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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.
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!
...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...
... 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Weird Al is safe for two reasons:
1) He gets permission from every artist prior to doing a parody, despite the fact that he doesn't really need to because...
2) US Copyright law makes specific mention of parody as fair use. Some parody is subtle, but Al's is broad and obvious. I would like to see a lawyer try to argue his works are not parody.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
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.
Most artists consider it an honor to have Weird Al do a parody of their work.
Occasionally living proof of the Ballmer peak.
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
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.
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
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.
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.
I don't know if they make mathematical sense but music theory has standards for composition that are and have been used for generations and are present in everything from classical music to blues to hardcore death metal whether the artist realizes that's why it sounds good or not is another question.
My younger brother plays in a melodic metal band, they once called me to analyze a piece of music because the two guitarist were fighting over what key it is in.
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
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
... 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
Then let me rephrase: How should I go about ensuring my music is original?
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.
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.
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/
Look at how much JK Rawlings borrowed themes and story lines from JRR Tolkien.
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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
except his (IMHO utterly horrible) animals track copied about 3 other tracks. Electronic music in general would completely dissappear since everyone takes little bits and pieces from everyone else. House(funky especially) has been my goto genre for 15 years or more now, but they really just cant sue each other or they would all go down in flames. Hell 1/3 of all songs relesed in the past 5 years could be taken down by eric prydz for sampling his pryda snare hit straight from his track (it would be a straight look n feel type of thing), good thing he said he doesnt particularly care, he's just annoyed
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.