I was surprised to read in that article that jury instructions were to base any similarities on the sheet music only, i.e., no cowbells, hoots and party noises could be included in the deliberations. Given that, I might not have guessed the Gaye case was strong enough. Maybe the part that convinced the jury was when Thicke testified that he had been on a Marvin Gaye binge, that “Got to Give It Up” was one of his favorite songs, he went into the studio and asked Pharrell to write something for him to record along those lines, and 90 minutes later the song was done.
Even without all that, I thought the new song sounded like it ripped off the old one … a non-legal, personal impression of a feeling.
And guess who Sam Smith nicked ‘‘his’’ song ''Stay with me ‘’ off…
Yeah, you guessed it…‘‘I won’t back down’’ by Tom Petty…
we’re doin it wrong…just find a song from the past…change the words…have a hit and give half the royalties to the writer that you nicked it off…that’s all Sam Smith had to do…
I’ve got to agree with the fact you can steal a tune and still make a fortune even after the split. This kind of thing has been happening for decades. Wish I could list more of them but age handicaps me. One I do remember is " My Sweet Lord " …I wonder when we’ll run out of original ideas but occasionally some good stuff shows up
Wrong. The song made approx $17 mil. The jury awarded $7.2 mil - hardly “diddly squat compared to how much the song made.”
This is actually very worry some. If this is copyright infringement, most musicians are now officially in trouble. The Thicke version is obviously a soundalike and not a copy. That does not constitute copyright infringement - at least it’s not supposed to. And the jury apparently didn’t get to hear either song? WTF is that about?!??!
Similar Drums, slightly different. Very similar bassline. And the fact that they made $17,000,000, a lot of money.
Not your typical dance, techno drums and basslines that everybody uses…
Another interesting one here from the BBC website - one drum roll 1500 songs allegedly -
“Amen, Brother was a little-known B-side released in 1969. Barely noticed at the time, its drum solo has been hugely influential, appearing in different forms in more than 1,500 other songs - but the band behind it never made any money from it.”
I’ve just been reading this myself… I’m sure i also read somewhere, it might be the wiki entry, that a certain sample company have actually ‘copyrighted’ the Amen break and i KNOW that a certain other software company have released some drum software with a kit based around it too… Bit of a tragic story for the guy who actually played the thing all these years ago too
