Kraftwerk Copyright Lawsuit Overturned As Unauthorised Sampling Permitted

A long-running copyright case involving German electronic outfit Kraftwerk has been shut down by Germany's highest court this week, as the court handed down the decision that sampling was a "style-defining element" of hip hop and should therefore be permitted.

As Yahoo reports, Kraftwerk's Ralf Hutter sued producer Moses Pelham for the unauthorised sampling of a short drum loop in rapper Sabrina Setlur's Nur Mir in 1997, hailing from Kraftwerk's 1977 track, Metal On Metal.

The case had previously been backed by German courts for an injunction and damages for the song, but Pelham and Setlur appealed to Germany's top courts citing the infringement of artistic freedom.

The German Constitutional Court acknowledged "the essential place that the practice of sampling has in the hip-hop genre" (according to AFP) and found that if copyright owners were to impose royalties on composers, they can either ask any amount they desire or plainly reject usage. This would be restricting the creative process; composers should be able to create without financial risks or restrictions, the court said.

The court found sampling would be permitted so long as the new composition did not directly compete with the sampled work and does not financially harm the copyright owners. "Artistic freedom overrides the interest of the owner of the copyright" if the usage rights of the intellectual property owner is "negligible", the court argued.