“Metal on Metal”: Germany’s Federal Court Partly Backs Moses Pelham in Kraftwerk Sampling Dispute

After 27 years of litigation, music producer Moses Pelham has won a partial victory in his sampling dispute with Kraftwerk. Germany’s Federal Court of Justice ruled that he had the right to use a two-second excerpt from the band’s song “Metal on Metal” after a copyright law change took effect in 2021.

The court classified the use as a “pastiche”, a copyright exception that permits limited use of protected material without the original creator’s prior permission. Pelham had used the excerpt, in slightly altered form, in a 1997 song recorded by singer Sabrina Setlur. Kraftwerk challenged the sampling in court in 1999.

Earlier rulings favored Kraftwerk and gave the band a claim for damages covering about 18 and a half years. The latest decision addresses only the period since the legal change in June 2021, rather than settling the entire dispute.

Presiding judge Thomas Koch said the source work’s elements remained recognizable to anyone familiar with it. Whether Pelham intended that recognizability did not matter, the court said. The sequence had also moved from electronic music into hip-hop, creating the kind of artistic and creative dialogue that can justify treatment as a pastiche.

The case has attracted close attention in the music industry because it could clarify broader questions about using copyrighted material. It is not yet fully over: a constitutional complaint concerning the period from 2002 to 2021 remains pending, with Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court aiming to issue a decision in 2026.

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