A Blow Against BS Music Copyright Cases

[qliveur]

Queen cares.

Artists should be able to protect their creations, which are their brand and IP. Inspiration vs plagiarism is a fine line.

Take the OP example. The first time I heard that Sam Smith song, I was like, this is fvcking Tom Petty. The same thing with that Lady Gaga song that was almost beat for beat Madonna.

Yep, the melody of "Stay With Me" is exactly the same as "I Wont Back Down."

 

[Fenixgoon]

quick, someone copyright pachelbel's canon again so we can get fucking rich.

not sure to what extent a melody, chord, etc is copyrightable, but obviously there's some degree of inspiration/reuse but obviously blatant copying is no bueno

 

[Zorba]

"Ice ice baby" is a perfect example of going too far, it takes the entire bass line, note for note and then robs the piano hook as well. It's not for anyone to accurately judge how much "culture" it add's, I'd say not much, if Vanilla ice actually credited Queen/Bowie from the get-go the whole thing might have been avoided. The OP's example of Petty's "don't back down" I consider trivial, only a couple of similar cord changes should not even be close to "stealing" anything, Smith's song does not sound at all like Petty's.

Yeah, if he didn't give credit to Queen, that is BS, as it is obviously sampled.

Go to just about any club and play Ice Ice Baby, and nearly everyone will know all the words. Do the same with Under Pressure and you'll get only the Queen fans. Ice Ice Baby also likely helped Hip Hop become mainstream. Regardless, Ice Ice Baby, didn't take anything away from Under Pressure, so it was net addition to the art.

A more obvious case of adding to the culture*, though, would be Disney's ripping off of fairy-tails. With infant copyright, those would have never happened.

*I'm not sure culture is the most concise word choice here, but I really mean on the impact to the art scene which is woven into our culture as a society.

 

[hal2kilo]

Yeah, if he didn't give credit to Queen, that is BS, as it is obviously sampled.

Go to just about any club and play Ice Ice Baby, and nearly everyone will know all the words. Do the same with Under Pressure and you'll get only the Queen fans. Ice Ice Baby also likely helped Hip Hop become mainstream. Regardless, Ice Ice Baby, didn't take anything away from Under Pressure, so it was net addition to the art.

Geez, thanks.

 

[Zorba]

Geez, thanks.

You can argue if that was positive or negative, but you can't argue its had an impact.

 

[zinfamous]

meh - there is always a line... the problem is finding that line and figuring out what is acceptable.

Similar shit has been discussed/debated in terms of stand-up comedy as well. Carlos Mencia took a HUGE nose-dive after he was accused of copying jokes.

not a lot of comedians actually care about this, though. It seems that Joe Rogan is one of very few that has a specific bug up his ass about this, and it's probably only related to some personal thing with Mencia.

There isn't a single comedian out there that didn't get their start by copying the jokes of their idols. Every single one of them.

Granted, you're expected to be subtle and clever about it, but to me this is mostly Joe Rogan being a dickbag, because he is. I recall a lot of the comedians that he's named who have had their jokes stolen by Mencia don't give a fuck, and they've expressed as much when asked.

Another thing is that a lot of the jokes that comedians tell are common domain jokes that have been around forever--they just put their own personal spin on it and retell them in novel ways.

 

[sdifox]

The fuck did you just say? Meet me by the flagpole, 3PM.

Read it like "America is so uncultured that Ice Ice Baby count as culture"

 

[sdifox]

Yeah, if he didn't give credit to Queen, that is BS, as it is obviously sampled.

Go to just about any club and play Ice Ice Baby, and nearly everyone will know all the words. Do the same with Under Pressure and you'll get only the Queen fans. Ice Ice Baby also likely helped Hip Hop become mainstream. Regardless, Ice Ice Baby, didn't take anything away from Under Pressure, so it was net addition to the art.

A more obvious case of adding to the culture*, though, would be Disney's ripping off of fairy-tails. With infant copyright, those would have never happened.

*I'm not sure culture is the most concise word choice here, but I really mean on the impact to the art scene which is woven into our culture as a society.

Fairy tales

Grimms' Fairy Tales - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Fairy Tail

 

[1prophet]

Copyrights should be treated like inheritance, after the death of the original artist or last partner if more than one, the new owners must either pay an inheritance tax based on projected revenue or release it to public domain.

Corporation owned copyrights will have a set time limit determined by congress after which they will have to pay a significant tax to continue holding copyrights or release them to public domain.

And one last thing, it should be illegal to use the DMCA laws to prevent the right to repair like John Deere is doing now and all other companies that wants to lock into the government enforced dealership only repair/planned obsolescence type of business model.

How Copyright Enabled John Deere to Restrict Farmers’ Right to Repair

Nothing runs like a Deere, but if a farmer’s John Deere tractor breaks down, his ability to do his own repairs to make it run again is severely restricted. As farming equipment has grown more advanced, it’s not just a question of changing a few gears or a malfunctioning motor. Quite often...

capturedeconomy.com

 

[Vic]

Here's a good vid from Rick Beato with a good example of the current state of copyright abuse. In a teaching video, he played a few seconds of a Beatles song, a perfect example of Fair Use, and got demonitized.

 

[BUTCH1]

Here's a good vid from Rick Beato with a good example of the current state of copyright abuse. In a teaching video, he played a few seconds of a Beatles song, a perfect example of Fair Use, and got demonitized.

He could, (at his expense of course) take this to court and claim fair use and probably even win, EVENTUALLY, after paying out a shit-load of $$ to Lawyers for both cases, (the inevitable appeal to drain the wallet).

 

[SMOGZINN]

He could, (at his expense of course) take this to court and claim fair use and probably even win, EVENTUALLY, after paying out a shit-load of $$ to Lawyers for both cases, (the inevitable appeal to drain the wallet).

And that is one of the big problems with our current copyright laws, all to often they are used as a hammer to smash anyone smaller. The idea behind copyright was that is was supposed to promote people to create, but right now it is doing the exact opposite in more cases than otherwise.

If a law is doing the exact opposite of why we made it, is it worth having at all?

 

[pmv]

It is irritating when someone (often one of those 'young people' they have so many of nowadays) hears some track you know well, and concludes it's a knock-off of something that actually came out years later and which sampled or remade the original.

In fact, come to think of it, aren't young people just knock-offs of older people, biologically-speaking? Should they not be paying royalties?

 

[Vic]

He could, (at his expense of course) take this to court and claim fair use and probably even win, EVENTUALLY, after paying out a shit-load of $$ to Lawyers for both cases, (the inevitable appeal to drain the wallet).

He discusses this in the vid. Not only would fighting it cost more than he could possibly win, but it would also get him kicked off Youtube.

 

[Zorba]

In fact, come to think of it, aren't young people just knock-offs of older people, biologically-speaking? Should they not be paying royalties?

It's called FICA taxes.

 

[Vic]

This deserves a bump. Here's a direct link to the Tedx talk in the OP's article. And to be clear, this isn't about copying, or what is or is not original, but the realization that music has a finite number of permutations, which makes unintentional copying inevitable, and requires changes to copyright law.