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In the latest instance of sample-wars, Kraftwerk has emerged victorious in a legal battle that has been ongoing for nearly 12 years. The group's beef is with Sabrina Setlur's 1997 song "Nur Muir," which sampled two seconds of Kraftwerk's "Metall Auf Metall" produced twenty years earlier. Kraftwerk took the producers of Setlur to court in Germany in the early 2000's, eventually resulting in a decision in their favor by the Hamburg "lower courts." In a classic case of legal football, the decision was reversed in 2006, and then kicked back and forth between the lower and Supreme Courts until it settled with the latter this year.
The reason this matters is that a federal entity is making a decision on what legal sampling is. The Economist reports that on December 13th, the Supreme Court of Germany decided that sampling is only allowed when the original sound cannot be recreated by the new artist, and therefore he/she is forced to take the original. It was proven that Kraftwerk's sample can be recreated, and thus lovely Sabrina Setlur lost, because ostensibly her producers should have banged around pieces of metal rather than lifting the 2 second piece from Kraftwerk.
But is Setlur the only one to lose? This ruling would render the majority of instrumental sampling illegal, and perhaps much of vocal sampling too. For many musicians, sampling is a key part of their artistic process, allowing them to build on work that has come before them while offering their own unique view. The Supreme Court also failed to say who decides if the "recreation" is close enough to the original to suffice. The implications are somewhat bizarre and leave many questions to be answered. If the ruling sets a legal precedent, the work of sample based musicians and record labels may get a lot more complicated.
