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MUSIC

Kraftwerk defeat makes Germany safe for DJs

Germany's highest court Tuesday struck down a challenge by electronic music pioneers Kraftwerk against a hip-hop artist's two-second sample of their tune, in a dispute that erupted almost two decades ago.

Published: 31 May 2016 10:48 CEST
Kraftwerk defeat makes Germany safe for DJs
A Kraftwerk stage show. File photo: DPA

The constitutional court ruled that if the impact on the usage rights of the intellectual property owner is “negligible, then artistic freedom overrides the interest of the owner of the copyright”.

At the heart of the dispute is a short drum sequence looped repeatedly in the song “Nur mir” (Only Me) by Sabrina Setlur, also famous for her past relationship with German former tennis star Boris Becker.

The sequence originally came from Kraftwerk's 1977 release “Metall auf Metall” (Metal on Metal).

Since the release of “Nur mir” in 1997, Kraftwerk's lead singer Ralf Hütter has been battling over the rights of the sequence against the producer Moses Pelham.

Producer Moses Pelham was in court in Karlsruhe on Tuesday to hear the verdict. Photo: DPA

The electronic music veterans had already won German court backing for damages and an injunction over the song, but Pelham and Setlur appealed and brought the case to the country's highest court claiming it infringed artistic freedom.

At the court hearing in Karlsruhe in November, Hütter insisted that the commandment “thou shalt not steal” applied also to music.

But Pelham argued that sampling is common practice in the hip hop genre.

He said he works from a set of interesting music sequences and was not aware then that the sample in question stemmed from Kraftwerk's work.

Common practice in hip hop

Germany's constitutional court acknowledged this common practice in hip hop in overturning the previous court verdict that was in favour of Kraftwerk.

It noted that imposing royalties on composers could be crippling as copyright owners can demand any amount, or they can simply reject the request for usage.

Composers should be allowed to create works without any financial risks or suffer any restrictions in the creative process, argued the court.

Sampling is therefore permitted if it is part of a new composition that does not stand in direct competition to the sampled work, and does not hurt the music patent owners financially, the German court found.

Hip hop artists are particularly vulnerable to such copyright rows, as sampling is an integral part of their music although they are usually required to seek permission to use elements of recordings.

SEE ALSO: Kraftwerk singer sues over same-name charger

 

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CULTURE

New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday’s death

Fans of the late Johnny Hallyday, "the French Elvis Presley", will be able to commemorate the sixth anniversary of his death with two songs never released before.

Published: 17 November 2023 09:05 CET
New songs mark sixth anniversary of French star Johnny Hallyday's death

Hallyday, blessed with a powerful husky voice and seemingly boundless energy, died in December 2017, aged 74, of lung cancer after a long music and acting career.

After an estimated 110 million records sold during his lifetime – making him one of the world’s best-selling singers -Hallyday’s success has continued unabated beyond his death.

Almost half of his current listeners on Spotify are under the age of 35, according to the streaming service, and a posthumous greatest hits collection of “France’s favourite rock’n’roller”, whose real name was Jean-Philippe Leo
Smet, sold more than half a million copies.

The two new songs, Un cri (A cry) and Grave-moi le coeur (Engrave my heart), are featured on two albums published by different labels which also contain already-known hits in remastered or symphonic versions.

Un cri was written in 2017 by guitarist and producer Maxim Nucci – better known as Yodelice – who worked with Hallyday during the singer’s final years.

At the time Hallyday had just learned that his cancer had returned, and he “felt the need to make music outside the framework of an album,” Yodelice told reporters this week.

Hallyday recorded a demo version of the song, accompanied only by an acoustic blues guitar, but never brought it to full production.

Sensing the fans’ unbroken love for Hallyday, Yodelice decided to finish the job.

He separated the voice track from the guitar which he felt was too tame, and arranged a rockier, full-band accompaniment.

“It felt like I was playing with my buddy,” he said.

The second song, Grave-moi le coeur, is to be published in December under the artistic responsibility of another of the singer’s close collaborators, the arranger Yvan Cassar.

Hallyday recorded the song – a French version of Elvis’s Love Me Tender – with a view to performing it at a 1996 show in Las Vegas.

But in the end he did not play it live, opting instead for the original English-language version, and did not include it in any album.

“This may sound crazy, but the song was on a rehearsal tape that had never been digitalised,” Cassar told AFP.

The new songs are unlikely to be the last of new Hallyday tunes to delight fans, a source with knowledge of his work said. “There’s still a huge mass of recordings out there spanning his whole career,” the source said.

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