That was back in 1999. The year is now 2026. Depending on how you feel about copyright law, music history, or patience, watching this legal drama develop over the years has been either fascinating or exhausting.

After going through numerous courtrooms, including German district courts, federal courts, and ultimately the European Court of Justice itself, the case started to feel more like an institution than a legal dispute. A slow-moving, unresolved institution that somehow survived at least two full cycles of disruption in the music industry, careers, and cultural moments.

There was never much disagreement over the fundamental facts. The loop was sampled by Moses Pelham. Permission was not granted by Kraftwerk. The two-second rhythmic section, which is continuously looped under Setlur’s vocals, was unapprovedly taken straight from Metall auf Metall. That ought to have been the end of it under a strict interpretation of German copyright law.

And it appeared as though it might be for a long time. Previous national court decisions had occasionally sided with Kraftwerk, concluding that even a two-second fragment could violate the reproduction rights of a phonogram manufacturer.

However, copyright law is rarely as simple as it seems, especially in Europe. In its 2019 ruling, the European Court of Justice established that sampling may, in theory, constitute infringement while introducing the idea of artistic freedom as a counterbalance. The case was returned to the German system for additional review as a result of that decision. The ECJ then issued what now seems to be the final decision on the issue on April 14th of this year.

Pelham prevailed. The court determined that his use of the sample falls under the EU copyright law’s “pastiche” exception, which allows works that are reminiscent of an existing work but exhibit distinct differences and engage in a recognizable artistic dialogue with the original.

In European music licensing circles, the term “pastiche” may now rank among the most contentious terms. It seems unclear how widely it will be applied or how courts in various EU member states will interpret what constitutes adequate artistic distance from a source material.

This result must hurt Kraftwerk in ways that go beyond the actual court decision. The group insisted for almost thirty years that their work should be fully protected and that no portion of their recorded output, no matter how brief, should be used without their permission.

That viewpoint is not irrational. Precision, control, and the notion that electronic sound could be created with the same rigor as any orchestral composition served as the foundation for Kraftwerk’s whole creative identity. The group’s longtime core member, Ralf Hütter, has never shied away from fiercely defending that legacy.

For his part, Moses Pelham has consistently argued that sampling is a creative act in and of itself, and that taking a fragment and turning it into something new is not theft but rather dialogue. Similar to American rap, sampling culture is deeply ingrained in German hip-hop.

For many in that community, the notion that a producer should be legally prohibited from taking two seconds of a drum machine’s output and creating something completely different around it has always seemed like a misconception about how music truly functions.

It’s difficult to ignore the fact that this decision comes at a time when international discussions about sampling have resurfaced. The old frameworks have been complicated by stem separation tools, AI-generated music, and the increasingly hazy boundaries between influence and reproduction. Although the ECJ’s ruling doesn’t directly address any of that, it does land in a situation where the definition of originality is being simultaneously renegotiated from several angles.

It’s really unclear what will happen next. As long as the creative conditions meet the definition of pastiche, the ruling is anticipated to have significant practical ramifications for producers operating throughout the European Union, possibly providing more leeway for sampling without prior clearance.

The way lower courts interpret the decision in practice will probably determine whether that turns into a broad door or a limited exception that is tested case by case. But for the time being, the drum loop that initiated it all has received its verdict. Two seconds. Twenty-seven years. And a conclusion that no one who has followed this case closely could have foreseen with any degree of certainty.

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