Kraftwerk has officially lost its long-running copyright case against Moses Pelham regarding a sample from the song “Metall auf Metall.” The case has spanned a full 19 years and has now had unfavorable results for Kraftwerk by the highest German authority, ruling in the German hip-hop producer’s favor.
According to SPIN, the case centered around a two-second drum sample used by Pelham from the song “Metall auf Metall,” released in 1977. The sample was used in his arrangement for “Nur Mir (Only Me),” a song released by Sabrina Setlur in 1997. Following the use of the sample, Ralf Hutter then filed an intellectual property rights infringement claim.
The federal court of justice in Germany seemed to be in Kraftwerk’s favor in 2012, based on Pelham’s choice to sample when he had the means to simply record it using his own instrumentation. But now the court has ruled that “the impact on Kraftwerk did not outweigh artistic freedom,” further stating that deciding in Kraftwerk’s favor would “practically exclude the creation of pieces of music in a particular style.”
In other Kraftwerk news, the band will be returning to the United States with a 3-D show this upcoming September, which was announced in late April (April 25). The first stop of the run was a performance at Movement Festival, and will then begin again in the U.S. on Sept. 3 in Bethesda, Maryland and will move on to venues in Dallas, San Diego, Memphis and others. The group will end their U.S. dates on Sept. 8 at the Hollywood Bowl.
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