Kraftwerk Finally Lose Decades-Long Copyright Infringement Case
The case, which was first brought by the iconic German electronic music outfit in 2004, has now been settled.
An old Kraftwerk copyright infringement case has finally been settled.
The case, which was first brought by the iconic German electronic music outfit in 2004, has now been settled (as per Variety).
The European Court of Justice (ECJ), the principal judicial authority of the E.U., decided last week (April 14th) that an unapproved sample of Kraftwerk’s 1977 song “Metall auf Metall” used by producer Moses Pelham in the 1997 single “Nur mir” was legal.
The ECJ ruled that the use of Kraftwerk’s percussion was within the provisions of “pastiche,” which, due to a 2022 ruling, allows for the unauthorised use of creative work if that use is noticeably different from the original and is in artistic dialogue with the original.
“The European Court of Justice has helped to clarify the urgently needed definition of the concept of pastiche, thereby seeking to strike a balance between artistic freedom and the protection of intellectual property,” René Houareau, Managing Director Legal & Political Affairs for Germany’s music industry association BVMI, shared in a statement to Variety. “This is also significant because the exception introduced in Germany in 2021 has so far been associated with considerable legal uncertainty.”
Reporting from inside the Australian music business since '94.
The case spent a long 22 years circumnavigating the European justice system. Appeals and remandments went back and forth between two regional German courts, the German Federal Court of Justice, the German Federal Constitutional Court and the aforementioned ECJ.
The court finally ruled that the pastiche provision “does not have a catch-all nature, but covers creations which evoke one or more existing works, while being noticeably different from them, and which use, including by means of sampling, some of those works’ characteristic elements protected by copyright, in order to engage with those works in an artistic or creative dialogue that is recognisable as such and that can take different forms, in particular the form of an overt stylistic imitation of those works, of a tribute to them or of humorous or critical engagement with them.”
“The fact remains that sampling is only possible within narrow limits,” Kraftwerk representative Hermann Lindhorst told Süddeutsche Zeitung.
The case will now head to the German Federal Court of Justice for final reassessment under the new ECJ guidelines.
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Reporting from inside the Australian music business since '94.
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