Kraftwerk Loses Two-Decade-Long Copyright Dispute After Court Rules Unauthorized Sample Was a ‘Pastiche’

By Andrew Flanagan

Andrew Flanagan

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A circuitous and protracted copyright infringement case first brought by German electronic-music pioneers Kraftwerk in 2004 has finally been settled — and not in the pioneering electronic group’s favor.

The European Court of Justice, the principal judicial authority of the E.U., decided on April 14 that an unapproved, two-second sample of Kraftwerk’s 1977 song “Metall auf Metall” used by producer Moses Pelham in the 1997 single “Nur mir” was legal.

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