Posted on 03/12/2015 4:09:25 AM PDT by iowamark
Will Madonna sue Lady Gaga? Will George Clinton sue OutKast?
These idiotic questions became frighteningly legitimate after a jury ruled that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams committed copyright infringement. The jurors decided that yes, Thicke’s 2013 chart-topping single “Blurred Lines” had copied elements of Marvin Gaye’s 1977 hit “Got to Give It Up,” and awarded Gaye’s family a walloping $7.4 million. The titles of the two songs in question could not have been more fitting.
But it was the lack of detail on exactly which elements were copied that prompted a hard-swallow...
The jury was instructed to make its ruling based on written melodies, chords and lyrics, not the sounds of the respective recordings. If that’s the case, how these eight jurors arrived at their verdict is incomprehensible. Yes, “Blurred Lines” approximates the rhythm and timbre of “Got to Give It Up,” but is that theft?
Both songs have cowbell-ish percussion that plunkity-plunks at a similar tempo, but the patterns are different. Both songs have rich, teasing basslines, but the notes and rhythms of each are dissimilar...
Sure, both recordings are filled with background chatter, as if they were cut at a party. And in direct homage, “Blurred Lines” is littered with steam-whistle WOO!s — one of Gaye’s vocal trademarks.
But while “Blurred Lines” might lack imagination, Thicke and Williams ultimately only seem guilty of stealing a vibe.
And if vibes are now considered intellectual property, let us swiftly prepare for every idiom of popular music to go crashing into juridical oblivion. Because music is a continuum of ungovernable hybridity, a dialogue between generations where the aesthetic inheritance gets handed down and passed around in every direction. To try and adjudicate influence seems as impossible as it does insane. Is that the precedent being set here?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Back about 10-15 years ago I was riding with my daughter listening to the radio. A song started and I said “Great,I love this old America tune.” Come to find out it was a Janet Jackson song/ripoff!
Indeed. And the pop music world hasn't been the same since. Puhleeze.
Appeal.
Hmmm. Anything that is bad for ‘pop’ music sounds pretty good to me.
Creedence Clearwater’s John Fogerty had to take his case all the way to the supreme court. Rights to one of his early songs were bought by a record company who tried to legally prevent him from performing or writing any song in a similar style.
He won eventually after spending over a million legal dollars and not being able to perform his own music for many YEARS.
I recommend seeing him perfom live now if any chance arises.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fogerty_v._Fantasy,_Inc.
Pop music is so lame, it needed a shakeup.
Yes. “In The Thicke of the Night” ran 1983-84. Alan Thicke is best remembered for “Growing Pains.”
Before media corporations convinced Congress, the courts, and to judge from FR postings a lot of ordinary people that every cultural artifact should be a source of monopoly rents for someone (usually *not* the actual artist, but instead a big media corporation, though in this case it’s an artistic estate) for on average more than a century after it was created (okay maybe not if artists die young, but close), reusing bits of other composers music — chord progressions, bass patterns, rhythmic patterns, yes, even melodies (Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini, anyone?) was not called “stealing”, but “learning from” or “writing a tribute to”.
This ruling if not overturned on appeal is destructive of the very Constitutional purpose of copyright, which (along with patents) is supposed to promote progress in the arts and sciences, not impede it by making every act of artistic creation that draws upon existing culture into a matter of legal negotiation and litigation with “rightsholders” who are usually not themselves artists, but publishers or artistic estates. Of course I feel the current copyright regime even before this ruling was destructive of the Constitutional purpose of copyright for very much the same reason and would very much like to see copyright returned to the condition the Founders copied from the British Law of Queen Anne, which like the first American copyright law provided a term of 14 year, renewable by the author (or artist), not his publisher, not his children, just the actual artist for another 14 years.
“The real important question is, where does this legally leave Weird Al Yankovic’s parody of Blurred Lines, Word Crimes? “
I believe the use as parody is allowed.
Pharrell's "Happy" vs Gaye's "Ain't That Peculiar"...?
I thought it was more complicated than that and had to do with the other band members who basically screwed him over.
Not sure who the "Big Media" is that owns the copyright to Sweet Home Alabama, but he shared the publishing rights for "All Summer Long" with Skynard and Zevon. Skynard even toured with him after the release.
The interesting thing about when Rock plays other bands' music in concert, he makes a point of shouting his appreciation for them allowing him to do so. I think that's why they let him do his thing.
No, that was something else later regarding the band using the “Creedence Clearwater” name and revival band perfomances, I believe.
It wasn’t related to the songwriting rights; Fogerty wrote all of those “swamp rock” songs as far as I know.
What a business!!!
I thought his band screwed him over regarding the song writing...and he screwed them back by not allowing them to be part of any revival concerts, nor could they do any of them, themselves.
Ahhh see the thing is there is no way they can legally stop him from performing the song OR recording it. He just has to pay the piper (or the venue must) BUT sampling a mechanical construct as in a recorded song and placing it in a new mechanical recording MUST be legally cleared first with the mechanical rights holder.
So in short I can legally use a melody and/or lyrics that have been published without getting permission to either perform it live or make a new recording, I just need to pay the fees to do so. However using a mechanical recording is different. I can use it in a live performance and it works the same way as above BUT if I use that mechanical recording in a new Recording then I must clear it with the mechanical rights holder first and if they deny it I can not legally use the sample/recording and can lose the rights and all profits from selling a work with an unauthorized sample of a mechanical recording but still be liable for all the production costs etc. And even owe a large sum of money if it gets pirated and I make no money whatsoever.
The modern copyright law is what is bad for music. The song in question should have been in the public domain 10 years ago.
Which brings us to the legend of Suge Knight holding Vanilla Ice by his ankles over a hotel balcony until he agrees to sign over the rights to songs where he sampled some of Death Row Records artists.
Anyway, my point was that Kid Rock shared the publishing with Skynard and Zevon, and doesn't that mean they share in the royalties? He did right by both of those artists, unlike many other musicians do. BTW, could Skynard have sued Zevon since the beat, tempo, and I believe bass line in "Werewolves" were the same? Guess I still don't get your explanation.
I don’t believe so.
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