Les inconnus v. Parker

Comment by Gauthier Lunardi:

In this decision, judges held that the sample is permissable as long as the average listener is not able to recognize the source of the sample (the original song) when he is listening to the music.

Les inconnus (a group of French humorists) sampled Maceo Parker’s song, and the judges agreed with Parker that this constituted copyright infringement. Les inconnus tried to hide the origin of the sample (Maceo Parker’s song) by accelerating the sampled sound of Parker’s song. But, according to the court, this attempted transformation was not enough to avoid a finding of infringement because the average listener was still able to recognize Maceo Parker’s song in that of Les inconnus.

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TGI [Tribunale de grande instance] Paris (1993):

We will soon provide here an abstract in English of the decision.