{"id":35,"date":"2015-10-26T20:06:00","date_gmt":"2015-10-26T20:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/26\/copyrights-and-wrongs\/"},"modified":"2022-07-27T19:38:32","modified_gmt":"2022-07-27T19:38:32","slug":"copyrights-and-wrongs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/copyrights-and-wrongs\/","title":{"rendered":"Copyrights and Wrongs"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Is music plagiarism cut and dried or are there still \u2018Blurred Lines\u2019?<\/h1>\n

Throughout the history of music there have been melodies, rhythms and lyrics that closely resemble existing compositions. So is it clear in the eyes of the law when homage, inspiration or musical parody becomes outright musical theft?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

History Repeats Itself<\/h2>\n

Despite the controversy surrounding the recent high profile case of the Thicke and Williams track \u2018Blurred Lines\u2019 and it\u2019s legal dispute with the estate of Marvin Gaye, musical plagiarism is far from a new phenomenon.<\/p>\n

In the early 1960\u2019s The Beach Boys were forced to relinquish the publishing rights of their song \u2018Surfin\u2019 USA\u2019 to Chuck Berry\u2019s publisher due to its similarity to one of Berry\u2019s compositions. Led Zeppelin got into hot water when there second album was found to have lyrics and riffs copied from early blues artists such as Willie Dixon and Howlin\u2019 Wolf.<\/p>\n

Rod Stewart didn\u2019t feel quite so horny when his song \u2018Do You Think I\u2019m Sexy\u2019 was found to have a number of similarities to another composition, \u2018Taj Mahal\u2019 by Brazilian composer Jorge Ben Jor.<\/p>\n

In the 1990\u2019s, the Oasis hit \u2018Whatever\u2019 was forced to share songwriting credits with former Bonzo Dog & Python lyricist Neil Innes for its similarity with his song \u2018How Sweet to be an Idiot\u2019.<\/p>\n

And the Manchester brothers were in trouble a second time when The New Seekers questioned the similarity between their hit \u2018I\u2019d Like to Teach the World to Sing\u2019 and the Oasis song \u2018Shakermaker\u2019.<\/p>\n

Plagiarism cases have continued throughout the 21st Century. Sam Smith\u2019s Grammy nominated hit, \u2018Stay With Me\u2019 was the subject of an out-of-court settlement with Tom Petty and ELO\u2019s Jeff Lynne, when it was decided the melody contained too many similarities to Petty\u2019s hit \u2018I Won\u2019t Back Down\u2019.<\/p>\n

And UK producer Mark Ronson was forced to add writer\u2019s credits to various members of The Gap Band for copying one of their hits on his multi million selling worldwide hit single \u2018Uptown Funk\u2019.<\/p>\n

The latest high profile case concerns Jay Z and producer Timberland with their long running lawsuit defending their hit Big Pimpin\u2019 and its interpolation of the Egyptian love ballad Khosara Khosara.
\nWith these examples and many, many more besides, surely it\u2019s clear that there must be very well defined rules to govern whether a song is copied or not. Or are there?<\/p>\n

What exactly does the Law have to say about musical plagiarism?<\/p>\n

The Law and How it Stands<\/h2>\n

Well, in many cases it seems to boil down to quantity. Exactly how much of the copyrighted material has been copied? Just a little, or is it a substantial amount?<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s more than what is considered to be paying homage to a particular artist or song, then the alarm bells of \u2018infringement\u2019 may begin to toll. And when an entire melody or motif is undeniably similar then the laws will irrefutably consider it as a copyright infringement.<\/p>\n

And since the \u2018Blurred Lines\u2019 case, the substantiality clause has been extended. It\u2019s not only a similar melody or copied lyric, but also the \u2018feel\u2019 of the composition. Its very \u2018soul\u2019. Its \u2018mojo\u2019 that may also be copied.<\/p>\n

The second thing that the law considers is the \u2018likelihood\u2019 that the artist may have plagiarised the work. For example, someone who has gone on record as being the numero uno David Bowie fanatic all their life, is more likely to be under suspicion if they release a track based on the chord structure, lyrics and melody line of \u2018Heroes\u2019. It could indeed be presumed that they have copied the track from their \u2018hero\u2019 Mr. Bowie. Any similarities will certainly not work in their favour.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Bowie has often described himself as a musical magpie<\/a>. Citing in one interview that it\u2019s knowing \u2018what to steal and when to steal it\u2019 that is the trick to good songwriting.<\/p>\n

But then again his remarkable genius elevates any would-be homage into an entirely new stratosphere. Quantum Plagiarism if you like. Yes, there may be an essence of the Rolling Stones and Velvet Underground in Aladdin Sane. But could either of those artists have written such songs or created such an album?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Thou Shalt Not Steal<\/h2>\n
Plagiarism or copying music also includes the actual physical audio. Sampling has notoriously been responsible for a number of plagiarism court cases since affordable digital samplers were introduced in the 1980s.<\/div>\n

An early example of problems arising from digital sampling was on a record by UK chillout producers, The Orb. Their 1990 release \u2018A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld\u2019 featured a big slice of the song \u2018Loving You\u2019 by Minnie Ripperton. It floated into the track as if in a dream. Panning around the stereo field, bathed in delay and reverb. A very pleasant effect that enhanced the Orb\u2019s live DJ shows at the time. But including it on a published release was to land them in a great deal of trouble with Minnie Ripperton\u2019s publishers and pretty soon after the release, the record was withdrawn. Only to appear later with the Ripperton version replaced by a hastily recorded sound-alike.<\/p>\n

Another high profile case was a little known record by Rap artist Biz Markie. The track was called \u2018Alone Again (Naturally)\u2019 and featured a 10 second loop from the Gilbert O\u2019Sullivan track of the same name. This became a test case for digital sampling when it was taken to court in 1991. O\u2019Sullivan\u2019s publishers won the case with the judge in summing up, quoting from the Ten Commandments. \u2018Thou Shalt Not Steal\u2019.<\/p>\n

Pretty soon after this case, publishers and record companies became aware of this new phenomenon and clauses began to appear in every new contract that was issued to bands, DJs and artists. The record companies were keen to take no responsibility for the content of the record and to ensure that the artist cleared any samples that appeared on recordings prior to their release.
\nBut even with these clauses in place, there were still outstanding issues to resolve. Records by the likes of Snoop Dogg and Doctor Dre would simply not exist were it not for the God-like genius of legendary producer George Clinton, who is still fighting to contest royalties from a number of artists that sampled P-Funk riffs from Funkadelic & Parliament.<\/p>\n

Making A Mockery<\/h2>\n

So what help does the Law offer to struggling composers keen to make a living from what is after all a somewhat restrictive 12 note scale?<\/p>\n

Recent updates include a law that recognises \u2018parody\u2019.<\/p>\n

A work that evokes an existing work while being noticeably different from it and constituting an expression of humour and mockery.<\/p>\n

This is clearly aimed at the YouTuber generation, but it does offer a glimmer of hope that satire and parody may be recognised as a reason for plagiarism, rather than the obvious lack of originality.
\nHowever, this Law may be more help to the likes of Weird Al Yankovic or Flight of the Conchords-type parodies. Or the ancient art of musical imitation made popular in the 60\u2019s and 70\u2019s by artists like The Baron Knights, Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and the Not The Nine O\u2019clock News team\u2019s musical sketches. Of little use perhaps to today\u2019s more serious musicians, producers and songwriters who are less inclined to include humerous parody in their songwriting.<\/p>\n

In Summing Up<\/h2>\n

Hard as it may seem, the obvious thing for songwriters to do is to never copy other artists when creating music or composing songs. But this just isn\u2019t feasible. And as these examples prove, plagiarism is almost a necessary tool, some may say an integral part of the musical process. But it\u2019s knowing the point where enthusiastic inspiration has spilt over into the realms of forgery. Then having the musical ability to pull back from that abyss and taking another route. Investing some pure originality into a composition. And only using other people\u2019s work as a springboard to something new may be the key to original composition. After all, it seems that songwriting and music making owes as much to its rich, dynamic history as it does to it\u2019s as yet unwritten future.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is music plagiarism cut and dried or are there still \u2018Blurred Lines\u2019? Throughout the history of music there have been melodies, rhythms and lyrics that closely resemble existing compositions. So is it clear in the eyes of the law when homage, inspiration or musical parody becomes outright musical theft? History Repeats Itself Despite the controversy […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3437,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[27,46],"class_list":["post-35","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-shockwave-sound","tag-author-simon-power","tag-music-copyright"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3441,"href":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35\/revisions\/3441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shockwave-sound.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}