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Melody Thief!?!?


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Do you ever catch yourself wondering if your melody is yours or you have heard it somewhere before? Sometimes when I get so comfortable with a melody I panic that, is it because it came out of my imagination or deep down in my memory?!?

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Hey Cassie

I think it is something that we all are wary of. The subconscious can play such tricks very easily. I am sure pretty well every writer has either consciously or unconsciously reflected a melody or harmony or chord sequence that they heard elsewhere. I don't mean an intentional plagiarism, but their work could "be inspired by". Direct lifts we want to avoid consciously or unconsciously, and all we can do is check, check, check that our music does not do this. That is one of the great benefits of performing to a community like this... You get to sanity check your music!

Cheers

John

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  • 6 months later...
  • Noob

Hi Cassie,

 

I'm glad you started this topic as it has been one of my main concerns for some time and one prompted me to seek out a songwriter discussion forum to learn how others are handling it.  What I would like to know is if anyone has found a reliable way of researching a melody of one's own composition to see if it is perhaps uncomfortably close to an already published one?  I've thought about uploading an audio of a new melody to YouTube and leaving it there for a week or so just to see if their Content ID system flags it for copyright infringement, but that seems a bit like abusing their service and may not be that comprehensive a review anyway.

 

I'd be interested in your, or anyone's, ideas on this subject.

 

Best wishes,

 

Tom

 

 

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  • Noob

James -- An interesting take on the subject indeed, but I don't think it's exactly the same issue.  I'm not concerned about writing a song with the same subject matter or even the same treatment as a pre-existing song; my concern is with unconsciously copying another writer's melody, one which I've heard at some point in the past, perhaps while not even consciously aware of it at the time, and then having that melody resurface in my mind while I'm composing what I think is a work of my own.

 

Along those lines, has anyone used any of the melody search engines, such as midomi, WatZatSong, or musipedia to screen your melodies for possible duplication of another's work and, if so, what was your opinion of their utility?  In my experience, they seem to generate a lot of false positives.

 

What I'm trying to do with this topic is find a way to avoid accidentally infringing on someone else's copyrighted work.

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  • Noob

Honestly Tom, I doubt it's even possible.

As a matter of curiosity, can I ask why you're so concerned about the possibility?

 

Tom

 

Why am I so concerned about the possibility?  I suppose it's just me.  It seems like something that could happen after a song has been released into the stores and result in a copyright infringement lawsuit and all the associated legal costs and unpleasantness.  Something that would be best avoided if possible.

 

Also, as a matter of curiosity, may I ask why it matters to you why I'm concerned about the possibility?

 

Tom

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Hi Tom,

 

Thanks for sharing your concerns.  

 

It seems a bit catch 22 to want to create something "original" meaning not done by anyone before, but you want it to be pleasing and liked by yourself and others....the commonalities of what people like have to have something in common, but having something in common musically means someone will have done something like it before.

 

 

>James -- An interesting take on the subject indeed, but I don't think it's exactly the same issue. 

 

I saw the parallel as photography being related to the visual world and songs/music to the auditory world.

 

Thanks again.

 

James

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  • 2 months later...

I was oh-so-very pleased when I posted my first 'song' here. I couldn't have imagined that I'd do so well with the chord progression and melody, because typically, I use a very basic I, IV, V pattern of major chords (yeah, I write and play very basically and simply). On this song, I used majors and minors and man, did that thing sound GOOD to me! Until, David (Hobo Sage) pointed out that my song chord progression and melody was VERY similar to THE WRECK OF THE EDMUND FITZGERALD by G. Lightfoot.

 

Now, I live in fear of 'stealing' someone elses melody, I owe David a debt of gratitude for catching that for me (and other things as well...).

 

This is a great site, I'm so happy to have found it and am learning more every day.

 

Thanks to all of you who make this site what it is. 

Edited by Danidog
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If only those websites that try to identify songs that you sing worked.

 

They dont for me. I dont get anything remotely like what Im looking for.

 

Good idea though.

 

A lot of good ideas dont work. That includes most of mine too.

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  • 4 weeks later...

This is something I caught myself doing with something I came up with a few days ago - not the entire song, but there's a couple of phrases where the melody exactly mirrors a song I was shown by a friend the day before. I'm glad I caught that.

The problem for me is, now that I've realised the parallel between the two, I'm finding it difficult to do anything about it. I love my lyrics and don't want to change them for these phrases (the lyrics aren't parallel) but I can't hear them with any other melody other than the one I inadvertently "stole".

Any ideas how to proceed?

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This is something I caught myself doing with something I came up with a few days ago - not the entire song, but there's a couple of phrases where the melody exactly mirrors a song I was shown by a friend the day before. I'm glad I caught that.

The problem for me is, now that I've realised the parallel between the two, I'm finding it difficult to do anything about it. I love my lyrics and don't want to change them for these phrases (the lyrics aren't parallel) but I can't hear them with any other melody other than the one I inadvertently "stole".

Any ideas how to proceed?

 

You are going to have to disassociate your song from the other one somehow or other. Try this for starters:

 

Change the key from major to minor or vice-versa. You might not like the result but it will transform the music without altering the melody.

Example: if the key is in A min then change it to C maj (or the other way around). It can be done with individual chords or for the whole song.

 

If you need more info on this, let us know.

 

Good luck

 

Rudi

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You are going to have to disassociate your song from the other one somehow or other. Try this for starters:

 

Change the key from major to minor or vice-versa. You might not like the result but it will transform the music without altering the melody.

Example: if the key is in A min then change it to C maj (or the other way around). It can be done with individual chords or for the whole song.

 

If you need more info on this, let us know.

 

Good luck

 

Rudi

  

You may also try....

  • making very accurate notes on what you've discovered & what you feel need's changing
  • Put the project down for a few months and start on something else
Sound like you're tunneled in right now & could use a fresh perspective. Time away from the project may be all you need.

 

Good luck!

 

Tom

That's great advice; I'll try to do that. Thank you! It's a shame cause I was starting to make really good progress on that, or so I thought!

I think I'm just going to work on other stuff for a while, and if something hits me with this one I'll go with it.

Thanks for your help!

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  • 2 months later...

Given we only have a finite number of notes to work with, and a less difinitive number of associations anyone may consider pleasing, it is probable that at some stage we will write what has already been written. We can't know every piece of music already written.

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  • 4 weeks later...

If you write enough songs you are going to make a mistake something is going to come out if your subconscious and end up in a song.

If it does it's not a big deal if it's unintentional. The infringed party is going to get a share of the royalties. Which is fair so it's only a drama if you are in denial. If you had access to the infringed work and it's substantially similar then you need to come to an agreement. And try to stay out of court.

Look at Lennon's result as apposed to Harrison's.

So I don't worry about it. Other than if someone points out that it sounds like something else and if I agreed I would imeadiately take it down.

But that has never happened.

Cheers

Gary

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  • 3 weeks later...

Since this topic was started, I started actively looking for works with very similar chord progressions. I am amazed. A "typical" rock and roll progression of C,Am,F,G,C, and a dash of E7 has MANY very recognizable songs (I'm up to five with that particular set of chords. Two examples would be L. Cohen's HALLELUJAH, and a song made popular by Marty Robbins (and others) named, YOU GAVE ME A MOUNTAIN (not sure who wrote it). Still looking or more to fit this progression. 

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  • Noob

Hi Danidog,

 

It's true that many songs have the same chord progressions.  That's not the problem though as chord progressions are not copyrightable.  The problems arise when the melody of your song is too similar to the melody of an existing song.  In those cases, the precise meaning of "too similar" is what gets hashed out in court; a situation that's best avoided altogether.

 

Best regards.

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I agree totally. But, I ask myself, who makes the 'rules' of too much similarity? How did they arrive at that conclusion? A title is not copyrightable, nor chord progressions. And, as someone earlier stated there are a limited number of notes to be placed in some particular order.

 

Not really looking for a definitive answer here, just wondering about the legalities of the issue and how they 'divided the baby'. On a personal level, I want a work to be my creation, not someone else's that I changed the words to. For me, I make the rules for whether or not something is too similar and my standards are tougher (I think) than the legal system since I don't even want chord progressions to be same/similar.

 

Interesting thread

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Hey

 

In essence you can copyright a chord progression... it is just very rare. The reason is that copyright is actually about what is "original". Chord progressions are very, very rarely original.

 

Titles cannot be copyrighted. They are considered to be too short. The same is true of phrases. You can however protect phrases under trademarks (I believe), but I am not sure of the level of protection there.

 

"Reasonable" and other such words where meaning is not exact, do have legal definition as to interpretation. This relies heavily on case precedence. In the case of music, it comes down to previous rulings as to what a jury has considered "similar", or where "reasonable" separation occurs. This is where the number of notes comes into play. We can all agree that copyright at a single note level would be impossible. It is too short... and fundamentally, it wouldn't be original!

 

An Ents lawyer could say that at 9 notes with the same relative pitches and timing would definitely be ruled one way, but a jury could stil rule on 7 notes etc.

 

There is also the aspect of proven exposure to the song. It is not enough to demonstrate similarity. Yet again this comes down to expected opportunity and will be judged by a jury.

 

Different jurisdictions also rule differently, in part because their case precedence is different, and in part because of variations in law giving varying levels of protection for artists. For example, California tends to be quite protective of artists because their economy has a large component derived from copyrighted works. Spain however has a terrible enforcement of copyright and interpret the Berne Convention in a considerably looser way.

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Agreed. Exposure and acccess are among those jurisdictional differences, although in essence "exposure" is generally regarded as "did they have opportunity". For example if a song is played every day on the radio, it is "reasonable" to assume exposure was "likely". That I believe is sufficient to satisfy that provision... so on interpretation it is very similar

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  • 1 month later...
  • Noob

I know this thread is on the older side, but I had just come here to ask a similar question and happened upon it. I too wonder sometimes if a melody I just came up with is actually something I've heard and am subconsciously mimicking. I think, boy, this melody is awesome! It sounds so natural and came to me so easily...oh, wait, is that because it's on the radio right now and I'm just not recognizing it? LOL

But from reading this thread I feel fairly confident that once I post my songs for critique, objective listeners will catch it even if I don't.

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