Posted on 07/21/2019 4:17:27 PM PDT by SoFloFreeper
Expert witness Todd Decker alleges “five or six points of similarity" between Perry's 2013 hit [Dark Horse] and the 2008 Christian rap song "Joyful Noise."
Day two of the copyright infringement trial over Katy Perry’s 2013 single “Dark Horse” was characterized by more than one instance of live singing, but it wasn’t the pop star who was giving the performance.
Instead, Todd Decker -- a musicologist and professor who serves as the chair of music at Washington University in St. Louis -- belted out some tunes during his testimony on Friday (July 19). Serving as the plaintiffs' expert witness, Decker is just one cog in an effort to prove that Perry and her “Dark Horse” collaborators, including songwriter-producers Lukasz "Dr. Luke" Gottwald and Max Martin, copied the underlying beat from Marcus Gray’s 2008 Christian rap song “Joyful Noise” without the permission of he or his co-plaintiffs, Emanuel Lambert, aka Da Truth, and Chike Ojukwu. (The lawsuit was first filed in 2014.)
(Excerpt) Read more at billboard.com ...
Indeed. As they say there are only so many notes.
Some songs are pretty blatant - to wit, Led Zeppelin stole the melodies, chord progressions and lyrics straight from classic bluesmen like Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, and also from Joan Baez (who, for some reason, didn’t find out they stole her song “Babe I’m gonna leave you” it until about 10 years later) and the song “Dazed And Confused” from Jake Holmes. Holmes didn’t sue them until about 40 years after the fact (he did know about it) and they settled out of court.
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters accused Andrew Lloyd Webber of stealing a riff off their Echos album but they didn’t litigate it. That was the first time I has personally heard a song (Webber’s Phantom of the Opera) and recognized instantly that the riff sounded very familiar. I don’t think that Pink Floyd was the first to put a melody that sounded like that riff to paper but also don’t think they stole it, either. In musical theory that riff is just a chromatic 3rd run up and down the scale. Musicians practice it all the time learning their scales. It has been done many times in classical composition.
And you might say Waters has a lot of gumption considering how Pink Floyd’s song “One of These Days” is very similar to the “Theme from Dr. Who”.
Nirvana’s song “Come As You Are” riff is almost identical to the song “Eighties” by Killing Joke and they knew it at the time it was recorded - the producers considered trying to license it and I am personally convinced Kobain knew that song very well. It is also nearly identitical to the song “22 Faces” by Garden of Delight and “Life Goes On” from The Damned - and even a bit like “Baby Come Back” from The Equals. That last one, it is noticeably similar but also noticeably different. Nirvana’s composition has ‘more notes’ as it were. When Vanilla Ice was accused by Queen’s publisher for stealing their famous “Under Pressure” bass riff, Vanilla Ice’s defense was that he added 1 extra note to the riff. But rather than litigate it, Vanilla Ice reportedly just ended up purchasing the rights to the Queen/Bowie song. Probably a smart move.
As the years have gone by, popular music has become more and more skeletal and simplified and repetitive. And it is derivative, often deliberately (e.g. sampling) because certain riffs are popular, familiar and/or recognizable hooks that draw the listener in. If you go from Echoes to Phantom, the Phantom version is simpler - and orchestrated differently. And the Vanilla Ice riff is just the riff without much of any of the structure found in the Queen song. My opinion, music has gotten worse - less like music, less like furniture and more like Ikea. Just put some rectangular pieces together and see who will buy it.
Just to name a few. I have no idea about Katy Perry. Not my cup of tea.
If it takes a music Phd to tell if one songs sounds like another, it doesn’t.
Axis of Aweseome agrees with you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I
(Note they say a couple of bad words and the one guy is now a trannie but the piano player Bennie is quite amazing)
Whoa....57,061,360 views
Very clever.
Copyright means you are copying.
If you produce the same item, on your own without copying, you have not violated copyright laws.
But then, litigate and prove it.
I see you in court. You do play tennis don’t you?
Oops, I forgot. I don’t play tennis. Never mind.
WRONG.
I could come up with the lyrics and music to a song I’d never heard but still be guilty of copyright violation.
Whoever gets there first owns it.
Go ask George Harrison’s family about the money he lost over “He’s So Fine” for one.
I don't think this resulted in any legal action, but it's readily acknowledged that Chuck Berry's first hit, Maybellene, was based on a country song called Ida Red. Here's an article on how Maybellene came to be.
The Story Of Chuck Berry's 'Maybellene'
I can see some possible legal action when artists borrow well known riffs and melodies, but the ones that try to sue over some rhythm sequence, or use of specific instruments where the melodies are very different, seem ridiculous.
Don't worry about it. If you get torn up in court, I'll apache you up.
I was taught by the copyright lawyer that I have to COPY to violate copyright.
Which is different from what you said.
But.
I won’t argue with you. I’m not a lawyer, not in court, not involved with a specific case, not subject to a particular jury, etc.
How about John Fogerty being sued for plagiarizing himself?
I hopi you would
You’re just choctaw full of puns.
Imho many Christian worship songs tend to copy pop songs from about 10 years prior...
I took four Western Music History courses ten years ago (Gregorian Chant through Twentieth Century), as well as History of Jazz, and History of Rock. The latter two in particular devoted time to the issue of copyright infringement.
My recollection is that up to a seven-tone-sequence sample is permitted; after that, royalties are due.
While I agree to some extent with your opinion, if a musician listens to a an entire piece, the combination of harmonic progression, basic beat, note values, various rhythms, et cetera, can produce a fairly idiosyncratic whole.
When I hear something that sounds derivative of a prior hit song, it is usually not just one parameter, e.g., note for note sequence, that causes me to think that.
I do agree that some of the high-profile cases that ruled infringement were very questionable; I think political correctness plays a big role in those.
That would support their claim, if she was involved in CCM during/after they published the song: It would imply the liklihood that she was exposed to it.
Reminds me of the George Harrison/Pointer Sisters contretemps of the early 70s...
There are only so many notes on the scale... and even fewer sound good together...
Thanks for that story about Maybellene. I know that Berry was a big breakthrough for Chess Records, and of course for Rock n Roll and started ‘crossover’ music, but did not know that trivia. Very cool.
There’s a piece of music in the movie, “Deep Blue Sea,” when the main character is racing to kill the shark in the end that sounds exactly like the main theme for the SciFi miniseries, “Children of Dune.”
Not really on topic, but related.
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