Law Commons^™

This article analyzes Kraftwerk, et al. v. Moses Pelham, et al., the recent Federal Court ruling in Germany commonly referred to as the Metall auf Metall case regarding whether the taking of two notes of a digital music sample constitutes infringement of German intellectual property laws. The article will compare the German court holding with the most recent U.S. 6th Circuit case on digital sampling, Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films. The article will begin with an explanation and history of the technique of digital sampling as used by contemporary musicians. It will then explore the similarities and differences between …

In sharp contrast with the majority of legal scholarship on the subject matter, this article asserts that, since the emergence of digital sampling technology in the 1970’s, courts and legal scholars alike have failed to fully appreciate the true nature and consequences of allowing legally unchecked digital sampling—that is, until the Sixth Circuit decision in Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, holding that defendants’ unlicensed sampling of three notes of a copyrighted sound recording constituted a per se infringement. This decision marked the first time a court hearing a sampling case truly discerned the subtle but existent differences between sampling …