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Holy Crap, ANOTHER copyright bombshell


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Rock Riff Rip-Off

 

This is astonishing and it rings a big bell for me going back some 40+ years. I had forgotten all about this. Back in the day I knew that music copyrights could only be based on what is written on manuscript as a piano melody plus words. I also vaguely remember something about a big change in 1978 and people who were concerned needed to re-register their stuff immediately after the new law took effect. If a lot of these superstars from that era failed to do that what does that mean now? They're going to lose? That sure doesn't seem right but if that's what the law in effect at the time says...

 

This could be a huge decision.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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Check this out:

 

Rock Riff Rip-Off

 

This is astonishing and it rings a big bell for me going back some 40+ years. I had forgotten all about this. Back in the day I knew that music copyrights could only be based on what is written on manuscript as a piano melody plus words. I also vaguely remember something about a big change in 1978 and people who were concerned needed to re-register their stuff immediately after the new law took effect. If a lot of these superstars from that era failed to do that what does that mean now? They're going to lose? That sure doesn't seem right but if that's what the law in effect at the time says...

 

This could be a huge decision.

 

Bob

 

No chicken little, the sky is not falling.

 

The author of that article is no expert and needs to do more research on not just copyright, but also mechanical and sound recording copyright, and on publishing.

 

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That's strange; I thought this was already published here recently. I must have seen it somewhere else. I had the same reaction as The Real MC.

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Right but he seems to be an insider who's got the attorneys involved in his phone. Obviously this stuff can get very deep very quickly. I just found this:

 

https://library.osu.edu/blogs/copyright/2013/05/15/198/

 

Note the section concerning Sound Recordings. They were not protected until 1/1/72. Scroll down a bit and it talks about sound recordings prior to 1972 having no federal protection but may have state protections.

 

The guy who wrote the Bloomberg article did say he wasn't recommending someone just go out and start incorporating signature licks and solos from these classic 60's era recordings into their new songs. It's murky but it sure sounds like there's an argument to be made here ESPECIALLY the part where Led Zepplin's attorney apparently stepped on his dick by stating that their entire work with Stairway is protected under the sound recording and other stuff part, not just the sheet music. If that's true then Led Zep just lost because Spirit's complete work is also protected using those same arguments. This is what Appellate courts are for so we'll all find out soon enough.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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One interesting part of this article is arguing that while the chords or lyrics are protected, the solos may...or may not...be.

 

Well, it's really hard to say that I haven't stolen most of my solo licks from somebody, at least the good ones! Especially on guitar.

 

I learned to play guitar from the early Led Zep albums...then the early Rush Albums....Then the early Kansas albums. So basically 90% of my guitar playing is Page, Lifeson and Livgren. Fortunately I've made nary a penny so no one is coming after me, but seriously, how many different licks in the pentatonic scale are there? (And those three guys I mentioned never drifted very far away from the pentatonic forms in their first 3-4 albums...at least on guitar)

You want me to start this song too slow or too fast?

 

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One interesting part of this article is arguing that while the chords or lyrics are protected, the solos may...or may not...be.

 

And what about the fact that the chords to "Stairway" on that "deposit" copy aren't even correct?

 

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One interesting part of this article is arguing that while the chords or lyrics are protected, the solos may...or may not...be.

 

Well, it's really hard to say that I haven't stolen most of my solo licks from somebody, at least the good ones! Especially on guitar.

 

I learned to play guitar from the early Led Zep albums...then the early Rush Albums....Then the early Kansas albums. So basically 90% of my guitar playing is Page, Lifeson and Livgren. Fortunately I've made nary a penny so no one is coming after me, but seriously, how many different licks in the pentatonic scale are there? (And those three guys I mentioned never drifted very far away from the pentatonic forms in their first 3-4 albums...at least on guitar)

 

 

To my ears, current pop music has such a shortage of musical ideas, listeners' ears (musical minds) become dumbed down. Minor additions to an arrangement become major musical content - in the minds of lawyers.

 

 

 

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Melody and lyric are copyrightable, but you try to stretch that into solos, riffs, and etc then a whole lot of studio musicians who should be receiving royalties for doing their job. I did read about a Jazz cat who sued claiming copyright on a transcribed solo. I've heard people have sued claiming protection on a solo, but that one was the only time I heard of someone winning in court. Saying a end solo is part of a song is nuts, that would mean all the Blues players Jimmy Page's stole licks from can sue Page. Keep copyright simple melody and lyrics and nothing else. Let the Mechanical rights is for the completed product being played be the compensation for the musicians who created and played on the tune.

 

 

 

 

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Here's another one - this time about the Sunday Night Football theme song. Heidi Merrill is claiming she pitched her song to Carrie Underwood's team, and they responded by ripping off key parts of it and calling it their own.

 

[video:youtube]

 

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=LeJotdhLS5c

 

I think she's got a case.

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Melody and lyric are copyrightable, but you try to stretch that into solos, riffs, and etc then a whole lot of studio musicians who should be receiving royalties for doing their job. I did read about a Jazz cat who sued claiming copyright on a transcribed solo. I've heard people have sued claiming protection on a solo, but that one was the only time I heard of someone winning in court. Saying a end solo is part of a song is nuts, that would mean all the Blues players Jimmy Page's stole licks from can sue Page. Keep copyright simple melody and lyrics and nothing else. Let the Mechanical rights is for the completed product being played be the compensation for the musicians who created and played on the tune.

 

Studio musicians almost always work under a "for hire" contract which grants them zero claims to royalties and they have to waive any claim to copyright.

 

The jazz cat claiming copyright for a transcribed solo probably had a valid argument involving mechanical rights and/or publishing.

 

The point of copyright is to protect the sequence & rhythm of chords and/or a melody (plus lyrics if any) that constitute the recognizable elements that identify a song. Solos are not copyrighted because you can trace their influences through preceding artists thus they are 99% derivative - in other words almost every soloist learned elements of their playing from a player they admired. If solos were copyrighted then the estate of Robert Johnson could sue the estate of BB King who could sue Billy Gibbons who could sue other players who could sue students learning to play guitar... not at all practical and not in the original spirit of copyright.

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Here's another one - this time about the Sunday Night Football theme song. Heidi Merrill is claiming she pitched her song to Carrie Underwood's team, and they responded by ripping off key parts of it and calling it their own.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=LeJotdhLS5c

 

I think she's got a case.

 

Interesting. The courts use an "algorithm" of sorts that pits the amount of similarly against the artist's presumed familiarity with the original. So if you are in a remote mountain village with no exposure to any recordings from the last 100 years, your leeway for ripping off Smoke on the Water is actually quite wide. On the other hand, if you grew up within 100 miles of a radio that played Western music, even limited similarities to copyrightable elements pop songs might be penalized.

 

This sure seems similar, and the argument is clearly going to rely on the "familiarity" component. I have heard some pop stars say that this is why they won't take demos from people--because someone, somewhere, when writing a song that they might pitch to an artist with a recognizable style, is probably going to get it so right that intentionally or not that artist is going to produce something in that style and then get sued.

 

On the flip side, there is plenty of entitlement that might decide, as it seems Carrie Underwood's team might have, that, "That song is terrible but the riff and the chorus are pretty good, let me see if I can come up with something "real" out of it." By the time that they do, they literally might not have any concept or memory at all that the initial impetus was the rejected demo. Or they might but just might not think of it as anything actionable or significant.

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What's a solo and what's part of the main instrumental theme? That driving bass/piano rhythm line of Mission Impossible is certainly the main theme of the song regardless of the flute melody or a possible vocal melody with lyrics. Concerning all these monster hits in this article the harmony guitar work during the "solo" section of Hotel California doesn't sound like a regular solo to me, it sounds like a composed theme exactly like all the harmony guitar work in the Allman Brothers. Those lines certainly could have been invented by doing solos initially then they listened later and said hey, that sounds great why don't we harmonize that and work it into the song? At that point it's no longer a solo. If the original copyright didn't have those very identifiable harmony lines does that mean they could be fair game if it was before 1972? This is tricky stuff to base a multimillion dollar award on.

 

I used to think I had a decent layman's handle on copyright but now...

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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  • 1 month later...

Here's another one. Katy Perry and Flame

 

Katy Perry

 

[video:youtube]

 

Flame

 

[video:youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=63&v=QCcW-guAs_s

 

Man, I don't know about this one. She lost.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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Copyright is melody, not chords, not rhythmic feel, just melody and lyrics. Why is that so dam hard for a a tone deaf judge and jury to understand.

 

Spending years in the software biz saw the same crap in lawsuits, except how they tended to rule on hardware and software was total opposites. One big company I worked for a small time developer tried to sucker our developers into a infringement lawsuit, but sending all our development team copies of his software. Luckily for us the first programer to receive a copy knew what was going on and alerted management who immediately go legal department involved. The legal department came to talk to those of us on the development team and QA team which why I was there. They explain in software world they have issue or Clean Programmer vs Dirty Programmer. If you are writing some software and you have seen a competitors product you are a Dirty Programmer and whatever you do is infringement. Now if you have never seen the competition and write an exact clone you are a Clean Programmer and no infringement. BUT where the law is absurd a marketing person, or other person who has seen the competition can tell you we want something like (fill in description) the programmer is still considered Clean. So our legal department collected all copies of product sent to our programmers boxed them up and sent letter to small time develop nice try now go pound sand. Legal says this happens all the time and little developers are basically filing nuisance lawsuits and just hoping you'll pay them $100,000 to go away.

 

Now in the hardware world especially with chip companies they can copy each other almost down to the silicon and get away with it and have in court. Copyright and patient laws are out of date and judges and juries are clueless.

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Copyright is melody, not chords, not rhythmic feel, just melody and lyrics. Why is that so dam hard for a a tone deaf judge and jury to understand.

 

I know, that's what I've always thought too but the law is what judges, juries and Appeals Courts say it is. If the courts go too far with this then that's what Congress is for. They would have to rewrite the copyright law.

 

Moe, I know you just can't wait to do a cover of this...

 

Bob

 

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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Just saw the Beato vid and I agree completely. I'm sure it will be appealed but that's no guarantee it gets overturned. An appeal is not a new trial, they simply look at the original trial, the evidence, the arguments and the jury instructions. They review it and apply the underlying law. A big part of this is her evidence and what points her musicologist made. If that was as clear as Beato's I would think she wins. But, maybe her expert witness presented it a different way who knows, it's technical legal stuff.

 

The problem is a few of the other cases we've talked about where the ruling was based on the overall "feel" of the song and we all disagreed with those too but they're still standing.

 

Bob

Hammond SK1, Mojo 61, Kurzweil PC3, Korg Pa3x, Roland FA06, Band in a Box, Real Band, Studio One, too much stuff...
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