Here’s a good analysis, complete with sheet music excerpts:
Ah, the “defining funk of the cowbell”!
Elsie the cow is suing Will Ferrell.
Yep, that’s a pretty good write-up.
I haven’t researched the “sheet music” situation, but it occurs to me – why is the sheet music involved? And where did it come from? If it was written down by a takedown copyist (which I used to be), how accurate is it? Are we comparing subjective interpretations?
And is the sheet music the copyright material? From 1909 to 1976, the only way you could copyright a song was with the written version, no matter how inaccurate or sketchy it might be (typically, only a lead sheet). After 1976, the US Copyright Office accepted audio recordings, but translating those to written music, whether automated or manual, is more of an art than a science. Are we comparing two imperfect interpretations to make a 7 million dollar decision?
How likely is that someone who has been in the biz as long as Pharrell–not to mention his lawyers–would let ridiculously low hanging fruit like this be unchallenged? If it wasn’t challenged when it should have been, then with that level of idiocy he deserved to lose.
I’m not a musicologist in the slightest, but the polarizing opinions about Blurred Lines being a rip-off strike me as being much like that gold and white/blue and black dress craziness. Some people can’t hear the striking similiarity, and some people (like me) can’t not hear it. To my ear, there’s no question that GTGIU was used as more than mere inspiration; essentially, Pharrell took Gaye’s song, fiddled with its constituent parts just enough to make a sound similar to the original without being identical, and then put Thicke’s lyrics on top. Much like Vanilla Ice did with Under Pressure, except with more measures. This is not producing original music. It’s copying, and a few strategic tweaks here and there doesn’t change that.
Much ado was made over the Ghostbusters song ripping off that Huey Lewis and the News song, and to this day, I still can’t hear the similarity (am I the only one?). Same with My Sweet Lord. Shit, I didn’t even realize Iggy Pop’s Lust for Life ripped off the Supremes “Can’t Hurry Love” until I read about it on the internet 5 mins ago, and I’ve heard both songs millions of times. So it is kind of funny that finally here comes along a song that I instantly recognized as being lifted from an uncredited artist, and yet so many people insist it’s a totally different song.
Exactly. I heard Marvin Gaye the first time I heard Blurred Lines except this rehash was so inferior to the original.
If “evoking” is the standard, I hope Springsteen got half of everything earned by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band.
“Evoking” is not the standard. If you think it is, you don’t have any idea what you’re talking about, what the case was about, or what the arguments were that convinced the jury that this was plagiarism.
It’s embarrassing to see so many Dopers wear their outrage and their ignorance so prominently at the same time; perhaps this will help assuage at least one of those things:
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Try checking out some of the links in this thread before you go spouting off on ignorance. Thanks for pointing out that the Gaye family and their lawyer, shockingly, support your view. Top notch research there, sparky.
That’s really not that close, and it’s a very small part of the song.
In Spider Robinson’s short story “The Melancholy of Elephants” he deals with a version of this problem. Of course, Spider is a professional writer. He eats off of royalties. So presumably he can’t cut the Gordian Knot and admit that intellectual property is inherently toxic. So his characters’ solution, and it is in context a sad “best we can do,” is to shove all music down the memory hole after a few decades, so new composers can get to be creative by coincidentally re-creating old melodies–and incidentally get rich off of the royalties of same. :dubious:
Of course, now that I’ve spoiled the ending, Spider will sue me for this post. Bring it, arachnid boy!
Seriously though, it’s a good story. I expect it’s online somewhere still.
Oh and if Tom Petty actually threatened Sam Smith to get a credit on that, it’s time to take him out behind the barn and shoot him. And then everyone who could bring a copyright claim for his work. And I loved Tom Petty until I just read that.
That is some spurious horse-spittle right there.
I’m reminded of Mark Twain’s comments on the Book of Mormon. In the introduction to the BOM, there is a testimonial from people who claim they saw the gold plates full of hieroglyphics that Joseph Smith transcribed. It’s signed by eight people — four named Whitmer, three named Smith (including Joseph Smith, Sr.), and one Hiram Page. Twain says, “I could not feel more satisfied and at rest if the entire Whitmer family had testified.”
That’s an excellent analysis. I had already felt the decision was goofy for the reasons he noted, though his drill down to details just blows away the plaintiffs’ case. The songs have different melodies, bass lines, chords and lyrics. This is not taking the original and tweaking it.
A song can have another as inspiration–hell, it can deliberately try to evoke a comparison–but if the sheet music elements are different in virtually every regard, it ain’t plagiarism. If it was, Chuck Berry would be a multi-billionaire.
You know, reading the wiki page on “Got to give it up”, the funny thing is that it was Gaye’s response to Motown’s attempt at making him sing disco, a music he detested. It was born, in fact as a parody/ attack on the hit song “Disco Lady”, by Johnnie Taylor. It was even named originally “Dancing Lady”.
Somebody inform the Johnnie Taylor state.
(bolding mine)
Just wow. I wonder if any smart lawyer/musicologist ever considered how many variations of written music there would be if they gave the same song to 10 takedown copyists, as I used to be. Example: the bass line is highly important to this song, but was it included in the lead sheet (bass lines rarely are). Were the background vocals, also very important here, included? A good copyist would, but that takes time and clutters up the vocal line. My average takedown & copying time was 1.5 hours per song; less for country, more for jazz. And that included making the final, pen & ink original. Now done by computer, but you gotta believe me when I say that’s not faster than hand work, it just looks prettier.
A lead sheet is supposed to capture the “essence” of any song, using the three elements of lyric (if any), melody (if any) and harmony (chords, if any). The one thing it can’t capture well is the feel (arrangement, sounds).
And comparing two lead sheets is a lot like interpreting Nostradamus – you can find similarities or differences everywhere you look; it just depends on how you look. How similar do you want them to be?
The link given above, is a good analysis of some parts of the song (bass line & rhythm), but the writer says he (or somebody) transcribed those, so they weren’t on the original lead sheet, as I suspected. I don’t know if those transcriptions were introduced in court or not.
Marvin Gaye reminds me of this guy.
Regards,
Shodan
Your post was ignorant. As the quote shows, “evoking” was not what won the case for the Gaye family. The Gaye family and their lawyer don’t support my view; I support theirs. Top notch critical thinking skills in that post there, champ.