The legality of music sampling in Polish copyright law

Abstract

As Lawrence Lessig pointed out, we live in times of ‘remix culture’ – as a result of universal access to the Internet, and thus to many cultural goods, artists often remake or otherwise use the work of other people. This is especially common in music. The purpose of this article is to show that music sampling is generally compliant with Polish copyright law. The research mainly used the dogmatic method, analysing the provisions of the Act on Copyright and Related Rights regulating the concepts of work and inspiration, as well as the institution of the right to quote. The conclusions indicate that music sampling in many cases does not infringe copyright because it consists in the use of a non-creative (unprotected) fragment of the original work. In other situations, when it is considered that a given sample is protected by copyright protection, it will usually be permissible to use it under the right to quote. Nevertheless, the above statements do not mean that sampling is always ethical or morally justified.