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"Metal on Metal" (German: "Metall auf Metall") is an instrumental by Kraftwerk from their 1977 album Trans-Europe Express. This track, combined with "Abzug", the track immediately succeeding it (and considered part of "Metal on Metal" on English pressings), forms an extended coda to "Trans-Europe Express".

Sampling controversy

Producer Moses Pelham sampled two seconds of the song and re-used it in the 1997 song "Nur mir" performed by German rapper Sabrina Setlur. Pelham lost in court to Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk for copyright infringement, but was acquitted after an appeal.

In a 2016, The Guardian reported that the court found in favor of Setlur. However, in July 2019, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) overturned the appeal, ruling in favour of Kraftwerk. The ruling means that samples which are recognisable infringe copyright law where no permission has been sought from the rightsholder. However, there is no infringement if the sample is unrecognisable. The case was referred back to the German court who gave the final decision. The German court decided that the sample was recognisable. However, as copyright law had changed in the meantime, this ruling only applied to the timeframe December 22, 2002 and June 7, 2021. The question whether his use of the sample under the new law is legal is not decided yet.

References

1. PM. "Kraftwerk förlorade copyright-mål" Dagens Nyheter 21 November 2008. Retrieved 4 August 2017.
2. "Kraftwerk's defeat in sampling lawsuit doesn't set a precedent", The Guardian, 1 June 2016. Retrieved 4 August 2017.
3. "Kraftwerk win 20-year sampling case over Metal On Metal". BBC News. 30 July 2019. Retrieved 30 July 2019.
4. "CJEU Ruling in Pelham v. Hutter : If Sample Recognizable, then It Infringes, No Matter How Small!". 21 August 2019.
5. Spiegel.de: Moses Pelham und Kratwerk vor Gericht, Eugh Urteil zu Samling, Sampling ist gestattet (in German)
6. Spiegel.de: Sample-Streit wird Europäischem Gerichtshof vorgelegt, Kraftwerk vs Pelham
7. Welt.de: Moses P. gewinnt jahrelangen Rechtsstreit um Musiksampling (in German) 29 June 2019
8. "CURIA - Documents".
9. BGH, Judgment of 30.04.2020, I ZR 115/16 (‘Metall auf Metall IV'), DE:BGH:2020:300420UIZR115.16.0, para. 30-31.
10. Legal Tribune Online: Kraftwerk-Fall geht noch mal zum EuGH (in German)

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