Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. Dimension Films (USA), Metall auf Metall (Germany) and Digital Sound Sampling – »Bright Line Rules«?

There has been a controversy for several years whether digital sound sampling even of small bits of sound infringes an intellectual property right in the record from which it has been taken. In the USA as well as in Germany, superior federal courts reached seemingly similar verdicts in two similar cases. This article discusses the legal situation in both jurisdictions following these decisions. It will be demonstrated that both courts failed to solve the question in their respective legal system convincingly.