear" are not considered reproductions of the original work.
The European Court ruling carries important repercussions that favor copyright holders for sound recordings in Europe. But clarification on what exactly counts as a sample is still needed, since it will affect future copyright infringement cases and possibly the creative climate.
Raffaella De Santis, senior associate at London law firm Harbottle & Lewis, told Billboard that the new precedent "could have a chilling effect on artistic expression... Where we may well see a difference is in the creative process itself, in making and releasing music, especially in sample-heavy genres such as hip-hop."
Listen to Kraftwerk's "Metall auf Metall" and Sabrina Setlur's song "Nur Mir."