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$7.4 Million Blurred Lines Verdict Likely To Alter Music Business
HughPickens.com writes The Washington Post reports that the $7.4 million verdict that Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke copied Marvin Gaye's music to create their hit song "Blurred Lines" could ripple across the music industry, potentially changing how artists work and opening the door to new copyright claims. Howard King, lead attorney for Thicke and Williams, said in closing arguments that a verdict for the Gaye family would have a chilling effect on musicians trying to evoke an era or create an homage to the sound of earlier artists. Williams contended during the trial that he was only trying to mimic the "feel" of Gaye's late 1970s music but insisted he did not use elements of his idol's work. "Today's successful verdict, with the odds more than stacked against the Marvin Gaye estate, could redefine what copyright infringement means for recording artists," says Glen Rothstein, an intellectual property attorney. King says record labels are going to become more reluctant to release music that's similar to other works — an assertion disputed by Richard Busch, the lead attorney for the Gaye family. "While Mr. Williams' lawyer suggested in his closing argument that the world would come to an end, and music would cease to exist if they were found liable, I still see the sun shining," says Busch. "The music industry will go on."
Music copyright trials are rare, but allegations that a song copies another artist's work are common. Singers Sam Smith and Tom Petty recently reached an agreement that conferred songwriting credit to Petty on Smith's song, "Stay With Me," which resembled Petty's hit "I Won't Back Down." Other music copyright cases include Former Beatle George Harrison's 1970 solo song "My Sweet Lord" which had a melody heavy with echoes of "He's So Fine," the 1962 hit from The Chiffons. The copyright owner sued Harrison. A judge said that while the tunes were nearly identical, Harrison was guilty only of "subconscious plagiarism." Harrison would eventually pay out $587,000. Probably the most bizarre case of musical infringement was when John Fogerty was accused of stealing from John Fogerty. The Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman was sued for his 1985 solo song "The Old Man Down the Road" because his former label thought it sounded too much like the 1970 Fogerty-penned "Run Through the Jungle," a song it owned the rights to.
Music copyright trials are rare, but allegations that a song copies another artist's work are common. Singers Sam Smith and Tom Petty recently reached an agreement that conferred songwriting credit to Petty on Smith's song, "Stay With Me," which resembled Petty's hit "I Won't Back Down." Other music copyright cases include Former Beatle George Harrison's 1970 solo song "My Sweet Lord" which had a melody heavy with echoes of "He's So Fine," the 1962 hit from The Chiffons. The copyright owner sued Harrison. A judge said that while the tunes were nearly identical, Harrison was guilty only of "subconscious plagiarism." Harrison would eventually pay out $587,000. Probably the most bizarre case of musical infringement was when John Fogerty was accused of stealing from John Fogerty. The Creedence Clearwater Revival frontman was sued for his 1985 solo song "The Old Man Down the Road" because his former label thought it sounded too much like the 1970 Fogerty-penned "Run Through the Jungle," a song it owned the rights to.
I'm pretty sure the free software song is a ripoff of some earlier work.
Neither would Blues, or pretty much any major iconic genre. Depending on how this case is construed it's basically going to kill homages and the like. FUN paying tribute to 99 luftballoons with a line in the lyrics? Better get that contractually approved.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
There is so much music, that it is almost impossible to be truly different than everything else. And should an artist be required/expected to test new work with all other previous music ever made? That would be impossible. And where do you draw the line? Four similar bars? Two similar notes in a sequence? A same text line in a refrain? Having the same theme (as there are millions of songs about love)? Having the same combination of instruments?
They stifle innovation and hold back our society. Let inventors and creators duke it out. Whoever has the best ideas with the best implementation sells more and makes the most money.
Music and movies are an art form, like painting or literature. All works should be free as in beer, and revenue should come from live performances and donations. Let the public decide what they want to hear and how.
Fuck you RIAA / MPAA.
I don't get the hoopla about how this will change the "industry". This was a case of blatant infringement, much like the Tom Petty issue. If you could not hear that for yourself, then perhaps you should be following another "industry" for your entertainment needs.
I always love the George Harrison case. That "changed the industry" too and was 40 years ago. In that case, it was not so obvious. You really had to be told what to listen for and then it was like, "oh, I get it". And George had to take it from He's So Fine and the Hare Krishna's for god's sake. OK, yeah, the Hare Krishna's sort of had a point because he copied their mantra in the song word for word.
But, George turned it into lemonade by letting the experience inspire "This Song", which was sweet revenge as it more than paid the bills from the "My Sweet Lord" injustice. Look it up, kids, its on the Internet! And while your at it, listen closely to "This Song" and read what the lyrics mean. Heck, it has voice overs from some of the Monty Python crew.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Is anybody NOT a fucking asshole anymore?
Doesn't it all boil down to proportionally and fair use? One sample of a song resulting in full copyright assignment to the original sample owner sounds as outrageous and something "in the spirit of" another song. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B...
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
They are all infringing (it's NOT stealing!).
Not sure if it alters anything. Surely it just ratifies the status quo after George Harrison vs Ronnie Mack where George was determined to have subconsciously copied "He's So fine" when writing "My Sweet Lord".
Looks like you are in deep shit.
...when releasing cheap music. "Blurred lines" was made within a few hours. The collision with an existing older music is likely (a lot of this kind of scores are similar on many aspects - let alone techno, rap, and dance musics). Similar complains and verdicts could happen a lot more. What makes any difference here are two important conditions: 1) Marvin Gaye was a top-star and his rich family keep a close watch [they've got nothing else to do] 2) Williams and Thicke made a ton of bucks with "blurred lines".
Besides, listened to both musics and the "collision" is much less obvious than many other two-musics I heard in the past ; the older song being probably less watched and a claim less profitable.
Slashdot, fix the reply notifications... You won't get away with it...
I built a website and then someone "mimicked" portions of "MY" HTML code! Guess I better sue and make sure NO ONE else can "copy" my HTML creations. The music industry is a joke when it comes to litigation.
Why should they be free as in beer? Will spending 99cents or $10/month bankrupt any consumer? Why should you get to use someone's work without payment? Let's hear some rational arguments.
It's about time the rich artists and recorders start paying for all the "stealing". Copying stuff is either good or bad, they shouldn't have it their way every time. If it chills the industry enough maybe we start seeing some reform.
Ive just heard both musics and they sound to me completely different.
... record labels are going to become more reluctant to release music that's similar to other works...
But... but... how will civilization survive?
I'm no musicalologist, but I just don't see a massive resemblance. I carefully listened to both songs. The beats are substantially similar. For instance, the pattern of the cow bell (if that's the name of the instrument) is basically the same. However, Blurred Lines layers a bass line and melody on top of it that are completely different. There's also some similarity in the high singing voice.
So, if stealing a percussion pattern is copyright infringement, this is going to cause all sorts of trouble, because artists rip off melodies and guitar riffs all the time.
Here's a story that I wish had served SF's goal "not to predict the future, but to prevent it":
Melancholy Elephants, by Spider Robinson
...but then again, if a significant percentage of politicians read Spider Robinson (or a significant percentage of Robinson fans went into politics), the world would be a very different place.
Shakespeare is suing 1000 chimpanzees.
-- Make America hate again!
I spend money on music alright.
I go to concerts.
I still buy CDs and concert BluRays
I subscribe to 2 music streaming services
But that's MY choice. I shouldn't be REQUIRED to part with money to listen to music. We have the technology available that allows anyone to download any song they want for free. Streaming services offer free options.
RIAA should just stay out of the way.
How about you start making free music and show us how it's done.
I won't be holding my breath...
And the great irony is that, although the whole purpose of IP is to give inventors and artists their due, Marvin Gaye gets no benefit whatever from this decision. Instead of living off the talents of others, his kids need to go out and get jobs.
I find this verdict astonishing, TBH. Does anyone understand what the money is supposedly awarded for? "Lost earnings" is clearly not reasonable, for instance. Also, what normally happens about cover versions? Is the money in the verdict based on laws relating to that?
soylentnews.org
I thought this was settled precedent between ZZ Top and John Lee Hooker?
Life is not for the lazy.
No-game changer here. Their song was a blatant rip-off of Marvin Gaye's original.
This is an abhorrent verdict. It will make indie composing basically impossible since no small musician alone can just check his songs for "resemblance" with previous titles, and worst, we will be always in danger of having a devastating lawsuit against him at any given time just because some record labels thinks that is music "resembles" something they produced before.
Seriously, don't pay for music, it's time to send a message to these people. Go see your favorite bands on stage, but when it comes to listen at home... just find a way not to buy the music.
It's gonna give all those country folk another reason to drink.
totalCountrySongs * totalCountrySongs = totalLawsuits
I am not sturprised Marvin Gay stopped making music with all these people stealing his music.
That is also why Elvis works now at a gas station in Texas, Jimmy Hendrickx is not in the top 10 anymore and The Beatles split up over it, because Michael Jackson bought their copyright. (When is he coming out with a new album?)
Remember: copyright is to protect the artists, as the MAFIAA keeps explaining. Why don't you people listen?
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
The first thing I thought when I heard that blurred lines tune (on a bus in Portugal as it happens) I thought a fucking puking child could do a better tune. I was actually amazed at how shit it was. Didn't realise it was misogynistic or whatever til later. I just knew it was really, really shite.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Drum breaks, chord progressions, melodies, and of course tempo...aren't they all just functions of math? And the ones that we find most pleasing, tend to be the ones that make sense mathematically.
I'm sorry, but your opinion seems to be wrong.
More offensive to me than a jury's decision that Blurred Lines violated copyright law is that Marvin Gaye's children (or anyone, for that matter) feel entitled to income from a dead man's 40+ year old music. To hell with perpetual and transferable intellectual property rights.
This verdict spells the end of Pitbull. This guy haven't produced a single original song in his career.
Fogerty's was a very sad case, indeed. It probably had less to do with a faintly similarly sounding song than with a perceived insult the president of of CCR's former record company felt over a solo song Fogerty wrote about how the president basically stole CCR's music catalog. It's why Fogerty didn't perform those old songs for so long, he didn't want to put money in that guy's pocket. Fogerty won all those cases against him, and later started doing CCR songs again.
-> I dislike sigs...
Under the Copyright Act of 1790, the Marvin Gaye song would have already entered the public domain last decade.
Blues are especially hosed. The fact that someone can say the phrase "twelve-bar blues" and be immediately understood almost to the note, just demonstrates that this is the musical equivalent of a design pattern.
Even more hosed is anyone who dares to write a four-chord song. For those not familiar, Canon in D by Johann Pachelbel is the start of one such design pattern. Some songs that use it are: Forever Young by Alphaville, Let It Be by the Beatles, With or Without You by U2, Don't Stop Believin' by Journey, Barbie by Aqua, Down Under by Men At Work . . . the list goes on and on and on. If you want to see a better example than I can cite here in print, google for "Axis of Awesome Four Chord Song" and watch the videos that come back.
However, in all of those cases, along with the case of Ghostbusters copying I Want A New Drug and of Ice Ice Baby copying Under Pressure etc., there are actual notes copied.
This, on the other hand, is the "Look and Feel" case of the music industry.
www.wavefront-av.com
How about you start making free music
I would, but first please answer this question: How should I go about doing so without running the risk of losing a lawsuit from one of the incumbents?
Well the last crazy verdict was 3 notes in a row George Harrison 'My Sweet Lord' vs 'He's so fine'.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Sweet_Lord
Compare for yourselves:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kNGnIKUdMI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xomOONKU9RQ
But for this, there are not discernible note sequences in common, its more the ambiance, or party feel of the song is the same! Its some sort of joke, children of a dead singer who made a song won millions from a different singer with a difference song for copyright infringement where there's no copying.
Copyright law is supposed to encourage new composition, yet this means all your profits will be taken away for simply being in the style of a previous song. Effectively making new works are a liability. While rehashing an old sold, that haven't been sued, are effectively immune from this verdict, so rehashing old songs is safe and new songs are a risk. So copyright makes new compositions a bad idea, a financial risk!
Really its appalling, f**ing child leaches thinking their entitled to free money because of their dads work. Yet my dad made their their dads microphone so where's MY FREE MONEY????
He gets permission from every artist prior to doing a parody
Yankovic got permission from Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke for "Word Crimes", not from the Gaye estate.
What if it's cheap to copy? Didn't it cost time, effort and money to create the song the first place? It takes almost a decade of training, and the person must be talented. You are paying for the benefit of listening to music, the cost to deliver the goods to you is only marginally important. If a song benefits 1 million listeners, the listeners need to pay, it's that simple.
By your argument almost all goods and services should be free. For example, once 100,000 people have bought train tickets they have paid off the cost of the train. Should the train ride be free or 1/10th cost for train riders after that? No. That's how most business models work: huge upfront investment and they break even after a few year of sales. After that it's pure profit. The same model applies for music, as well.
Link to a Story About Saul Zaentz and John Fogerty.
Seems like Ol' Saul died badly (Alzheimers is a bad way to go).
nice story on this topic
"Murphy was an optimist" - O'Toole's commentary on Murphy's Law
Yeah, I hadn't listened to the comparison before now. Just wow. They're completely different songs. They do use the same instruments (as you mentioned: cowbell, bass, and vocals), which does give them a similar feel.
I bet musicians feel about this like us software guys (for the ./ers who are software guys) feel about so many of those patents.
//TODO: signature
As I understand the ruling, now you can sue someone who makes music that just kinda sounds like yours. Do I have that right? If so, that seems awfully bad for the music industry - maybe the Jury's sort of half-assed attempt to force originality on the music industry without having any idea about music theory and how music interacts with the brain.
Back in the 1980s Huey Lewis and the News sued Ray Parker Jr. over his song "Ghostbusters" because it sounded like the song "I want a new drug." This is after Huey Lewis did the same thing with "Do you believe in love" which is a more blatant ripoff of "Sweet talkin woman" By the Electric Light Orchestra. Shit even Marvin Gaye even plagiarized from other works. The copyright laws are outdated and need to be repealed immediately because it serves no purpose other than to use the courts to eliminate competition because just about everyone is guilty of plagiarizing other works.
If this buries Thicke then I'll consider it to be a silver-lining.
"I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different." ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jnr.
This to me is no different than plagiarism. All Pharrell and Thicke had to do was give credit where credit was due, pay a little royalty and they would have been able to avoid all this nonsense. Instead they say give the credit to a Vicodin and alcohol high.
You're quite right, but there's even more to the story that might be of interest to the readers here.
The Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, died in 1967 and some time later, I think in late 1968 or very early 1969, the group decided to hire a new manager. The Rolling Stone recommended Allen Klein. John Lennon met him and convinced Ringo Starr and George Harrison to agree to let him become the group's manager. Paul McCartney had been arguing for his father-in-law, Lee Eastman, to manage the group and refused to sign the contract with Klein, although the other signatures were enough to make him the manager anyway. Apparently John, George and Ringo believed that Eastman would favor Paul's interests over the rest of the group, so that was why they rejected him. In 1971, Paul sued to dissolve the group so he could get out from under Klein's control. John, George and Ringo all eventually turned on Klein as did the Rolling Stones. Paul became quite rich under Lee Eastman, so you can judge for yourself just how "bad" he would have been to have managed the group.
Klein's relationship with George unraveled first following some mismanagement of funds from the Concert for Bangladesh. The "My Sweet Lord" plagarsm case went through the court for decades. Yes, decades. Litigation began in 1971 and finally ended in 1998. To stick it to George, because Klein was nothing if not vindictive, eventually he bought the publishing company that had successfully sued George in the plagiarism case. In 1981, the original amount of damages assessed were reduced to George because of Klein's duplicity in being George's manager at the start of the legal case and then switching sides to being on the side seeking compensation. In the end George just bought the publishing company from Klein to help bring the situation to a close.
Nirvana clearly stole Come as You Are's bassline hook from Killing Joke's Eighties. Eightie's was written in 84 and I heard it frequently on college radio before 1991's Come As You Are. In fact, I just suspected that the band was high when they wrote the song since the bassline is so much slower and drawn out. However, they made a shitload more money and had better lawyers, so Nirvana prevailed in court.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
and THIS:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
shows how many fucking songs ripped off Pachabel's Canon in D. I still hear the same opening 4 chords in pop music all the time.
Remember kids, if you're not paying for the service, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT THAT IS BEING SOLD.
Ok, so how are the costs of producing music recouped?
It's not going to be tours, and merchandise has a very, very small margin.
I completely agree that copyright / IP laws are messed up. But since Napster changed everything, no one has yet been able to find a successful business model to replace what we have. Sure, some bands like Nine Inch Nails dropped their labels like dead weight but they already achieved critical success and had plenty of money to do so.
New artists and small labels that publish them, not so much.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
Why should they be free as in beer? Will spending 99cents or $10/month bankrupt any consumer? Why should you get to use someone's work without payment? Let's hear some rational arguments.
Because it is the natural order. Why should the legal system allow you to call dibs on a note progression?
It's not my job to make sure that you can earn money. If you want to charge a sum for a recording of air vibrations that is fine. If you require laws to be able to do that then you are suddenly restricting my freedom to do the same.
Why should I provide a rational argument against unnatural laws when you won't provide rational arguments for them?
If I go out and push a rock up a hill I can't expect to get paid for it, even if I claim that everyone who observes the rock benefits from it, so having done work is not a rational argument for getting paid.
If I went out and painted a line on the road and tried to charge a fee from everyone who passed over it then people would think that I am a loon. That other people use your work is not a rational argument for getting paid.
Blatant? Yet the can't even link to the notes that match?
No this is NOT copyright infringement, Gaye kids own effectively the sheet music, the sequence of notes and timings, not the ambiance to the song. They couldn't even identify which note sequence they claim is their copyright. It amounts to some sort of patent like right on the vague ambiance of music.
But don't take my word for it, both songs are in this post, compare for yourselves:
http://boingboing.net/2015/03/10/jury-blurred-lines-infringes.html
Hundreds of thousands of peole have been writing music for centuries. I'd think we'd start seeing some "blurring" of songs now and them. Also one may have a subconsious memmory of music they heard before, but think is new.
"Handed me a vegemite sandwich"
That's all I have to say.
thank you
recordings are merely advertising: give it away for free online
if you like what you hear, give the artist money, buy a signed t shirt, hire the artist, pay for a concert, buy a product the artist endorses, etc... plenty of ancillary revenue streams
this guy made $75 million dollars last year, and never recorded anything (nor plays any more soccer):
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ku...
artists can do the same
this idea that because you built me a house, every time i walk across the living room you pay me a dime, for decades, is complete bullshit
it is a broken, inefficient system that only rewards abuse
oh, only a few artists make millions and 99% starve? ok: has it ever been any different in the art world, ever? is copyright a protection from that by magic? no: it's just a vehicle for abuse by the already well-established and middle men. the little guys still get screwed by distributors and labels with bullshit contracts to get their foot in the door. end that ridiculous system that rewards parasites for no added value in an Internet world
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
all copyright law is null and void and will remain so until Mickey Mouse becomes public domain.
They reneged on their side of the bargain, so we can dismiss our side.
music would cease to exist if they were found liable, I still see the sun shining," says Busch. "The music industry will go on."
While human rights activists would make you think that forced slavery and genocide will end the human race, I still see the sun shining, the human race will go on.
They completely neglected to mention a case that got even more media attention. I can't wait to see the verdict from that song stealing whore, Katie Perry. She's being sued for completely and utterly ripping off Dark Horse's track from Joyful Noise by Lecrae.
Christ, NPR had this (almost exact article) on the air weeks ago.
How about you start making free music and show us how it's done.
People have been making free music since pre-history. It's the natural state of music. Non-free music only started with the invention of enclosed concert halls and later blossomed with audio recordings. But during the rise of non-free music, humanity has continued to hum, tap, sing, or play instruments on their own.
Food for Thought: Oh, dear me, how unspeakably funny and owlishly idiotic and grotesque was that "plagiarism" farce! As if there was much of anything in any human utterance, oral or written, except plagiarism! The kernal, the soul - let us go further and say the substance, the bulk, the actual and valuable material of all human utterances'- is plagiarism. For substantially all ideas are second-hand, consciously and unconsciously drawn from a million outside sources, and daily used by the garnerer with a pride and satisfaction born of the superstition that he originated them; whereas there is not a rag of originality about them anywhere except the little discoloration they get from his mental and moral calibre and his temperament, and which is revealed in characteristics of phrasing. When a great orator makes a great speech you are listening to ten centuries and ten thousand men - but we call it his speech, and really some exceedingly smail portion of it is his. But not enough to signify. It is merely a Waterloo. It is Wellington's battle, in some degree, and we call it his; but there are others that contributed. It takes a thousand men to invent a telegraph, or a steam engine, or a phonograph, or a photograph, or a telephone or any other important thing-and the last man gets the credit and we forget the others. He added his little mite - that is all he did. These object lessons should teach us that ninety-nine parts of all things that proceed from the intellect are plagiarisms, pure and simple; and the lesson ought to make us modest. But nothing can do that.
Letter to Helen Keller, after she had been accused of plagiarism for one of her early stories (17 March 1903), published in Mark Twain's Letters, Vol. 1 (1917) edited by Albert Bigelow Paine, p. 731.
Mark Twain 1903-03-17
or
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
Einstein is more humorous of the 2 once you consider this in-depth look at it which infers Einstein plagiarized by rewording the quote.
Exactly this. I have done percussion, and the cowbell (you're right there) is similar but the hi-hat work is not the same at all. So even the percussion line is not even identical.
When you're learning percussion, you drill books of STANDARD PERCUSSION LINES! The rhythms are *standardized*. This is worse than copyrighting QuickSort!
Jesus, next time just copyright chord progressions and have a government judge kill off music once and for all! Guess what? All blocks of code flying by on a screen on a movie *look the same* to a non-programmer. But they're clearly not to an expert, which is all that actually matters.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I've been playing in bands(rock, metal, country, funk, blues, pop, etc), writing and recording music for a long time.
Reagan was president when I started.
I think I have a pretty good ear and can usually pick up songs pretty quick.
I don't have a degree in music, but have taken many music classes and played some classical and jazz pieces on guitar and bass in college.
Though my reading skills have diminished, I can play bass very proficiently, guitar pretty good, and a little piano and drums.
I can sing ok on some things and not bad on others...
I listen to a very wide variety of music, though at the moment its mainly ambient-trance, 70's hard rock or whatever they play on the Jazz station at night.
When I first started hearing the "buzz" about Pharell, etc I wasn't too impressed.
"Happy"? It should be called "Boring"...
Regardless, I think this ruling is a complete fucking joke.
If you think that song sounds like the Marvin Gaye tune, you've got your head way up your ass.
Ridiculous!
Rhythmically there is some resemblance, but that is a reach.
I imagine if you sit and listen long enough and try to rationalize a close enough resemblance to award some douche bags some money though they didn't do a fucking thing to deserve it(except the lawyers of course) then go ahead and award them.
The jury here are complete idiots IMHO.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
The true burden is not the cost in dollars, its the incredibly onerous control required to make it all work. Stop locking content behind paywalls. If your content is good, people will gladly pay you for it. IP is a prison, not a marketplace.
Good-bye
The unsung hero of the revolution will be the Stereo Mix driver.
I remember seeing an interview with Jim Martin from FNM where he said the same thing about "Come as you are", except he said the riff was from a band he was in before FNM.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
Simple, write and perform original music.
I'm no musicalologist, but I just don't see a massive resemblance.
Thats because there isn't one.
Somehow, someway, a combination of complete idiots on the jury and expert lawyering have convinced the aforesaid idiots there is a resemblance.
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I remember an insurance or pharmaceutical commercial around 2000 that featured music which was an obvious knock-off of Moby's "Porcelain". Had the same basic rhythm and feel, too, but the key was different and some of the note progressions were different. I kinda hated the commercial because my immediate thought was, "Heh, these losers couldn't even bother to license the real thing?"
Of course we see these all the time, from commercials to TV shows (Good Eats comes to mind), to movies (I think I recall chuckling at a bad wannabe "Axel F" music in the Christian Slater movie Kuffs).
Does this ruling make that practice more legally dangerous?
Method of processing duck feet
The rational argument goes as follows. Property rights exist to determine who controls what. For physical objects there are no contradictions. I own my car you own yours. Intellectual Monopoly is not compatible with property rights because contradictions arise. Do I own this piece of plastic? Not really because there are millions of shapes I am prohibited from arranging it in.
Do I own my hard drive? No because there are billions of patterns I am not allowed to arrange it in.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
You mean the donation or panhandler model... good luck with that. Many people want stuff for free, so the producer gets nothing. Besides, the seller should set the price, not the buyer.
IP ensures profit-protection for content creators... it ensures there are dire consequences for people to use the content without payment. The only people who call IP a prison are freeloaders and pirates.
If I went out and painted a line on the road and tried to charge a fee from everyone who passed over it and ahd Enough Men with guns they you'd be the Government and it would be called a tax.
This was the basis behind most governments.
When Stay With Me played on the radio, I would sing the Petty lyrics just to tick off my kids.
No matter where you go, there you are.
Similarly, I'm not an audiophile, but to me the resemblance is only in passing. It is not a direct rip-off. Decision is bunk.
That said, Blurred Lines is just garbage. I had never listened to it before just now when I went to YouTube for it and it was painful to listen to. The lyrics were crap. The performance was lackluster. The video was shit. It was just awful. But they still shouldn't get punished for the similarity to Gaye's song.
I'm reminded of the early 90s when 2 Live Crew had their obscenity convictions for "Me So Horny" (and others) overturned, and on Weekend Update on SNL Dennis Miller applauded the decision, that nobody should be arrested for singing a song..."but it is a garbage song. I mean, couldn't we go to war over [insert some Miller-esque reference to a bunch of obscure, but apparently artistic shit]?"
So, yeah, bullshit for Thicke and Pharrell. But it's still a garbage song.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Just look up the YouTube video: Axis of Awesome - 4 Chords
... which was probably also the problem of the jury. I don't have much musical training, but I can easily pick up parts of songs that are "borrowed". And there was no specific part of this song that was "borrowed", try to identify a specific sequence and tell us which one it is. It is the same "style" so there was obvious inspiration to such songs, but that was the whole point. If you lower the bar for plagiarism that much, then I am afraid at least half of the music production would have to pay for rights to older songs.
Increasing the reach of copyright to ridiculous lengths is bad. There have been cases where you can even buy the right to sample a song, but if you are successful the record companies can still go after you ("you sampled too much") and strip you not only of your earnings but even of your credits (that include your original lyrics - as the Verve about "Bitter Sweet Symphony"). Copyright is not bad, but constantly extending its grip is.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
Wonder how much the judge steered the jury to this verdict? Wonder where his stocks are invested, and what other sources his income derives from; just curious?
So lemme get this straight. It's ok for a musician to charge people for t-shirts, concerts, private appearances, and even product endorsement, but it's abhorrent for the artist to ask people to pay a nominal fee for a copy of the music he/she has worked on?
Yeah, um, that's utterly absurd.
No one is suggesting this idea where you "pay someone every time you walk across your floor" (seriously, what kind of example was that, dude?), and yes, everyone knows that the traditional model for the pop music industry is broken. With those things said, that does not mean that having ANY protection for the artists is unreasonable. You said yourself that you recognize that the little guy gets screwed. Yes, you're right. We often do. And it sucks.
You know what also sucks? Comments like yours that make it sound as if we, the artists, are trying to fuck everyone out of money or cash in via lawsuits. We're not. I do sometimes choose to give my stuff away for free, particularly to help fellow artists. But, I also sometimes charge for people to use my stuff. I have no qualms about having the choice to monetize my music, and don't give a particular fuck if guys like you can't understand why it isn't all free.
>Why should you get to use someone's work without payment?
I agree. As long as they own it, they are in control of it.
Of course, once they sell it, it isn't their work anymore than a toilet should collect $10 a month "flushing privileges" for the plumber who installed it. Unless, of course, he didn't sell you the toilet. In which case it isn't really yours so why would you want it in your home?
Then let me rephrase: How should I go about ensuring my music is original?
Insane! Different song structure. Different Chord Progression. Different Melody. Yes - they DO have a similar feel. the percussion is similar, the "party going on in the background" effect, falsetto voice sound is similar, even the feel of the bass parts is similar. All of those things can all be said of thousands of popular songs. Blurred Lines got a kick start from a risque (to say the least) video. It might have never gained half of it's popularity from the song alone. And the estate gets 7.4 Million Dollars???? Did they lose ANY money - due to this song? No, in fact sales of Marvin Gaye music have gone up significantly with the publicity from this case. Hmmm... Maybe they are all in together on this thing and knew that money could be made from all sides thanks to the publicity. The Gaye family has already said they'd like to make up with Williams and Thicke and have a Marvin Gaye tribute TV show.
Coincidentally, I've just been listening to the "Alladin" soundtrack, which includes "Prince Ali" with music by Alan Menken. The tune sounds a lot like "You'd Be So Nice to Come Home To" by Cole Porter. Since Menken hasn't gotten sued for that, I guess Cole Porter's estate isn't as litigious as Marvin Gaye's.
Idiots all around america will pursue anyone if two notes are identical in a song? Wow,,,,,,,
I see. So since there's a chance that a musician might be unfairly sued which would cost them tons of money, you're suggesting that people just rip the artists off by taking their work.
Great.
Thanks a goddamn lot. Big help, dude.
How come guys like you can never think past the idea of music that's played by a 4 or 5 piece band in some club somewhere? What about orchestral compositions that would require hiring a 40 piece orchestra to perform live in concert? What about texture/underscore music used in movies or TV shows? What about people who aren't in a position where they can go "on tour" (maybe health related, geographic limitation, etc)? What about people who write songs for other artists?
This isn't as cut and dried as you're making it out to be.
sure, you can charge people to buy your recordings
but that's like asking people to pay money to listen to television or radio commercials
because that's all recorded music is nowadays: a commercial for you as an artist
give it away free, it gets to more people
charge for it and less people hear you, and so there's less exposure and demand for your artistry
example: youtube, and every artist who has made it that way, which is how artists are finding success nowadays
so good luck with your 1985 business model
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
That's a simplistic view. Can you duplicate the car without getting sued by the car manufacturer? No, you can't. The raw materials required to manufacture the car only cost (roughly) 1/10th the price you paid to buy it new. That is, the physical objects you so dearly say hold no contradictions, cost only a small fraction of the car (just as the 50 cent plastic CD for a $10 music album). The remaining 90% goes towards paying for car exterior design, interior design, safety testing/design, performance testing/design, worker salaries, factories, manufacturer profits, dealer profits etc. So most of your car payment goes towards paying for IP, the thing you hate so much being charged for.
A hard disk is a container, just like a bag or a purse. Just because you buy a bag does not mean you own any item as soon as you place it in the bag. You also have to pay for the item before you place it in your bag. Similarly, placing a song (item) in your hard disk (bag) without payment is illegal.
You're free to arrange the billions of patterns as you see fit, and as long as you created those patterns yourself. But if those patterns cost tens of millions of $$$ and resources to create, you're going to have to pay a fraction of creation price to cover the cost of production.
Seriously, this is thousands of years old: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%E2%80%93V%E2%80%93vi%E2%80%93IV_progression
No more "Four Chords" songs means no more music.
You mean the donation or panhandler model... good luck with that.
Some of the greatest music ever written was by gentlemen basically following that model. They generally did quite well for themselves, too.
IP ensures profit-protection for content creators... it ensures there are dire consequences for people to use the content without payment. The only people who call IP a prison are freeloaders and pirates.
Interesting attitude. Why should content creators be ensured a profit? Nobody else is. If you choose to engage in a business in which the product is inherently easy to duplicate, why should society be required to give you money that you are apparently unable to earn for yourself?
It's an interesting proposition all around, really. Look at the history of music. You can make an extremely strong case that the stronger and more expansive copyright protections are, the lower the quality of the music goes. To look at it from another angle, there's a reason that even very good cover bands don't draw the kinds of crowds or make the kind of money that the originals do, and it has nothing at all to do with copyright.
Make music of sufficient quality and originality and you will profit from it, copyright or no. If you can't profit from it without the government taking the money of others by force and giving it to you, perhaps you're not as talented as you think you are.
Who said it is? No one put a gun to your head to force you to listen to that song. You listened to it because you enjoyed it, and should therefore pay for it.
LOL, what false freedom are you complaining about? The freedom to use someone else's commercial work for your benefit/enjoyment without benefiting the owner of the work?
Because you have no rational argument that allows you free access to someone's life's work without payment.
LOL, isn't that called paying for parking or a toll fee?
If this will finally end the era of cookie cutter EDM and bring some originality back to the table, I think Martin Garrix has a few lawsuits to file.
"Ok, so how are the costs of producing music recouped?"
I think you're seeing it already. You want to sell your recorded music? Get a good recording of it (pay $15K, do it yourself, whatever) and put it on a website. Lots of indie sites, iTunes, etc. I think the real cost is the *marketing* of the music -- getting it out there in stores (brick or web), on the radio. But even that...start a Facebook page, then point people at your music-oriented MySpace page or Youtube channel. Then, yes, keep playing gigs...keep giving out that site, selling CDs or free download codes. Climb the ladder of venues.
There's no mystery. Making it is hard anywhere. The problem isn't talent....you can find some of the best musicians at some of the smallest venues. You just think, "How is this guy not famous?" Because there's another 1000 people just as talented and maybe one of those got spotted somewhere and given a chance and then *marketed*.
If you're into singing, watch The Voice some time. Unlike American Idol, pretty much all the singers they show on the Voice are amazing. They just need exposure, marketing, a push. Some of them have already done the touring, made a living at it...but aren't household names for any number of reasons.
Ah. Ok. Now I see.
I had originally thought that you might have understood how the music industry works. But several of your statements illustrate clearly that you most certainly do not, never did, and clearly never will (I guess I should've paid attention.....your sig pretty much illustrates that you're one of "those" guys).
You clearly do not understand LOTS of artists can make quite a bit of money by having their music used in advertising, tv shows, movies, and yes, even YouTube (apparently you haven't heard of services like this and you just assume that it's all "free"......guess you also think that all that great music in movies you're paying to see is just done for posterity too, huh? ).
Your assertion that people can only make money and reach a wide audience is by giving it away for free is not just anecdotal horse shit, it's not even close to the facts.
And I just love when guys like you get all snarky with your "1985 business model" comments as if you have any goddamn clue what you're talking about. So you're a miser who feels like he doesn't need to pay for music ever. Great. Bully for you. You'll excuse the rest of us as we move on without you.
Jefferson on intellectual property:
It has been pretended by some, (and in England especially,) that inventors have a natural and exclusive right to their inventions, and not merely for their own lives, but inheritable to their heirs. But while it is a moot question whether the origin of any kind of property is derived from nature at all, it would be singular to admit a natural and even an hereditary right to inventors. . .If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it.
I highly recommend reading the entire letter; if nothing else Jefferson was an excellent writer. Then if you would oblige us with a counter-argument, I am sure it would be gratifying.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
If you work for a living, your
salary - expenses - taxes = profit
Everybody works for a profit (except the hand-to-mouth poor people).
No copyright, no profit. Nobody pays for free stuff. Google, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, pays nothing to use the free operating, Linux. Do you think a common man with limited salary is going to pay for a song if he doesn't have to? You're either naive or delusional.
Yes and somehow you still got Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Handel, Bizet... want me to continue the list?
Music worked fine without copying for centuries, many forms of art still do now-a-days, or do you think that sculptors, painters and the such get to copy their works ad infinitum for a living?
This copyright society so toughly enforced by the music industry is only here to favour exactly the industry, not the artists.
They stifle innovation and hold back our society. Let inventors and creators duke it out. Whoever has the best ideas with the best implementation sells more and makes the most money.
Music and movies are an art form, like painting or literature. All works should be free as in beer, and revenue should come from live performances and donations. Let the public decide what they want to hear and how.
Fuck you RIAA / MPAA.
Yes, that is the general consensus around here. You're preaching to the choir.
Now, please stop going for the easy mod points. Instead, going forward, please try to actually add something value to the conversation.
A formidable contender for the title of "most bizarre case of musical infringement" has got to be the case brought by the John Cage Trust against Mike Batt for the latter's "A One Minute Silence", ostensibly an infringement of Cage's " 4'33" " (consisting of 4 minutes 33 seconds of silence). The suit was settled out-of-court for a six-figure sum (edition.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/23/uk.silence)
I am not a number - I am a free man!
You can't steal bass lines. The reason is because Copyright Law was fashioned by white people. White people stole black rhythm and beats, so they fashioned the law to say you can only steal melodies.
Anyone who prints music on a piece of paper that has rounded corners owes me royalties.
You clearly do not understand LOTS of artists can make quite a bit of money by having their music used in advertising, tv shows, movies, and yes, even YouTube (apparently you haven't heard of services like this [friendlymusic.com] and you just assume that it's all "free"......guess you also think that all that great music in movies you're paying to see is just done for posterity too, huh? ).
I understand how advertising works. Which is a wonderful way to make money off of music. Which I also mentioned in my comment above that you responded too. And is nothing at all like charging for music. Are you OK?
And I just love when guys like you get all snarky with your "1985 business model" comments as if you have any goddamn clue what you're talking about. So you're a miser who feels like he doesn't need to pay for music ever. Great. Bully for you.
Well we can go back further if you like. How about 1885? 1585? 1485 BC? There was no recorded music. Did music exist?
The advent of recorded music as a commodity began and ended in the last century. It is the aberration, not the magic rule This Is How God Intended. For every century before, you got a patron, and/ or you charged for performance. Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms would frequently wake up crying at the injustice of their inability to charge for recordings and how it was impeding their ability to make music. Right?
Is it that you believe the last century is the only way music can be made? That if music be produced by some other economic model that's just me being a selfish jerk? Or is it possible you have no historical perspective and no imagination and your mind is closed and uneducated?
When the printing press was introduced some monks decried it as an affront to their means of support. Horseshoe blacksmiths were not happy with the arrival of the railroad and automobile. Typewrite manufacturers insisted the computer industry was abhorrent and could not be allowed to hurt God's Only And True word processing tool.
Everything changes my friend. Adapt, or die.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Do you know WHY Google doesnt pay anything for Linux? Do you have any clue as to the drives and motivations that made that come to be? It came from the selfless pursuit to help mankind.... Believe it or not, there are humans who will gladly work for free to help other humans. This is Slashdot 101. If you dont know this, why are you here? You chose a very poor example.....
Good-bye
Yep - this is my problem with this case, too. This is like if everyone that played Samba had to pay the originator of Samba to play it or Soul had to pay the originator of Soul or Blues Blues. I certainly hope they appeal and get a better jury.
Have gnu, will travel.
> Besides, the seller should set the price, not the buyer.
I see someone failed ECON 101.
this idea that because you built me a house, every time i walk across the living room you pay me a dime, for decades, is complete bullshit
It's called rent. If you want to live in the house I built, you pay me. Build your own damn house.
Same way with music. If you want it free, make your own. Except... wait, it's an expensive hobby. Musicians create a product that moves millions of people all over the world, and you're trying to suggest that they shouldn't be paid for it? How about you code for me, and I don't pay you because all you're doing is the same old while if, then, else logic that people have been doing forever.
BerkleeX: BCM-MB110x Introduction to the Music Business - goes into great detail on the in's and out's of proving copyright infringement (taught by John P. Kellogg, Esq - you might be able to access the archived course)
Basically you need to satisfy three requirements 1. actually have a copyright (easy if you filed correctly), 2. prior access to the work (harder to prove), and 3. substantial similarity (one for the musicologists and then the jury).
most copyright infringement claims are settled out of court (e.g. "I Want a New Drug" vs "Ghostbusters"). A big factor in so many settlements is that you can be ordered to pay court costs if you lose and that juries are never a sure thing (but that is just my opinion)
I don't have an opinion on this specific case - but I will defend the concept of the copyright as crucial to the "creative" industry
in the "duck and run" category this case has my attention ...
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
Yes and somehow you still got Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Handel, Bizet... want me to continue the list?
You mean the list of anachronistic references that have absolutely nothing to do with this conversation? No, I'm all set thanks. Yes, all famous, successful, accomplished composer and musicians. However, you're equating it to now, which is very different. Aristocrats no longer pay composers to commission pieces of music to play at the ball in honor of their daughter turning 16. Entire villages no longer turn out regularly to see and support their local musicians/artists/theaters because there's nothing else to do.......nowadays people watch tv, go to movies, or post on slashdot. You're making a comparison between two completely different times. Those guys were successful without current copyright law because a) they were goddamn musical genuises and b) because society was simpler back then, and there were many different ways for those artists to make money.
Music worked fine without copying for centuries, many forms of art still do now-a-days, or do you think that sculptors, painters and the such get to copy their works ad infinitum for a living?
Yes, music did work fine without copyright for centuries......BECAUSE THERE WASN'T A GODDAMN WAY TO COPY IT. And yes, you silly person, artists DO indeed get paid for copies of their works. Unless of course you think that all those pictures that you're buying at Garden Ridge and World Market to hang in your home are all originals that were hand painted just for you.
Now where you and I do agree (believe it or not, we do share a little common ground) is that no, these privileges should not be "ad infinitum". However, your argument seems to be that ANY copyright protection is worthless and should be abandoned. I also agree that the current copyright system has been exploited in many ways to benefit large, predatory corporations, and of course agree that many artists have been screwed by this process. I should know. I've experienced it personally. However, to suggest that there be NO mechanism for artists to monetize their music just doesn't make any sense.
They can pursue any economic model they want. Before the Internet, the LP/ cassette/ CD model of "you pay to listen to a recording" made sense. But maybe that model is deficient and inefficient with this new tech called the Internet?
Like with youtube, the artists getting discovered now are the ones who give it away for free.
That was never true before... oh no wait... there was radio. You listened 100% for free, paid for by advertising.
Gee, does that wacky evil communist selfish economic model work??? NO WAY.
And before the last century, music was supported only by performance and patrons. Brahms, Beethoven, and Bach would cry to sleep every night whining they couldn't afford to make music because recorded music hadn't been invented yet, right?
Friend: the last century was an aberration. Not The One And True Economic Model God Intended That Shall Never Change Amen.
Show some awareness of change and some historical awareness. Currently you only are equipped with a closed, dim, uneducated mind on this topic. The world is changing. Stop shaking your weak ignorant fists and adapt. Or die.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And we have a winner!!
Edison disrupted everything when he invented the wax cyllinder that could play recorded music on a grammophone. That turned music from a service into a tangible product.
So let's blame him. Kneel before your new god Tesla!!
I remeber "Ice Ice Baby". Man, what a song.
Some thoughts on the matter:
You can't compare a copy of a CD to a train ticket, as a train ticket is a limited commodity (each train can only hold so many passengers), whereas a stream of 1s and 0s clearly is something quite different, as it can be (theoretically) copied ad infinitum.
If we were to use trains in this music discussion, it would be far more fitting to compare an album to a photograph or video of a train, as the photograph can be copied with as much ease as the album, and has precisely the same cost to the producer: 0.
If we are to compare trains to the music industry, they are far more comparable to a live gig: limited occupancy, a value derived from being used at a certain time to perform a function, and a rather large outlay for each person participating.
Musicians used to make their money from live performances before the record industry decided to turn their part of the industry (the actual record) into the commodity. Albums used to be advertisements for their live gigs. Artists who did not tour didn't make money, and those who did tour did make money.
Comparing albums to trains is pretty silly, as copying train tickets or trains is actively depriving someone of something. U2 or the small band I saw last night won't notice if I copy one of their albums, but if people start abusing trains and train tickets the operators and other passengers notice immediately. Live gigs -> trains is not a perfect analogy, but it's a lot better than albums -> trains :)
Not at all. I pay money hand-over-fist to see bands live. I buy their albums at the venue to help with their touring costs. No-one is saying that every concert has to be free, just that copying someone's music for personal use is clearly not hurting that, but helping, as without hearing the music first I wouldn't go see a band live. An album is the perfect advertisement for the live gig. As soon as the advertising was turned into the commodity, everything went to hell, and that was a decision made by the record companies.
The 2000's called, and they want their internet throw-up meme back.
Man, do you ever get dizzy from spinning around to all these different positions? You must. So it's a "wonderful way to make money off of music", but it's "nothing at all like charging for your music"? You're simply not making any sense. I think what you might be saying is that charging an advertiser, or a film maker, or a television production company for using music is different that charging Joe Sixpack for downloading a song. If that is what you're saying, then yes, I agree that it's different. However, that difference does not negate the validity of some form of copyright protection for the artist. This is the mechanism that artists have to collect the wonderful money that you're graciously giving us your permission to make.
Yes, of course music existed. No, recorded music is not an aberration, it is a progression. Is television an aberration as opposed to live theater? Your silly example of Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms simply doesn't hold water. During those times, there were many alternative ways for those artists to make money from their music. Pieces could be commissioned (as they often were). Society in general was much more in the habit of going and paying to see orchestras perform work by these composers for many reasons...not the least of which was because there was NO OTHER WAY TO HEAR IT. Unless of course you think that said composers were doing a "one man band" thing and travelling all over Europe performing with a tin cup in front of them for a living. No. Your argument is a red herring, and you know you're comparing apples and oranges.
Of course not. I'm interested in what this "other economic model" is you're referencing here. Because prior to this, you certainly seem to have been suggesting that music should simply be "free". This seems quite different from there being some other way to monetize music. I have plenty of historical perspective, much of it from my own personal experience in the industry, and certainly do not lack any imagination. It's rather ironic that you assert such a thing, when it seems clear that you're unable to step outside your own view and understand all of the moving parts to this evolving situation.
Well, either that, or you're an unhappy, argumentative person who likes to think of himself as an intellectual and feels entitled to prattle on about subjects upon which he has absolutely no experience.
Le sigh. Yet another condescending red herring. The monks job was to physically copy the work that an author (i.e. a
Yes and somehow you still got Mozart, Beethoven, Bach, Handel, Bizet... want me to continue the list?
Music worked fine without copying for centuries
Are you seriously going to contend that the great masters never copied themes, styles, instrumentation, structure, etc. from each other and past masters? You are clearly not a musicologist. There are several examples. Wikipedia even has article subsections devoted to the topic. Handel was probably the most famous for doing this. Most of his borrowings were from his previous works, but sometimes from teachers or soon-to-be-rivals. Bach's entire Orgelbüchlein was based on extant sacred themes (Lutheran chorales, to be precise). But many more examples abound: Shostakovitch and Brahms from folk music, Beethoven from Mozart, Mozart from Bocherrini, the list goes on and on.
There are apps that will tell you what you are listening too from just a segment of it.
Shazam and Google Song Search work only on known recordings. They fail on cover versions, for example, unless the cover version is known to the database that these use. SoundHound claims to recognize humming, but I've never been able to get it to work. I tried humming part of "I Don't Want to Wait" by Paula Cole, and it wasn't recognized.
i stopped reading there, you're not worth my time
yes, moron: advertising and charging for something are completely different business models
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Exactly this. I have done percussion, and the cowbell (you're right there) is similar but the hi-hat work is not the same at all. So even the percussion line is not even identical.
When you're learning percussion, you drill books of STANDARD PERCUSSION LINES! The rhythms are *standardized*. This is worse than copyrighting QuickSort!
Jesus, next time just copyright chord progressions and have a government judge kill off music once and for all! Guess what? All blocks of code flying by on a screen on a movie *look the same* to a non-programmer. But they're clearly not to an expert, which is all that actually matters.
As someone who recently picked up an instrument for the first time in a decade, you have convinced me. Maybe you should have represented the defense in court.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Excuse me but you have serious understanding issues. I stated these composers passed by without copyright laws, this has zero to do with your lengthly rant about how educated in music you are.
Look at how much JK Rawlings borrowed themes and story lines from JRR Tolkien.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Other than seeing band members in person, and I imagine that's fun once or twice, and lively social ambiance, what's the point of concerts? The music is so loud, you have to wear earplugs or you go deaf after a few concerts. The song rendition is not as good as on the recorded CD, and the singer is usually hoarse or singing off-key. On top of that, the tickets are quite expensive, Seems like concerts are very good at many things, except the music.
5000 people came to a concert show but 10 million people listened to the song on their smartphone or hi-fi system for free. Do you think it's fair that 9.99 million people pay $0 for this music?
One of the main reason for organizing concerts is increasing visibility of the band. That is, concerts are about advertising and marketing... the band's CD/single and also the band's image/brand. So if they don't have much future profit coming from sales of their music, there's not going to be any concert to go to. Without music sales, concerts die too, in most cases.
Paying only for concerts is like downloading MS-Windows 10/XP for free, but occasionally buying t-shirts and coffee mugs with some logo to financially support Microsoft. IOW, it's stupid because the income from t-shirts and mugs is going to be 1/millionth less than selling the OS itself.
I'm sure this verdict will encourage Marvin Gaye to produce many more creative works, now that he knows his monopoly on them will be secure.
> record labels are going to become more reluctant to release music that's similar to other works
This is stated like it's a bad thing.
This is NOT a bad thing.
My Heart Is A Flower
The industry will just add more lawyers to their roster and artists can attempt to negotiate a narrower and narrower path through the ever-expanding minefield of pre-existing work in and attempt to make something new that will sell, and more of the revenue can be eaten up paying for lawyers to defend artists from accusations they stepped off the path. Everybody wins. If "everybody" means lawyers.
This kind of ruling plus forever-lengthening copyright mean it's going to get tougher and tougher to compose anything that matches the subset of "pleasing to the ear" and "not already done". At least if sane limits were placed on copyright you wouldn't have the baggage of almost a century of pre-existing work to worry about.
But who gives a fuck about them?
This basically means that any kind of parody is outlawed now.
And just think what it means to someone who designs a new style of music. Who was the first to make dubstep? He's basically a billionaire now. Just sue everyone who ever thought of putting a bass through a low band filter.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you play a song in a key (and aren't doing anything fancy) you only have 7 possible chords to work with, and some of those chords will sound nicer than others so the range of possibilities isn't that big. 1, 5 and 3 are the ones that pretty much always sound great. Most blues and lots of country music uses just these three chords, and the vast majority of songs use them all somewhere.
Pachabel's Canon goes 1 5 6 3 4 1 4 5, which actually is quite a long progression and most songs that follow the whole thing probably have been inspired by it, but when people say a song rips it off they generally mean it uses the first four chords (1 5 6 3).
If you want to write a song that is easy to listen to a lot of people would start on 1, stick some 3's and 5's in there and maybe one of the other chords to give it some flavour. Lets say you want to do a four chord progression. If you wanted to try every possible combination of (1 ? ? ?) that is only 343 possibilities and you could bet you would try the ones with 3's and 5's in first. Spend a minute on each and you could try all of them in an afternoon.
The first four chords of Pachabel's Canon don't contain some magical secret sauce that everyone keeps stealing, its just one of those chord progressions that anyone who picks up an instrument will discover through experimentation and go "oh that sounds nice".
It appears copyright is a double edged sword for artists, whom I doubt anyone has any sympathy for at this point. The association that they pay into (RIAA) has been instrumental (pardon the pun HA!) in lobbying for stronger and longer copyright laws. So they basically are paying a group to make it harder to produce original works by which to make a living without getting sued.
To quote Justin Timberlake "Cry me a river!"
(please don't sue me Justin!)
> Similarly, placing a song (item) in your hard disk (bag) without payment is illegal.
Why are you assuming that public domain songs don't exist?
Do I have "pay myself" for songs I create when I record them?
The fact that someone can "claim ownership" over a particular sequence of math (chords, notes, etc.) is absurd.
Whether you derive a benefit from something has no logical bearing on whether or not you should compensate someone for it. My neighbor keeps his yard nice. I derive benefits from this. I enjoy looking at it. It makes my own property more appealing to others as well. Yet in no way can my neighbor rightfully claim I owe him so much as a cent for the improvements he's made to his property. From a purely ethical standpoint, you owe someone money only as an agreed-upon condition of exchange, or as compensation for other proven damages. That's it. When I download music and movies, I'm not agreeing to anything with the copyright holder, and I'm also not causing them damages, because they're not being deprived of anything that belongs to them. My possession of a copy of the music does not deprive them of their possession of a copy of the music, nor of their ability to perform that music.
http://www.piedpiper.com/
http://www.riaa.com/physicalpiracy.php?content_selector=piracy_online_the_law
I seem to remember a LOT of artists and industry leaders pointing out that copyright infringement is a significant and destructive crime, for sentencing purposes roughly as bad as burglary and only slightly less wrong than armed robbery. Clearly this must be stopped, and these criminals need to be stripped of their financial gain and sentenced to appropriate prison time.
We also need to go after anyone who aided in this crime by providing intruments, recording gear, and financial incentives. All of them. Prison. Same as we would for the extremely dangerous "college kid" sector.
We can't let this stand. Justice demands action.
If you don't lose a copyright lawsuit, it's original?
Not even if the benefit is being sold? By your logic, why should I pay for that new car, I should be able to obtain it for free. I should also be able to watch a movie in a theater for free, take a train ride for free, have free lunch at a restaurant. How dare these goods/service providers demand payment for their wares? It's nonsense.
"Melancholy Elephants" is a very important perspective on this issue.
If you don't lose a copyright lawsuit, it's original?
Under your "original until proven otherwise" metric, if I have written a musical work, how can I predict before self-publishing it the likelihood of it subsequently becoming not original?
I'm sorry I thought you were looking for a rational argument not a legal one. You are correct the laws right now support temporary intellectual monopolies over property rights.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
That sounds like you're trying to steal bread from the mouths of lawyers' children.
i stopped reading there, you're not worth my time
No ya didn't. You read that 5 times or more....fuming....seething. How dare I not acquiesce? And then you copped out because you have no argument that is based in reality. This is all conjured up garbage in your head.
yes, moron: advertising and charging for something are completely different business models
Listen, you obstinate prick, please stop embarrassing yourself. The only thing different about that is who the specific customer is. Different markets, sure, different "business model", no. At the end of the day, it's selling music.
Sorry, Charlie. You've been served. Thanks for playing.
i hate those jewish parasitic nigger lawyers
marvin gaye's wife takes longcock up ur anus i heard
It should be free or not free depending on the choice of the artist.
The problem with current models is that all mainstream music has to pass through the distribution cartel. People generally want to pay artists, but don't like it when 90% goes to the middleman who did nothing to add any value - in fact, the middle man is the reason why modern music is so crappy and generic to begin with.
Yea anything you enjoy must be re-payed. Can't actually have any net-fun. That would violate the laws of acquisition.
Fuck you and yours.
Someday we'll be out from under your tyranny via rebellion
(yes I record music. And license it all GPL, cc, etc)
I agree about the cowbell pattern. However, the performer did a greater service to themself and to their band in the original. Whoever it was really explored the space and played the hell out of that cowbell.
If you don't like it your only recourse is to kill members of the government until they lose power.
That is your only recourse in many things.
But since Napster changed everything, no one has yet been able to find a successful business model to replace what we have.
The travel agent industry said exact the same thing about Expedia/Travelzoo/etc. To them, it changed everything. To the rest of us, it just eliminated a middleman that was no longer needed. They thought customers would be overwhelmed by all the choices. We aren't. Travel agents never found a replacement business model. Neither did film developers. Neither did video rental stores. They all just ceased to exist except for a few boutiques catering to a niche.
Music is the same way. Some people are never going to stop making music. Some people are never going to stop listening to music. The question is whether we still need whole industry acting as the gatekeeper between those two. Communication is much cheaper than it used to be.
How about overthrow the government and have a blood bath.
They ban good guns.
They ban marrying girls (young girls).
They ban copying bits.
They imprison you for anything and everything.
They need to be cruely killed. We are not free.
I seriously doubt the verdict will stand. There really isn't anything other than the feel and the groove of Gaye's song there. And you can't copywrite those.
I always thought Pretty Hate Machine sounded quite a bit like Front by Front.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
My theory: the judge is a Hatsune Miku fan and the verdict is meant to punish Pharrell Williams for his horrible cover of Last Night, Good Night , which remixed the no.1 holographic diva into utter gibberish.
Simply quit paying for "industry" music, share all you have and support the NEW breed who give their music and make a living performing. All we can hear, belong s to us all, including every song ever played aloud.
Screw the stat-quo,it is we who legislate the future.
You're confused.
Some things have limits of duplication. A car and a lunch both require labor and resources that cannot be used on another car or lunch. Theaters and trains have limited capacity, as well as maintenance and operational costs. If I duplicate something digital, I'm manufacturing another copy, just as if I were making a car or a lunch. Since storage is very close to free, I'm not imposing on limited capacity, and I don't even have to duplicate it from a source the original person is paying for.
To put it another way: if you take my car, I don't have a car. If you take my lunch, I'm hungry. If you sneak into a theater or onto a train, you're using resources that somebody else can't use. If you copy the bad fiction I keep on Dropbox, I'll never know.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
This is a load of bull - just money grubbing by the Gaye estate and remaining family members. If the song had not gone off the charts, the jerks would never have said a word. I hope this is thrown out on appeal. BAD bad bad decision.
And this, boys and girls, is an excellent demonstration of why copyright law is simply not working.
Why do we have copyright terms longer than five years again?
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
what could happen to Led Zeppelin.
What is not fair is expecting that every single person is a possible customer, and if that person hasnt passed you money, you deny him something that cost you nothing to reproduce (notice i didnt say 'nothing to produce', my issue is with trying to license 7 billion people).
The business model of making something and expecting infinite licensing needs to die, NOW. IP is not real, and should be discarded as we move into the Information Age. Find new business models, stop restricting thought for profit. Provide a better SERVICE.
Good-bye
There's one reason I'm very glad Blurred Lines exists: Word Crimes
Currently my favorite song.
So how exactly is your argument rational? Do you think paying $10 for piece of plastic for material that cost millions of dollars to create gives you complete rights over that material, including redistribution? In what world can you rationally obtain a millions of dollars worth asset for $10? Perhaps only in the world of pirates, nowhere else.
All beats will have been defined by an artist, and all that will be left to hear is copyright.
No, it's not absurd. It's the only way these former napster, current torrent users, which slashdot is full of, get to listen to your music for free. It's all about stealing control of music from its creators so the freeloaders don't have to pay that 99 cents to listen to their favorite song. Music will be freed from the tyranny of its creators. LOL.
Fine. But suppose I were to pay for the resources and labor required to manufacture the car, can I have at just for that price (labor + materials)? The same goes for lunch at a restaurant.
If I were to pay labor + materials for both the lunch and the car, the price would be 1/5th to 1/10th the usual retail price. Please find me a place where I can buy lunch at 1/5th usual price or a new car at 1/5th retail price. Bet you can't find such a place. And yet you want to apply the same model to pure digital goods.
But that's MY choice. I shouldn't be REQUIRED to part with money to listen to music. We have the technology available that allows anyone to download any song they want for free.
This is the thing the music industry fails to understand. This day and age you're no longer REQUIRED to pay for music. The RIAA and studios need to move out of the mindset that people can be forced to pay and realise that people need to be enticed to pay.
The majority of people are happy to part with some coin to support the bands and artists they like. The problem is that they also feel no sympathy for the industry that takes 90-99% of the revenue and gives a pittance to the artists. You know the situation is bad when you have bands telling people to download their songs and come to their concerts.
And that's exactly what I do. It's not often that a good act comes to my city (Perth, Western Australia) but when a band I like comes here I make a point to go if I can. Same with comedians. I have bought 3 of the Foo Fighters albums but downloaded the other three. They played in Perth last week (I went, despite it being $150 for general admission) I would have been more than happy to give Dave Grohl and the band the A$9 I owed them for downloading their albums but I have the strangest feeling that if I did, they'd tell me they didn't need my A$9 and thank me for coming to their concert.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Not always true, here's an example of a lawsuit caused by sampling a song in India for an R&B and rap song.
http://www.mtv.com/news/145767...
If you want to have a consistent theory of property rights then intellectual monopoly has no place in it. What something costs to produce has zero to do with what price you can sell it for. That is basic economics. If it costs you millions of dollars to make something that I can do for $10 and customers determine they would rather have my product then you should lose business because you are wasting resources.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Yes, but where did that lawsuit (from 2002/2003) go?
Aside from the "We want $500,000,000!", and later a judge imposing an injunction "Pull the products or slap a sticker on there giving credit", I couldn't really find details on the case.
There's an interview with the singer from 2012, which includes:
http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/...
There's also this article, which seems to claim that copyright was filed - but said copyright filing itself had issues:
http://wayneandwax.com/?p=100
And then there's this article which seems to go into a bit more detail from a legal standpoint:
http://www.lexology.com/librar...
tl;dr: I highly doubt the Indian authors (whoever gets to claim 'authorship' there) got out ahead, and - more importantly - it bears little semblance to cases where no copyright was filed in the U.S.
The US national anthem is a derivative work; Maybe the brits should sue.
I'm sorry, did you or your ancestors create the song? No? Then what gives you the right to take it without permission, to enjoy the fruits of another person's labor? None, you have to right. The issue here is ownership, not monopoly. The person who created the song owns it. The person who did not create the song (eg: you) does not own it and has no rights to it unless he/she pays for it.
What exactly can you do with $10? Write a complete song? You're full of it.
Ha! Man, I like you. You hit the nail on the head. I swear, I try not to indulge these dudes when they spout off like this, but sometimes I just can't resist. Every time you put the shoe on the other foot and ask them if the same thing applies to books, or movies, or coding, or whatever, they've got 100 well-rehearsed reasons why music is somehow different so that they can feel better about themselves for jacking stuff off of The Pirate Bay.
I have to say I'm really torn on who I want to win this.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
There isn't much actually creative about "Blurred Lines". There isn't much creative about most music these days. The lift from Gaye with Blurred Lines amounted to little more than putting a new drum and bass track on it and changing the lyrics, otherwise it WAS exactly identical - it was sampled. There's NO music talent involved in doing this. Any idiot with Apple Garage Band can do it in 10 minutes. There is no musical talent required. There is no musical contribution or invention made. It's about as close to a pure ripe-off as it gets.
I'd hazard that studios and production teams have procedures and people dedicated to checking this.
If so, this is one advantage that established record labels can claim over indie self-publishing.
Perhaps accidentally damaging someone's property is a better analogy. You're still liable for repairs
Or your insurer. This means composers need to carry "errors and omissions" (E&O) insurance. How much does such a policy typically cost for a self-employed composer?
T-shirt has mountain and a guy holding a grain of sand he is placing on top of the mountain, there is a trail of people at the base of the mountain as far as the eye can see. Little blurb coming from the guy on the mountain says, "I just copyrighted this mountain." Giant rubber stamp coming from the sky has just left a giant red ink stamp on the mountain saying "(c) 2015 John Doe". Guy on top of mountain is wearing a t-shirt that says "John Doe".
Back of t-shirt, landscape full of mountains and one big blurb that says, "I'll see you in court!!!"
If you steal a car, you're depriving someone of a car. You're not taking $(labor + materials). If the value of a car to its makers were merely equivalent to labor + materials, the maker wouldn't have bothered making the car in the first place. The act of production was undertaken because the output is greater than the input.
LOL, where did I say "steal the car?" The cost of duplicating an existing car includes cost of raw materials, machinery and labor. And I just want to pay for that only, not the other design and other IP costs, or marketing/advertising.
Raw material cost: paid
Machinery rent cost: paid
Labor cost: paid
IP cost: not paid
Marketing/Advertising/Branding: not paid
Because stealing IP is not stealing and is okay, according to many on slashdot, not paying for car IP should not be considered stealing.
Right, and you think song makers should bother creating new music if you're just going pay them $10 and distribute it to millions for free?
The news played a clip where they cross-faded between the two songs and I couldn't hear where the cross-fade happened. I also couldn't hear any difference at all between the two clips in that isolated context (which is all the matters for copyright infringement). One could certainly argue that the ability to edit songs with a computer makes it easier to demonstrate things like this. I've also heard this done where completely different songs are fit together in very clever ways (sorry, I don't remember where); so, part of this might be that the courts haven't caught up with computers.
But I think the over-riding issue here is that the admitted they copied from it, by calling what they did a tribute. Most of the time when someone does a tribute to another artists work, they cover the songs with different arrangements and pay royalties to the other artist. The "tribute" thing has happened before with ZZ Top and John Lee Hooker (La Grange vs Boogie Chillin', I think). It was much more overt in that case - I believe it never went to court. But that sets an industry precedent for using the term "tribute" in this manner as a face saving maneuver when somebody knows they got caught.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Marvin Gaye might disagree about what his kids deserve. It could even be that he left the works to his kids with the express instructions to do exactly this: Remember that the music industry has had a long history of ripping off black artists from Marvin Gaye's generation. There is definitely a lot of residual resentment.
And before you think this is a tragedy: The flip side of that is that the music industry might get more interested in supporting artists who actually are capable of creating original material. Given that it's easier to sell copies of something popular than something new, I won't be holding my breath for anything to change, but that is one possible outcome.
An engineer who ran for Congress. http://herbrobinson.us
Resources aren't just materials, they include the means of production and other things. I may well be wrong, but I doubt you could have a car put together that cheaply by buying parts and paying a mechanic. Your car is amortizing a really, really large capital investment, for example, and those machines cannot be used to make another car.
As far as lunches go, I can and do get them cheaply by buying materials and making them myself. . I have to use my own facilities, but I have one of those specialized food preparation rooms in my house. If I get one made, the lunch I got was prepared by somebody who couldn't be preparing somebody else's lunch at the same time with tools not available for preparing another lunch.
As far as digital goods go, I'm normally making my own copy, frequently from a host that is not supported by the copyright holder. (I don't normally download in defiance of copyright, but I do torrent Linux distros sometimes, among other things.) No cost to anybody else involved. No noticeable use of scarce labor or materials.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I'm not talking about ordinary home-cooked meals, but tasty restaurant meals created by expert cooks. I'm willing to pay the cook for the ingredients + hourly wage + rent of his kitchen tools/or he can borrow my kitchen utensils.
My condition: the restaurant open sources all its recipes, so no we don't pay for any trade-secret IP.
Adding up these costs results in 1/5th the cost we pay at restaurants. Why should we pay so much for the IP and renting a table/chair for an hour or so?
But I specifically selected examples where labor or materials are not scarce. Cooking is thousands of years old, and cars, hundreds of years old. If I were to pay for all the materials and labor required to build cars, or prepare food the cost would be a tiny fraction of what we pay in retail. Why should we pay so much for non-digital IP? If you agree to apply the same low cost to physical products (which are simply, IP + raw materials), we can agree to reduce the cost of digital goods.
Why do you care about how a product is embodied: physical or digital? It requires the same cost structure (maybe more upfront costs than physical products), talent and genius to create both types of products. So why should you have the right to pay little for digital goods?
As a music producer, not on these guys' level for sure, but still, as a musician too, I thought the case was BS. This kind of thing is sometimes how new genres form. And basically all elements that were said to have been copied just sounded similar and were not copied... if you look at the actual transcription of the notes and beats. Pandora would rate the two songs with some similarities, giving them both cowbell tags, groovy, etc. And the artists who made the new song were influenced by the artist being represented by the litigators. Big whup. That does not constitute copyright infringement, copying the song, etc. It's called making a fairly bombass song with some "dna" from some old masters in it. That's a legacy of the original musicians and songwriters. It shows that they were good and had vision. It does not give their bitch-ass families and record labels financial control over all music that strays near that style for all time. Especially when the newer song is actually funkier in many respects. It'd be like one of the original classical music composer's team of lawyers and family suing every single classical composer ever since, all down the line. It's all mildly derivative and sounds more or less the same by the standards of this court case! This is just how music works.
I love that George Clinton rejected his record label joining that lawsuit! He "couldn't hear it." That's the difference between asking a musician and asking a team of lawyers / jurors.
Maybe Jonathan Coulton could get an apology from Fox/Glee over "Baby Got Back"
The cost of duplicating an existing car includes cost of raw materials, machinery and labor. And I just want to pay for that only, not the other design and other IP costs, or marketing/advertising.
You mean if you want to build your own Ferrari, according to the same specs, and even attaching the Ferrari badge to it? That's fine. Patent and trademark are no more sensible than copyright. Don't go selling it to someone on the basis that it was manufactured in Maranello by the company Enzo Ferrari founded in 1929, though. That would be fraud (the claim against you would be by the buyer, not Ferrari.)
Raw material cost: paid Machinery rent cost: paid Labor cost: paid IP cost: not paid Marketing/Advertising/Branding: not paid
I'm not sure what you mean by "IP Costs," and I consider marketing/branding to be part of "labor + materials" broadly defined.
Right, and you think song makers should bother creating new music if you're just going pay them $10 and distribute it to millions for free?
Their motivation is irrelevant. If song makers want to get paid, let them do so with an ethically defensible business model. "I want to control the property of other people so they have to give me money," is not a valid argument.