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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.
Lawyers don't commit theft; if for no other reason than lawyers write all the laws, interpret all the laws, and for the most part hold all the highest level law executive positions.
Exactly, just like most rapists doesn't commit rape since they are never caught and tried in court.
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.
So he was licensing the derivative work, not the original. The Gaye estate has no reason to go after him; they deal with Williams and Thicke.
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
Good luck with that - those original artists will have to register for copyright in the U.S. first, if they want to have any chance at preventing it:
In other words, nothing has changed in the (almost) one and three quarters centuries since Charles Dickens complained that US publishers could (re)publish his works without having to pay him one penny.
Since I don't have Mod points ... I want to confirm you made your point with the video https://www.youtube.com/watch?... Axis of Awesome Four Chord Song.
More perfect ( and a good mix of laughter ) presentation of the point could not have been done.
I did like the lady gaga song, I would have never guessed it was 4-cord
if you see me, smile and say hello.
Copyright has been extended in such a way as to re-copyright works that had entered the public domain.
Perhaps we should be lobbying for copyright to be extended further backwards so all those dead people will be more motivated. At least it might show the stupidity of endless copyright if anyone using stories based on Shakespeare had to pay his estate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
You apparently think that thoughts and ideas can be owned. I disagree.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
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.
Technically Canon in D is I-V-vi-iii-IV-I-IV-V and all of those other ones are a shortened version I-V-vi-IV (and yes, I've seen Pachelbel rant). You can throw in P!nk (like every hit), U2 (With or Without You), Taylor Swift (at least two), Of Monsters and Men (Little Talks), Lady Gaga (like ever hit), Nickelback (like every hit) just to name a few more.
Still, I-V-vi-IV and its inversions (particularly the "sensitive singer songwriter" vi-IV-I-V) probably have been around long enough to be able to cite prior art. Kinda like the 12 bar blues. We probably can find examples of the 50s progression of I-vi-IV-V (to name a few songs, Crocodile Rock [Elton John], D'yer Mak'er [Led Zeppelin], The Man Comes Around [Johnny Cash], Every Breath You Take [the Police], Heart and Soul [Larry Clinton], Lollypop [Ronald and Ruby], Earth Angel [the Penguins]), that predate the 50s too (in fact, Heart and Soul was recorded in the 1930s and covered multiple times, especially in the 1950s).
this is a fantastic video that demonstrates how stupid this court case is. when debating music originality with people, I often make them watch that video and this TED talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
There may be only 12 notes on on the western scale, but only certain combinations of those notes actually sound good.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
, and if every song using four chords is a derivative work
Alternatively, you could just argue that 4 chords by itself is not sufficient to make a copyright claim.
The 4 chords in a '4 chord song' are G, C, F, A
And yes, if you play them in sequence at the right tempo, and then sing, you can do 100 pop songs. Big deal. The fact that songs as different sounding as Poker Face and No Woman No Cry rest on them just argues to what small degree the chord sequence is to the whole song.
Go ahead grab a guitar or a piano and just play G, C, F, A over and over again. You aren't playing anything. Not even the intro to Journey's Don't stop believing is as simple as that.
Its harmonic; and you can play along with Journey or a 100 other songs as compatible accompaniment; but you aren't playing the songs, anymore than you would be than if you were just keeping time by tapping your feet.
You mean like this?
Disney has copyrighted Snow White, a character that existed before even Walt Disney himself!
No. The concept of something expiring into the public domain originated in France.