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Plagiarism in Music.

DEFTLEFTHAND

People have been borrowing riffs and taking their influences a bit too far for forever in music. It's ok when it's not utterly blatant

Two of egs, of people ripping off the Kinks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7encWb7lNQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTzCbBwaEM8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMWNwHof0kc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qUZf4Wz7gM

Any other good instances of plagiarism in music that you can recollect?

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Saipanne

I fücking hate that term. It was invented by music lawyers to protect a record company's profits. In folk and world music, borrowing and trading ideas is common, and forms an important part of music culture. In western pop culture, its plagiarism. Any time I hear that word in music, I just hear a bunch of lawyers.

DEFTLEFTHAND

Saipanne wrote: »

I fücking hate that term. It was invented by music lawyers to protect a record company's profits. In folk and world music, borrowing and trading ideas is common, and forms an important part of music culture. In western pop culture, its plagiarism. Any time I hear that word in music, I just hear a bunch of lawyers.

I did mention that artists borrow influences from each other, it only becomes a 'Passing Off' offence when they blatantly steal, rewrite a tune from it's original structure and passing it off as their own creation.

It's a business at the end of the day. The Kinks successfully sued the Doors for 'Hello I love You' and were given royalty rights on future sales. Ray Davies was listed as a co author on the liner notes thereafter.

[Deleted User]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBpy3JrI3oQ

Sounds a tiny bit like Walking in Memphis, but a vast improvement...

Grab All Association

Don't think its plagiarism but these two songs sound similar

Rhythm Is a Dancer

Mr Vain

anewme

U2's Beautiful Day sounds very similar to A-ha'sThe sun always shines on TV

I heard another one in the car the other day, some boy band rip off of an older song....will put it up when I think of it.

Delirium

First thing I thought of when I saw this thread.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IZ-jATBq9A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZKcmBJTVKI

purplepanda

The Kinks were ripping of Chuck Berry & Led Zep robbed Howlin Wolf amongst many others!

ceadaoin.

Sam Smiths Stay with Me sounds like I Won't Back Down by Tom Petty. Smith claimed it was a coincidence and he'd never even heard that song but he agreed to pay royalties to Petty and list him as co writer.

I know he's young but I'd have thought everyone has heard that song at this stage!

Dirty Dingus McGee

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Sam Smiths Stay with Me sounds like I Won't Back Down by Tom Petty. Smith claimed it was a coincidence and he'd never even heard that song but he agreed to pay royalties to Petty and list him as co writer.

I know he's young but I'd have thought everyone has heard that song at this stage!

There is a small bit of that sounds similar but surely there are a limited amount of notes etc that can be used and after a while songs will sound similar by accident anyway.

So many films and books are effectively the same story but I've never heard too many cases in those fields of people claiming plagarism.

[Deleted User]

Grab All Association wrote: »

Don't think its plagiarism but these two songs sound similar

Rhythm Is a Dancer

Mr Vain

Same country and genre, same era.

German Eurodance, released within a few months of each other.

hatrickpatrick

U2 and the Killers are my two absolute favourite bands, I'm not bashing The Killers by posting this (as someone else said, the concept of "plagiarism" has gone way too far in recent times and is now overly restrictive)

However...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kymv12R8J3I

[Deleted User]

The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony sampled a riff from the Rolling Stones. Despite this being agreed on, a former manager of the Stones; who owned the rights to the song that was sampled, sued the Verve, saying that they had used longer than the agreed upon sample, forcing them to hand over 100% of all songwriting loyalties ... So despite the fact it was the band's biggest and best known hit (and a huge financial success), they have made barely any money.

bmurph16

Haven't even touched on the whole techno house scene. LOL there's money to be made there no doubt

[Deleted User]

Deleted User wrote: »

The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony sampled a riff from the Rolling Stones...despite the fact it was the band's biggest and best known hit (and a huge financial success), they have made barely any money.

From that song.

On the other hand it launched them to a year or 2 of superstardom in which they must have made a fortune, Urban Hymns being one of the biggest selling albums in the UK ever, so even if the infringement was a genuine error the single it was used in made their career.

[Deleted User]

bmurph16 wrote: »

Haven't even touched on the whole techno house scene. LOL there's money to be made there no doubt

The Raving I'm Raving track I linked above was on the verge of hitting No. 1 in the UK when Marc Cohen got all prissy and pulled it. Even though it was far better than his maudlin droning. After that things got a lot tighter.

I guess the KLF kept a few lawyers busy, after all it was what gave them their name.

HalloweenJack

This:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Hbr778CD3M

...and this (can't find a copy of the original album version):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lp0sUGlam6c

The_Valeyard

Everything is a copy of a copy.

The_Valeyard

Everything is a copy of a copy.

wingnut

Enya and the Fugees. The Fugues got done for it.

MRnotlob606

From 3.49 you can hear the resemblance to Viva La Vida

From 0.49 you can Viva La Vida sounding melody

It's very difficult to see who's a fault here. Or whether it was just a complete coincidence.Its a very popular plagiarism debate on Youtube.

Irish Guitarist

haveringchick

On songs, not so much plagiarism directly but more stealing someone else's "theme"
Is Adeles
http://youtu.be/7AW9C3-qWug

And

http://youtu.be/YQHsXMglC9A
Not just reruns of Janis Ian

http://youtu.be/_1u1GN2uO6I

melissak

[Deleted User] wrote: »

The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony sampled a riff from the Rolling Stones. Despite this being agreed on, a former manager of the Stones; who owned the rights to the song that was sampled, sued the Verve, saying that they had used longer than the agreed upon sample, forcing them to hand over 100% of all songwriting loyalties ... So despite the fact it was the band's biggest and best known hit (and a huge financial success), they have made barely any money.

Harsh.

purplepanda

Music legal copyright & publishing laws usually apply only to song lyrics & melodies.

Nobody can copyright chords, bass or guitar riffs or a drum beat ect: unless the part of original recording is actually sampled & used which would be be subject to a legal challenge for recording copyright such as The Verve case.

So you can rob (AKA learn to play :rolleyes:) a Kinks riff or two as long as you use a different lyric & melody in combination! You can ask your drummer (or program ) to play any beat from any drummer you like

The Specials took "Gangsters" from Prince Buster & added lyrics on top, yet got away with it!

donegaLroad

for all the One Direction fans, some of them are very blatant rip offs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3YNx6C-v54

Falthyron

This might go some way to explaining it!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOlDewpCfZQ

El Weirdo

MRnotlob606 wrote: »

From 3.49 you can hear the resemblance to Viva La Vida

From 0.49 you can Viva La Vida sounding melody

It's very difficult to see who's a fault here. Or whether it was just a complete coincidence.Its a very popular plagiarism debate on Youtube.

I'll take your word for it. There's no way I'm willingly opening a Coldplay video.

bodhrandude

Steve Miller Band - Rock'n me

Free - All Right Now

Miller definitely uses the same intro as Free although on a different key.

TPD

The whole jungle genre is basically plagarised from 6 seconds of drums from 'Amen, brother' by the Winstons. Pretty sure the drummer got diddly from it too.