Kraftwerk Loses Two-Decade-Long Copyright Dispute After Court Rules Unauthorized Sample Was a ‘Pastiche’

A circuitous and protracted copyright infringement case first brought by German electronic-music pioneers Kraftwerk in 2004 has finally been settled — and not in the pioneering electronic group’s favor. The European Court of Justice, the principal judicial authority of the E.U., decided on April 14 that an unapproved, two-second sample of Kraftwerk’s 1977 song “Metall […]