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Hondros, Konstantin (2020)Creativity Discussion Paper No. 20/01, Berlin: Freie University Berlin.ABSTRACT“Uncertainty about intellectual property regulation (IPR) manifests in legal disputes over copyright, trademarks, patents and other forms of IP. In these critical moments where situated action is unclear, actors justify their positions in order to find feasible ways for further practice and cooperation. While academic literature discusses the opposing justifications of individual exploitation and social dissemination as arising typically in court struggles over IPR, the temporal unfolding of regulatory uncertainty in lengthy court cases has not yet been sufficiently investigated. This paper asks how regulatory uncertain creative practices are justified at court over time. Looking at the two-decade-long German court case “Metall auf Metall” concerned with music sampling, I find that actors refer to a set of conventions when justifying sampling as either in line or not in line with copyright. Instead of presenting justifications in the form of a clear opposition, my research suggests to depict them as developing and changing over time. Though the strengthening of individual exploitation has been historically dominant, court cases regarding hip-hop music in Germany recently sided instead with social dissemination, referring to the basic right of artistic freedom. I show the plurality of conventions and justifications brought to the fore by the involved actors during the temporal unfolding of the court suit and depict the justification of facing regulatory uncertainty as a “never-ending” balancing act.”Download link