Two Seconds, Twenty-Nine Years.

In 1977 Kraftwerk released a phonogram containing the track Metall auf Metall. Twenty years later, roughly two seconds of its rhythm sequence were electronically copied and set in a continuous loop under a song called Nur mir. The dispute that followed has now outlived the careers it began in. On 14 April 2026 the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union answered the questions that will decide it — and did so by narrowing a word that had been carrying a great deal of hope.

The loop

The facts are small and the litigation is not. Kraftwerk's phonogram of Metall auf Metall dates from 1977. In 1997 a song called Nur mir was composed by two writers and produced by Pelham, and it used approximately two seconds of a rhythm sequence taken from the Kraftwerk recording, repeated in a continuous loop.

One detail in the judgment matters more than its length suggests: the court records that it would have been possible for them to record that sequence themselves. The sample was not a necessity. That fact has hung over the case through every stage of its passage between the German courts and Luxembourg.

Why it took twenty-nine years

This is the second time the dispute has reached the Court of Justice. The earlier round established that lifting a recognisable sample engages the phonogram producer's reproduction right, unless the sample is included in a modified form unrecognisable to the ear, and that a track containing samples is not a 'copy' of the original phonogram because it does not reproduce all or a substantial part of it.

That did not end matters. Germany's Federal Court of Justice set aside the Hamburg judgment in 2020 and sent the case back; Hamburg ruled again in 2022; and the questions returned to Luxembourg. The case is also split in time, because the German copyright statute was amended with effect from 7 June 2021, so different rules govern different periods of the same continuing use.

The question that was actually asked

The referring court wanted to know whether 'pastiche' in Article 5(3)(k) of the InfoSoc Directive is a catch-all — an Auffangtatbestand — covering at the very least any artistic engagement with an existing work, sampling included, without needing to be humour, stylistic imitation or tribute.

That framing would have made pastiche the general-purpose exception that European copyright has never had: a residual category into which creative reuse could fall when nothing else fitted.

The answer: not a catch-all

The Court said no. Pastiche is not a residual category. It covers creations which evoke one or more existing works while being noticeably different from them, and which use — including by means of sampling — some of those works' characteristic protected elements in order to engage with those works in an artistic or creative dialogue that is recognisable as such.

The Court then said what that dialogue can look like: in particular, overt stylistic imitation, tribute, or humorous or critical engagement. Those are examples of the required relationship, not a closed list of genres, but they show what the relationship has to be. The new work must be talking about the old one.

So sampling can be lawful pastiche. But not because it is short, and not because it is creative. It qualifies because the borrowing is legible as a conversation with the source.

Whose recognition counts

The second question asked whose perception decides. The answer is that it is sufficient for the pastiche character to be recognisable to a person who is familiar with the existing work from which the elements were borrowed.

This is quietly consequential. The test is objective rather than a matter of the sampler's private intention — a producer cannot make a use lawful by declaring it homage — but the audience against whom recognisability is measured is an informed one, not the general public. A dialogue legible to people who know the source record can qualify even if a casual listener hears nothing but a groove.

What the ruling does not do

It does not create a duration rule. Nothing in the judgment says two seconds is safe, and the familiar studio belief that some threshold of length is automatically permissible has no support in it.

It does not disapply the general conditions on exceptions, which confine them to cases that do not conflict with the normal exploitation of the work and do not unreasonably prejudice the rightholder's legitimate interests.

And it does not decide this case. The Court answers questions of EU law; the German courts must now apply that interpretation to this recording, this loop and these periods. Liability remains open.

What it means in a studio

The practical effect is to change the question a producer should ask before clearing a sample. 'How long is it?' and 'is it recognisable?' were always the wrong questions on their own. The question the exception now poses is what the borrowing is doing: whether the new track engages the old one in a way an informed listener could recognise.

That is a harder test to satisfy quietly. A loop used purely as raw material — because it sounded right and re-recording it was inconvenient — is exactly the case the Court's language does not obviously reach. A track built to comment on, imitate or honour its source is the case it does.

The wider frame is a balance the judgment names directly: copyright against the freedom of the arts protected by the Charter. Pastiche is where European law puts that balance for music that is made out of other music, and it has now been told to carry rather less weight than the referring court suggested it might.