Accidental Plagarism

[DeadSkinny]

I've heard of this before, a phenomina that sometime affects even professional songwriters. You think you've written a brand new song, the words and melody for a chorus just kindof poped into your head. You finish and demo the song. Then it turms out that your "inspiration" came directly from a song you've acually heard before (playing quietly over the intercom speakers at the doctors office eight years ago, for example). They call your song a rip-off, tell you that you've made a copyright infringement. Now you've embarased you're self in front of industry professionals, and your reputation is tarnished forever.

But it was an accident! It was a mistake of you're subconsious! Now, i've done this before once or twice (when I was first learning to play) with bit's of music, or riffs, generaly accompanied by some vague vocal melody. I would think they were my own, most of the music I wrote (and write) come's to me with a vocal melody already in mind. Then later I would hear them on the radio, some song from my past, or some album that i hadn't played in a very long time. Crap! No big deal, but what if a chorus you've written, complete with the hook and melody, was identical, or almost identical, to someone elses?

I don't believe that this would be able to happen with really deeply personal lyrics, but what about commercial lyrics?

Has anyone ever heard of, or have any thought's on this?

-joel

[john]

Hey

I'm not aware of this happening to me, but I have written a song that a bit did sound like another song, but as far as I was aware I hadn't heard that song until after I had written mine. That said I guess it is possible I heard it playing as I passed a shop etc.

The thing is, what can you do about it? Personally I run my track passed lots of friends. Obviously I'd hate to be in that position, and yes it would be embarassing.

A lot of music "borrows" from existing music. I think "inspired by" is ok, but a copy is another thing.

Cheers

John

[DeadSkinny]

I've done a little more research about this. The tecnical court term is "subconscious plagiarism". George Harrison was once found guilty of it. I've never had a real problem with this myself either, but in aspiring to be a commercial songwriter, you have to wonder what exactly inspired that great song you just wrote.

Of course, trying to emulate the sound of another's song for you own new work is different, your aware of what your doing, so you don't just copy the other persons material. You make something new, something that only borrows a feel from the other song.

I think it's highly plauseble that someone might accidentaly end up with a melody (or chord progression) and hook that came from another's song unaware's, thinking it's their own. This has never happened to me that I know of either:-/ , but it seems like it would be all to easy to do.

-joel

[john]

Hey Joel

Out of interest, do you know if it makes any difference in the kind of penalty? I would imagine it doesn't make a difference with compensation.

Cheers

John

[DeadSkinny]

Humm.........I'm not sure about that. I get the impression that it's looked upon with less severity than intentional plagiarism in the eyes of the law, but i'm sure it could destroy the career of a new writer.

Two different parties can own individual copyrights on an almost identical piece of music, if it's deemed that the later had no access to the first work, and came up with the similar piece on his/her own. So i guess your best be in such a situation would be to go with that defence, although the song would be completly unmarketable ("hey guys, have you heard the new song 'Sexy Bakk'? It sounds just like 'Sexy Back', by Justin Timberlake). I don't know, in todays world of ten million copyrighted songs, it's probably got to be very, very similar to another's work before anyone would raise their eyebrows.

-joel

[Guest voclizr]

Skinny;

Chord progressions do not a copyright make. Think back on all the songs in the 50s that had the C-Em-Am-G progression. That was a popular progression back then. Another good example is "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" by the Beatles and "25 or 6 to 4" by Chicago. Both songs have the same decending A minor chord progression. What you have to watch is the MELODY. There is kind of an idea floating around (may be a myth) that you are allowed to borrow 2 bars of a melody before it becomes plagarism. That MAY be true in most cases. Joe Jackson borrowed two measures from Badfinger in his hit "Breaking Us In Two" in 1983. The first two bars were exactly the same as Badfinger's "Day After Day" from 1972. (if you know both songs, think about it). However, I would think that could be overlooked in a really unique song (or riff). For example, I wouldn't want to borrow the first two measures of the Beatle's song "Day Tripper".

John B.

[DeadSkinny]

no, i wasn't saying just chord progressions could get you in trouble. if that was the case, we would all be screwed! I just used guitar riffs as an example of unconciously channeling from your memory while creating a piece of music. however, a chord progression, basic vocal melody, and vocal hook accidentaly borrowed from another song might be a problem.

-joel

[Alistair]

And then there's the problem of plagiarising yourself. Not that it would attract litigation, but trying not to write songs that sound like other songs I have written can be tricky. Now, if those 2 songs happened to sound like someone else's song THEN I could be in trouble.

"Yes, your honour, I swear I wrote a Hey Jude soundalike TWICE, BY ACCIDENT!"

[Rudi]

I knew someone who was rather too inspired by songs he liked. More than once he would introduce a song he had just written & later we would hear something oddly similar on the radio.

[Alistair]

I knew someone who was rather too inspired by songs he liked. More than once he would introduce a song he had just written & later we would hear something oddly similar on the radio.

It wasn't me, was it?

[Rudi]

No Al, your as safe as houses!

I no longer listen to the radio.

[john]

[Lazz]

I personally think George Harrison was innocent and the charge against him was quite ridiculous.

Neither do I believe in subconscious plagiarism.

I think plagiarism should be very conscious and full of intent.

For example, now that I have drawn it to your attention, if you click on 'Lazz Songs', below, and check out 'Clean Up Your Room', you may notice that the bridge bears an uncanny resemblance to 'Blowing In The Wind'. But it's well-hidden, that's all.

[Guest voclizr]

I personally think George Harrison was innocent and the charge against him was quite ridiculous.

Lazz;

I'm afraid I respectfully disagree with you there. The Harrison song copied "He's So Fine" so much that it almost sounds like it was intentional!! HSF was a hit around the time The Beatles were hitting it big in the US. John Lennon even commented in his Playboy interview that George "walked right into it", implying that George should've known better than to go there with that song.

I DO think that the penalties are too stiff regarding this situation, though. I don't think that many people plagarize songs intentionally and if it happens it's probably a pretty big embarrasment to the "plagerizer". To throw a lawsuit on top of that just rubs too much salt into the wound!

John B.

[Lazz]

Hey John,

I just feel that the changes and melody are/were such a basic part of the idiom that the question of 'who plagiarised who' consciously or sub-consciously could go on forever. Where did Ronnie Mack get his song from ? I seem to remember there being a musicologist of some repute involved in testimony who spelled out the general lack of originilaty in 'He's So Fine', 'My Sweet Lord' and a whole bunch of other smilar beasts. The main issue appears to have been that, until George Harrison's song came around, there was nobody worth suing. It also seems clear to me that the dispute could have easily been resolved by mutual agreement had not the grubbily acquisitive Allen Klein been involved. To me, it was a big non-issue that should and could have been made to go away quietly, but Klein's greed and trickiness prolonged the dispute and forced the issue into open court.

And - in response to queries from John and DeadSkinny, the appeal court's position on the notion of 'subconscious plagiarism' was that the nature of intent had zip to do with the facts of infringement - i.e. there is no need to demonstrate an 'intent to infringe' in order to find that infringement has been committed.

There wa a Steely Dan case, too. Don't think it came to court. Keith Jarret just said 'Oi!! - You nicked that from me," and they said, "Fair cop, guv', here's the cheque." I s'pose now I'll have to go and refresh my memory about which tunes were involved.

Now, having said all that, I can't seriously imagine Dylan ever suing me for a rip-off because first, the similarities are mutated and pretty well hidden to most folk unless they're pointed out, and secondly, I think I would be happy to argue thet, like 'My Sweet Lord' and 'He's So Fine', there is a complete lineage of echoes through the years in the basic melody and changes.

More serious and objective infringements happen all the time without provoking complaint - buggered if I understand why that happens.

Off the top of my head....

Jagger-Richards claiming copyright for Robert Johnson's "Love In Vain'.

B.B King not suing Rod Stewart for the direct lift of 'Rock Me Baby" in "Rock My Plimsoles".

Cat Steven's "I Love My Dog" being exactly note-for-note the same as Yusef Lateef's 'Plum Blossom"

The list could go on - flagrant and blatant - yet they take credit and get away with it.

[roxhythe]

I did it once. Back in 1976, I wrote "One: I Love You." Nice, rollicking love song about a stalker--it was the second good song I'd ever written, and it's fun to play with impromptu groups of musicians because the chord progression is so simple. It was done back in my Richard & Mimi Farina Period, and I figured one of the curses was I had emulated Richard & Mimi so well that audiences actually thought it *was* a Richard & Mimi Farina song. (I always had to reassure them that no, Richard & Mimi Farina never did write a love song about a stalker.)

It was one of those "check and make sure you haven't used an already-used title" discussions on line that got me to google the title--and I found there was a song with the same title, that had been in a movie: a Robert Altman film called "Nashville" that had come out in (duh!) 1976. Film critics were still reviewing that movie, 30 years later, and some of the reviews quoted lines from the songs, including that one--and wait a minute! some of the lines they were quoting sounded just like mine.

Thing is, I had never seen the movie, or heard any songs from the movie. I was living way out in the country at the time, in a little town of 50 people. No television, no radio, and we didn't go to movies, either. I didn't even have a radio in my truck. Obviously, somebody ripped off somebody, either consciously or unconsciously--but how? I didn't know anything about them--I was barely aware there had been a movie released called "Nashville," and knew nothing else about it--and how would they know about me? I was a punk hippie kid in a local bluegrass band that wouldn't become famous for another 3 years.

I did finally find the movie "Nashville" on DVD just last year, and bought it and watched it--for the first time. Yep, some of those lines (just in the chorus, though) are *my* lines. The song in the movie isn't very good; most of the songs aren't--Altman was apparently trying to spoof the "formulaic" mindset of commercial country music at the time, and the songs in the move were probably *deliberately* not very good.

So what to do with the song? Well, I'm not changing my song; it is good, and audiences like it, and it is a good way to start a set. I'm just careful where I play it--I will not play the song anywhere where I or the band are being paid. Nor will I record it. I play enough places for free that the song gets played a lot, anyway. Obviously, we have A Copyright Problem here, and I'm just not going to force the issue--they're bigger than I am.

Oh, and the movie as a whole wasn't very good, either...

Joe