After a decades-long battle, the Bundesverfassungsgericht (the supreme German Constitutional Court) has overturned a ban on a song that used a two-second sample of a Kraftwerk recording.

In 1997, music producer Moses Pelham used a clip from 1977 release Metall auf Metall (Metal on Metal) in the song Nur mir (Only Mine) performed by Sabrina Setlur.

Lead singer of Kraftwerk, Ralf Huetter, sued Pelham, and in 2012 the electropop pioneer won his case for copyright infringement in Germany's Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof), gaining damages and a block on Nur mir. However, in today’s judgment, the eight judges of the First Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court decided that the lower court did not sufficiently consider whether the impact of the sample on Krafwerk might be “negligible.”

Pelham successfully argued that sampling is common practice in the hip hop genre and that in some cases “artistic freedom overrides the interest of the owner of the copyright." The court agreed that imposing arbitrary royalty fees on composers could stifle creativity and that sampling should be permitted if it does not constitute direct competition to the sampled work, and does not damage the rightsholders financially.

The lower court had found that “the acquisition of even the smallest sound sequences” could breach copyright, but had not taken into account the freedoms of creators.

“This is an important decision by the German Constitutional Court and a sensible one,” German Pirate Party MEP, Julia Reda, told Ars.

“I expect the Federal Court of Justice to conclude from this ruling that the remix was legal, taking into account the suggestions made in today’s decision. The Constitutional Court has carefully examined how copyright works like a double-edged sword for artists. It has positioned itself as a guardian of creativity by permitting the use of works for interpretation, remix and reference in other songs. The court also correctly explains why in this case licensing is not a solution for artists and the duty to licence in lieu of a proper exception can work as a severe impediment to artistic freedom.”