Another bogus "copyright infringement" suit

[cphollis]

Bruno Mars' publishing company has sued Miley Cyrus for allegedly copying liberally from the former's "When I Was Your Man" with her award-winning "Flowers".  Bruno himself doesn't appear to be involved -- yet.

 

I'd invite the musically literate among us to listen to both songs and decide for yourself -- was there infringement?  If so, I could name more than a dozen songs that Bruno "infringed from".  Completely and utterly ridiculous.

 

Best outcome would be for Cyrus' lawyers to gather up all the "infringed" artists Bruno Mars has borrowed from, and counter-sue for 50x the amount.

 

Story

https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/1231346-miley-cyrus-faces-major-setback-after-disney-legend-award-win

Bruno Mars "When I Was Your Man"

Miley Cyrus' "Flowers"

 

[ElmerJFudd]

Not a great deal.  
They share:

 

similar topic and lyrics (I believe this is purposeful due to Miley’s record being a reaction or follow up to the prior).   

 

similar melodic contour and phrasing in the chorus.  
 

there is plenty dissimilar.  
 

[Docbop]

Copyright law is more screwed up than it's every been with ignorant judges and jurys being convinced things that are part of copyright are.   Being I'm around the recording world again and reading about the issues with sampling that is the wild wild west with nothing established on amounts to be paid and so artists losing all royalties on a hit because they sampled a couple seconds and used to for about the same amount  Then people like Kanye who sample first and ask for clearance later and it they don't get the clearance they record their own version of the sample in great detail and that is legal and original artist is owed nothing.   It gets worse with sample services leasing cleared samples and sites selling beats.   Then new mess of generative AI an streaming services almost time to just toss out copyright it ain't working any more.

[J.F.N.]

I dont get it, these songs have nothing in common, what did they smoke claiming this???

[ABECK]

I wouldn't connect the two having listened to both.

Now this...this is far more egregious:

 

 

[Reezekeys]

But... but... it's not copying... it's INTERPOLATING!

 

 

[AROIOS]

Just a matter of time before Elton John sues both their asses off.
 

 

[MathOfInsects]

There is a rubric in these cases that allows for less explicit similarity if there is greater demonstrable exposure to the original.

 

I think Miley C was probably at least subconsciously referring to the original with the "flowers" line and where she goes in the chorus, harmonically. Maybe even consciously. (Harmony is not a factor in these cases.) 

 

BUT...yeah, not seeing much legs on this one. A Hail Mary by the greedy.

 

Copyright protection was initially a means of encouraging artistic creation by ensuring big corporations (or their equivalent at the time) couldn't take artists' work and profit off it at the artists' expense. It has shifted to become a tool of extortion by those very corporations--to become the exact situation it was created to avoid. Does anyone really think Bruno Mars was sitting home thinking "How dare Miley use the word 'flowers'?? That has harmed my career and cost me security and renown!"??

[Docbop]

1 hour ago, Reezekeys said:

But... but... it's not copying... it's INTERPOLATING!

That's what I was referring to with Kanye and how when denied sample clearance his great engineer and multiple instrumentalist Ken Lewis would completely recreate the original in amazing detail.    Being that it is new recording or guess the word of the day is Interpolating from a mechanical copyright POV no clearance is needed.   

[My Keys And Me Are Vintage]

Not an AI expert by any stretch, but it seems likely that since so many songs have their “DNA” captured in music databases it is just a matter of running queries to find similarities that have been missed before by human ears. Comparing millions of songs against each other is bound to find many such “copyright infringements”. Sleaze bag lawyers might see an easy dollar to be squeezed out of someone. 

[Reezekeys]

12 minutes ago, Docbop said:

when denied sample clearance his great engineer and multiple instrumentalist Ken Lewis would completely recreate the original in amazing detail

 

I had two bars of a song I co-wrote sampled by Mary J Blige about 20 years ago. Didn't even realize until I got a desperate phone call from a lawyer looking for me to clear the sample. I still remember opening the envelope when that first check came in (sure helps that the artist was a multi-platinum seller at the time!). Best single payday of my life.

 

What's nuts is that Mary's producers sampled and looped two bars of an instrumental interlude, from a pretty obscure album by another singer. They could have easily recreated those two bars - and probably not had to pay any of the original writers. Looks like people got wise to the recreating, er, "interpolating" part, and I guess you can sue for that now!

[Docbop]

33 minutes ago, Reezekeys said:

 

I had two bars of a song I co-wrote sampled by Mary J Blige about 20 years ago. Didn't even realize until I got a desperate phone call from a lawyer looking for me to clear the sample. I still remember opening the envelope when that first check came in (sure helps that the artist was a multi-platinum seller at the time!). Best single payday of my life.

 

What's nuts is that Mary's producers sampled and looped two bars of an instrumental interlude, from a pretty obscure album by another singer. They could have easily recreated those two bars - and probably not had to pay any of the original writers. Looks like people got wise to the recreating, er, "interpolating" part, and I guess you can sue for that now!

 

They other weird thing is there is no typical pay for compensating for using a sample.   One of the legends of Hip Hop A Tribe Called Quest biggest song "Can I Kick It" used Lou Reed's opening bass line from "Walk On the Wild Side".       Tribe actually considered Can I Kick It just a filler song for their new album and thing got messed up and they forgot to clear  the sample.   Album ready to release and they realize they need to clear the sample and get ahold of Lou Reed.   Lou Reed hated Hip Hop and said no at first, then pleaded with him the albums done they just really need the clearance.   Lou Reed decides to screw them and says I'll clear it for all the royalties for the song.  Tribe thinks filler song okay and they agree to it.    Can I Kick It becomes Tribe's biggest song and they have made zero from it.    So when someone uses a sample you can ask for anything there is no standard, but then some will do like Kanye and just make there own recording of the sample and original artist is making zero. 

[Reezekeys]

My situation exactly, except for one minor detail - I'm not Lou Reed! I'm mr. nobody. Mary J Blige's album was done, mixed and mastered by the time they found me. I could have held them up for a bigger piece of the pie. Instead, I was nice, and did a "most favored nation" clause or agreement. The lawyers here probably know more than I do about this, but that's how it shook out. Mary J gave the original writers half her publishing, so I got half of my original percentage (which was only 25%). The kicker was, the two bars Mary J sampled were a musical interlude I added to the song – i.e. 100% mine – since it lacked a bridge. Of course that's not how the biz works, sadly for me!

[dazzjazz]

It’s not like Bruno and Mark Ronson stole The Time’s schtick for Uptown Funk!

…something about glass houses….

[brenner13]

I have written a couple of songs that have an A chord…am I in trouble or do I have grounds?

[AROIOS]

5 hours ago, AROIOS said:

Just a matter of time before Elton John sues both their asses off.

And Michael Jackson's family should sue Bruno Mars' ass for copying "Beat It".

 

In fact, at least half of Bruno Mars' career was built upon ripping... uhem... paying homage to 80's artists. They should file a class action and slam Bruno's legal team into oblivion.
 

 

[Michael W]

One of the co-writers of Flowers is a composer named Gregory Hein.  The guy has quite the resume, having written songs with/for "Justin Bieber, Shawn Mendes, Selena Gomez, Marshmello, John Legend, Machine Gun Kelly, Khalid, Jackson Wang, and Tainy among others."

 

The guy is YOUNG.  His credits begin in 2019.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldae

 

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/gregory-hein-mn0004532935

 

FWIW, I listened to both and I hear it.  I haven't matched up chord progressions.

 

[stoken6]

15 hours ago, ABECK said:

Now this...this is far more egregious [Beato's Toto/Bieber video]

Gotta say, Bieber sounds 1000% better backed by Lukather and co. There's a reason MJ and Quincy worked with those guys...

 

@AROIOS I was waiting for someone to post Locked Out Of Heaven 👍

 

Cheers, Mike.

[tapes]

15 hours ago, brenner13 said:

I have written a couple of songs that have an A chord…am I in trouble or do I have grounds?

Seriously - how generic, basic and similar most ”new songs” are these days, I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often with these clueless lawsuits, judges and jurys.

 
Just listening to those Beato Top 10 reaction videos gives a pretty solid picture of the pathetic state of songwriting these days. Guys, I just composed a hit! C-Am-Em-D. Now I just need a ”topliner” (or nine) and some AI lyrics! 

[AROIOS]

2 hours ago, tapes said:

...Guys, I just composed a hit! C-Am-Em-D...

Dude, that's WAY too many boomer notes for today's listeners. Can you trim it down to an 808 "bassline"? That'll get you into the Grammy's.

[ProfD]

On 9/17/2024 at 4:33 PM, Reezekeys said:

What's nuts is that Mary's producers sampled and looped two bars of an instrumental interlude...

First, let me start by typing that I'm glad you were compensated.  That's important.

 

Artists and musicians should always get paid for their work.

 

While some folks like to consider sampling an uncreative way to produce music, I would challenge the naysayers to:

 

1) spend countless hours digging in the crates

2) listen to every nook and cranny of records

3) extract a snippet of music

4) build an instrumental bed of music around it

 

I'm not referring to samples where the source is obvious and there's just a drumbeat underneath it. 

 

In those cases, I would agree that there's very little creativity in jacking samples.

 

OTOH, some music producers can take an obscure sample or snippets of music that anyone would be hard pressed to recognize and reassemble them into a cohesive piece of music.

 

The better music producers can flip a sample and/or replay the elements of it.

 

The best music producers can do it all from top to bottom, whether it's flipping a sample or replaying it or composing an original tune that others might sample.

 

Many musicians have built their careers sampling the music of others by way of listening to songs and coming up with an original based on it.

 

Back in the old days, music producers were notorious for listening to the radio and going into the studio to come up with tunes similar to  [insert record here].  

 

H8ll, listen to records done by any record label and notice the similarities between songs within their catalogs. Sometimes, they used the same instrumental beds for different songs and artists.

 

IOW, sampling has been around forever.  Akai and E-mu samplers just made it a little bit easier. 😁

 

No need to round up a bunch of musicians who may have been hungover, drunk or high.🤣😎