As promised, we now examine sampling’s legal aspects: how the result is classified and whose consent is needed to distribute a work containing samples.
Rights affected by sampling
Sampling may use three layers: the work, artistic performance and phonogram, or sound recording. Each has different protection.
For the work, protection covers individually creative material: a complete musical thought, such as a short melody, refrain or distinctive phrase like Beethoven’s opening to Für Elise. Performance rights cover works and folklore, recognising original performances of public-domain folk melodies. Using only a fragment of a musical thought, such as one sound or chord, does not infringe author or performer rights[1].
A phonogram is the first fixation of a performance’s sound layer or other acoustic phenomena[2]. It includes leaves, waterfalls and street sounds, not just music. Even recordings of unprotected tiny musical fragments qualify. Sampling therefore almost always requires producer consent. Phonogram producers, usually labels, receive the broadest sampling protection.
Part I identified three technical methods. Legally, sampled works may be adaptations, works with borrowings or works containing musical quotations, with different public-use requirements.
Adaptations first. Production practices often involve extensive creative processing, presenting one work against another rather than mere technical pitch adjustment. Changes may include major-to-minor shifts, new tracks or replacement of original elements. Such creative transformation is an adaptation[3].
Paul Kalkbrenner’s Feed Your Head[4] provides a collage example. Its distinctive vocal comes from Jefferson Airplane’s 1967 White Rabbit[5], an iconic sixties song inspired by literature including Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Grace Slick’s voice is central to both. Incorporation into electronic production creates a modern interpretation of a psychedelic classic whose surreal lyrics fit the producer’s style.
Some scholars disagree with routinely classifying sampling as adaptation. Outside remix or compilation, the result may usually be independent[6]. Even continuous recognisable looping does not necessarily play the subordinate role typical of adaptations[7].
Musical quotation incorporates a short, often familiar motif from an earlier published work[8], serving as an addition or ornament rather than foundation[9].
Some lawyers invoke Article 29’s quotation exception, allowing excerpts or small entire works where justified by explanation, criticism or the rules of the creative genre, without author consent. Video reviewers use this for music-video excerpts. For sampling, genre rules are crucial.
A narrow interpretation discounts custom because exceptions are construed strictly. Borrowing must be inherent to the genre, as with literary or film reviews[10]. A hip-hop beat could be made without samples, so would not qualify.
A broader interpretation allows established genre customs to justify quotation[11]: accepted rules extending beyond a local scene[12]. Samples must be necessary for the artistic objective, subjectively, and a customary, established means of achieving it, objectively[13].
Hip-hop instrumentation historically rests on loops, making sampling central to rap culture. The broader view could therefore permit quotation-based sampling.
A Polish communist-era newsreel[14] opening Taco Hemingway’s Wszystko jedno[15] illustrates quotation. Lowering the woman’s voice does not necessarily disqualify it. Musical quotation permits minor secondary changes more readily than literary quotation, but substantial transformation exceeds the exception[16]. Timbre modification preserves the passage’s content and message[17], adding tragicomedy without becoming the track’s foundation.
Even the broad view requires more: samples must enrich rather than underpin the new work[18], remain recognisable and separate from original elements, and respect legitimate interests. Attribution is customarily omitted in music[19].
Works with borrowings
This intermediate category, unregulated expressly, exceeds quotation without constituting adaptation. The new work is not principally a transformation of the sampled one. Reordering or omitting passages alone is not adaptation[20].
Use requires original-author permission, for example an agreement specifying sample length and remuneration[21]. Sample creators and performers receive royalties for borrowed works. By contrast, the article’s distinction treats adaptations and quotation as not generating royalties for original creators.
Legal consequences
Classification is difficult, especially where several samples are incorporated on different bases.
For adaptations or borrowings, distribution needs several consents. A sample constituting a complete musical thought requires author, performer and phonogram producer approval. A single sound or chord needs only producer approval.
Adaptation necessarily affects the original’s integrity and moral rights under Article 16. Permission to exploit the adaptation or borrowing also removes unlawfulness of that integrity interference[22].
Some lawful sampling nevertheless requires no consent and does not rely on quotation, as discussed below.
Phonogram rights and famous disputes
Producer protection is broader: any recorded sample engages it, whether the whole recording or its smallest part.
Sampling initially attracted little author or label attention. An early major dispute involved Warner Bros. Records and Biz Markie[23], whose Alone Again[24] used around ten seconds of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Alone Again (Naturally)[25]. The court found infringement, describing unauthorised sampling as theft. Markie retained his humour, naming the next album All Samples Cleared!
Bridgeport Music v Dimension Films[26] likewise rejected unlicensed phonogram sampling: if a whole recording cannot be pirated, neither can part[27]. The principle was “get a licence or do not sample”[28].
Rights holders began listening more closely to hip-hop backing tracks, and labels introduced contractual clauses excluding uncleared samples.
Europe’s prominent Metall auf Metall dispute[29] involved Kraftwerk, Moses Pelham and Martin Haas. Kraftwerk’s 1977 track[30] supplied a two-second rhythm loop throughout Sabrina Setlur’s Nur mir[31] twenty years later. Kraftwerk sought an injunction, damages and destruction of recordings. Germany’s Federal Court of Justice referred six questions to the CJEU, which held[32]:
- Reproducing even a very short phonogram sample requires producer consent.
- If transformed so it is unrecognisable, artistic freedom permits use without producer consent.
Conclusion
Sampling may affect author, performer and producer rights. Determine required consents before use and remember the average-listener test used to assess infringement.
- Authors’ and performers’ consent is required for samples qualifying as works. Heavy processing making identification difficult or impossible generally excludes liability in a dispute[33].
- Producer consent is required regardless of copyright-work status or duration, except the CJEU’s unrecognisable-transformation exception.
Consent is unnecessary once rights expire into the public domain: the article identifies seventy years after author death, fifty years after phonogram production and fifty years from the performance year.
Quotation could remove all three consent requirements, but relying on it is risky because genre rules and the quantity of borrowing are disputed. Sampling exceeds traditional categories and requires a holistic interpretation and often specialist… [The Polish original ends mid-sentence.]
[1] A. Sewerynik, Co mnie uwiera w prawie autorskim, „Rzeczpospolita” z 14.02.2015 r. (https://www.rp.pl/opinie-prawne/art 11977851-co-mnie-uwiera-w-prawie-autorskim-sewerynik-o-samplingu-i-fonogramach).
[2] Article 94(1) of the Act of 4 February 1994 on copyright and related rights (consolidated text: Journal of Laws 2022, item 2509), the Copyright Act.
[3] M. Klekotko, Sampling w świetle prawa autorskiego i praw pokrewnych, PPH 2007, no. 13, p. 11-17.
[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rH9AriEezeI
[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnJM_jC7j_4
[6] W. Machała, Sampling, p. 18. Similarly L. Małek, Cytat…, p. 310-311.
[7] W. Machała notes that looping a recognisable motif so it overwhelms other elements should be considered appropriation of characteristic original elements and consequently plagiarism. W. Machała, Sampling, p. 18.
[8] J. Barta, Dzieło muzyczne…, p. 107.
[9] M. Klekotko, Sampling w świetle prawa autorskiego i praw pokrewnych, PPH 2007, no. 13, p. 11-17.
[10] See from 1:27:10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=4730&v=tJK4eQGbi3U&embeds_referring_euri=http%3A%2F%2Fprawomuzyki.sewerynik.pl%2F&source_ve_path=MTM5MTE3LDEzOTExNywzNjg0MiwyODY2Ng&feature=emb_logo
[11] J. Barta, R. Markiewicz, Prawo…, 2016, p. 240; also: G. Mania, Cytat w muzyce – o potrzebie reinterpretacji przesłanek, ZNUJ PPWI 2017/1, p. 77; further: L. Małek, Cytat…, p. 194 et seq.
[12] A. Niewęgłowski in Prawo autorskie. Komentarz, Warszawa 2021, art. 29.
[13] G. Mania, Cytat w muzyce – o potrzebie reinterpretacji przesłanek, ZNUJ PWWI 2017/1(135), p. 78.
[14] See from 0:00:49 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QDJX3zuYJs&t=50s
[15] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_1JvhG5NcE
[16] P. Juściński, Cyfrowy sampling utworów muzycznych w świetle prawa autorskiego i praw pokrewnych, ZNUJ. PPWI 2019, no. 1, p. 45-87.
[17] G. Mania, Cytat w muzyce – o potrzebie reinterpretacji przesłanek, ZNUJ PWWI 2017/1(135), p. 83, 85. The author understands fidelity as reception that distorts neither value nor message.
[18] P. Juściński, Cyfrowy sampling utworów muzycznych w świetle prawa autorskiego i praw pokrewnych, ZNUJ. PPWI 2019, no. 1, p. 45-87.
[19] J. Barta, Plagiat…, p. 62. See E. Traple in Prawo autorskie…, eds. J. Barta, R. Markiewicz, p. 271; G. Mania, Cytat…, p. 68-69; and E. Laskowska, J. Marcinkowska, J. Preussner-Zamorska in System…, p. 649-650.
[20] J. Barta, Dzieło muzyczne…, p. 86–87.
[21] See E. Traple in Prawo autorskie…, eds. J. Barta, R. Markiewicz, p. 65. See J. Barta, R. Markiewicz, Prawo autorskie, p. 85-86.
[22] E. Traple w: J. Barta, M. Czajkowska–Dąbrowska, Z. Ćwiąkalski, R. Markiewicz, E. Traple, Prawo autorskie…, p. 113 nb. 30.
[23] See Grand Upright Music v. Warner Bros. Records, Inc., 780 F. Supp. 182 – Dist. Court, SD New York 1991 and https://www.cll.com/CopyrightDevelopmentsBlog/all-samples-cleared-remembering-biz-markies-contributions
[24] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OebqNsNRBtU
[25] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gU3ubk8u7dA
[26] See Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films, 410 F. 3d 792 – Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit 2005 and https://www.cll.com/CopyrightDevelopmentsBlog/all-samples-cleared-remembering-biz-markies-contributions
[27] Judgment of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal, Bridgeport Music, Inc. V. Dimension Films 383 F 3d, 398,cited in Mathew R. Brodin, Comment: Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films: The Death of the Substantial Similarity Test in Digital Sampling.
Copyright Infringement Claims, The Six Circuit’ Flawed Attempt at a Bright–Line
Rule, 2005 r., p. 30.
[28] Judgment of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeal, Bridgeport Music, Inc. V. Dimension Films 383 F 3d, 398,cited in Mathew R. Brodin, Comment…, p. 30.
[29] See CJEU judgment of 29 July 2019, C-476/17, Pelham GmbH, Moses Pelham, Martin Haas v Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider-Esleben, EU:C:2019:624.
[30] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXVB4Hc05TQ
[31] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RUbxEO-A-w
[32] CJEU judgment of 29 July 2019, C-476/17, Pelham GmbH, Moses Pelham, Martin Haas v Ralf Hütter, Florian Schneider-Esleben, EU:C:2019:624.
[33] https://legalnakultura.pl/pl/prawo-w-kulturze/prawo-w-praktyce/news/2854,sampling-utwor-w-utworze-czyli-o-prawnym-aspekcie-wykorzystywania-cudzej-tworczosci#gsc.tab=0
