Law Commons^™

Good Fences Make Good Neighboring Rights: The German Federal Supreme Court Rules On The Digital Sampling Of Sound Recordings In Metall Auf Metall, Tracy Reilly

School of Law Faculty Publications

When viewed in the context of sound recording infringement and digital sampling, two recent high court rulings—one in the United States and the other in Germany—have determined that good fences do, indeed, make for sensible legal boundaries with respect to the copyrights held by the owners of sound recordings. While the legal doctrines employed by the courts in each of these cases are different in letter and theory, both courts concluded that owners of rights held in sound recordings should reasonably expect the law to protect the valid boundaries of those rights when third parties engage in the practice of …