[Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases

Fri Dec 18 14:21:05 PST 2009

Hello,

It's worth distinguishing between plagiarism and copyright infringement.  The former isn't illegal; the latter is.  The two categories may intersect, but by no means necessarily.

Ben Givan
Assistant Prof. of Music
Skidmore College

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:59:55 -0200
From: lj at eumus.edu.uy
To: smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases
Message-ID:
	<2132638621ac03492c78c50a252a0be1.squirrel at www.eumus.edu.uy>
Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1

> This question may be better directed at law scholars, but a colleague
> is interested in finding cases of music plagiarism which have been
> heard in court (in any country, but English or German proceedings will
> be easiest to read). Anyone know of any?

i guess in the pop/rock scene there are many cases. one quite notorious
was "da ya think i'm sexy" by rod stewart and carmine appice, a big hit in
1978-79. it was clearly lifted from "tah majal" by the brazilian musician
jorge ben (or jorge ben jor). stewart acknowledged the fact, but said the
he didn't do it consciously, that perhaps he had heard the song on a trip
to brazil and later the melody came to his mind without realizing it
wasn't a fresh idea but a song he had heard before (i had the opportunity
to hear stewart stating that in person at a press conference in 1990).

i don't know the legal details, but you can read this in the wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Da_Ya_Think_I%27m_Sexy%3F):

A plagiarism lawsuit by Brazilian musician Jorge Ben Jor ruled that the
song had been derived from his composition "Taj Mahal". Stewart agreed to
donate all his royalties from the song to United Nations Children's
Fund.[2] Stewart performed the song at the Music for UNICEF Concert at the
United Nations General Assembly in 1979. The song also lifts a musical
refrain from Bobby Womack's 1975 song, "(If You Want My Love) Put
Something Down On It".

the willie dixon-led zeppelin cases are also notorious.

luis jure
escuela universitaria de m?sica
universidad de la rep?blica
montevideo -  uruguay

------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 09:06:07 -0600
From: Rob Bennett <rob.bennett at okcu.edu>
To: "smt-talk at societymusictheory.org"
	<smt-talk at societymusictheory.org>
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases
Message-ID: <4B2B9A5F.7070209 at okcu.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

In the 1980s, Huey Lewis and the News brought suit against Ray Parker, 
Jr., over the prominent doubly-plagal riff shared by Lewis' "I Want a 
New Drug" and Parker's slightly later "Ghostbusters." It is my 
understanding that the two parties settled with an NDA in the mid-1990s. 
I've also heard that Parker sued Lewis for breaching the NDA in speaking 
with VH-1 a few years later.

This case is particularly interesting, since it concerns what might be 
considered more of a very brief short harmonic-motivic element, as 
opposed to a melody or sound recording. I could be wrong, but I believe 
this means that the contentious one-measure fragment would normally not 
be eligible for protection under US copyright law.

Rob Bennett
Oklahoma City University

Richard Lewis wrote:
> Dear SMT,
>
> This question may be better directed at law scholars, but a colleague
> is interested in finding cases of music plagiarism which have been
> heard in court (in any country, but English or German proceedings will
> be easiest to read). Anyone know of any?
>
> Best,
> Richard
>   

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 11:31:42 -0500
From: "Stephen Guy Soderberg" <ssod at loc.gov>
To: <djwolf at snafu.de>, <smt-talk at societymusictheory.org>
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases
Message-ID: <4B2B681E0200006800048E4D at ntgwgate.loc.gov>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8

I suppose that technically you're right, Daniel.  Out of all the silence
in the universe, Batt identified the silence he used as Cage's.  As I
noted, his mistake was in identifying it as such. If he had not put the
"authorship" statement on it ? just an unattributed minute of silence,
he could hardly have been sued.  I'm not a lawyer, but I personally
believe, aesthetic considerations notwithstanding, that if the content
of 4'33" does not qualify as de minimus, nothing (so to speak)
does(n't).  It would have been different (in my opinion) if the Trust
attorneys had a problem with Batt using Cage's name, but the issue
appears to have been appropriation of the content of the work without
proper permission.  I would love to have seen the cease and desist
notice Batt received which would have had to be of the form "stop
selling nothing that my client owns."  It makes me wonder if any of the
publications Cage took his mesostics from could have sued him on the
same grounds (if they had thought of it).  The whole thing is so
beautifully, convolutedly Cagean ? a true opus posthumorous.

? Steve Soderberg

(who just remembered he should add in this case the usual disclaimer:
none of the opinions expressed herein are necessarily shared  by my
employer, the Library of Congress.)

>>> "Daniel Wolf" <djwolf at snafu.de> 12/18/2009 9:56 AM >>>
The Batt case was not one of plagiarism but rather of failure to pay a 

license for work which Batt himself identified and credited Cage as an 

author.   Useful information about this is available starting here

http://johncagetrust.blogspot.com/2009/10/silence-is-golden.html 

and following the links in the item.

Daniel Wolf
composer, Frankfurt

On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:26:41 +0100, Stephen Guy Soderberg
<ssod at loc.gov>  
wrote:

> The most bizarre (or is it bazaar?) case I know of was when the John
> Cage Trust sued Mike Batt formerly of the Wombies over an album
track
> consisting of one minute of silence.  Batt was upfront that it was a
> tribute to Cage, but the Trust claimed plagiarism of 4'33" and sued.
> Probably his mistake was listing the authorship of the track as
> "Batt/Cage" (heh, get it?)  You all probably think I'm making this
up,
> but it's easy to search the web for info on this case and a quick
> summary is here: http://www.out-law.com/page-2978.  Evidently Batt
> settled for six figures!!  Well, after all... he DID quote 25% of
the
> work note-for-note. 8-P

------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 10:31:16 -0800 (PST)
From: JAY RAHN <jayrahn at rogers.com>
To: smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases
Message-ID: <379237.122.qm at web88106.mail.re2.yahoo.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

(Ivan) Gondos vs (Hagood) Hardy and (Rudy) Toth, 1980-82, is reputed to have been the first music plagiarism/copyright case in Canada:

http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0001535?

?http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0003948?I recall that the decisive factor had little to do with musical details of 'The Homecoming' and 'Moment of Love'. Instead, it was determined that a particular photocopying technique used in Gondos's earliest copy did not exist until after Hardy and Toth had published the tunes.
Jay Rahn, York University (Toronto)

_______________________________________________
Smt-talk mailing list
Smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.societymusictheory.org/pipermail/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org/attachments/20091218/efbd137f/attachment.html>

------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 20:52:44 +0200
From: Yosef Goldenberg <geyeni at netvision.net.il>
To: smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases
Message-ID: <93471DC3462C4A3BBE7409FA4078647D at HP14200165562>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=iso-8859-1;
	reply-type=original

Dear all

I wanted to write about "Tzena Tzena" an Israeli song involved in a 
copyright trial in USA in the early 1950s, but my current search revealed a 
whole list in the copyright infringement project of UCLA school of law at
http://cip.law.ucla.edu/song.html

Dr. Yosef Goldenberg
External teacher, Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Head Librarian, Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance

Hertzog 81a Jerusalem 92621
Tel. (office) 972-2-6759917
Tel. (home) 972-2-6780421

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Richard Lewis" <richardlewis at fastmail.co.uk>
To: <smt-talk at societymusictheory.org>
Sent: Friday, December 18, 2009 2:22 PM
Subject: [Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases

> Dear SMT,
>
> This question may be better directed at law scholars, but a colleague
> is interested in finding cases of music plagiarism which have been
> heard in court (in any country, but English or German proceedings will
> be easiest to read). Anyone know of any?
>
> Best,
> Richard
> -- 
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> Richard Lewis
> ISMS, Computing
> Goldsmiths, University of London
> Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134
> Skype: richardjlewis
> JID: ironchicken at jabber.earth.li
> http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> +----------------------------------------------+
> | Support open access to scholarship           |
> | http://freeculture.org/ http://www.doaj.org/ |
> +----------------------------------------------+
> _______________________________________________
> Smt-talk mailing list
> Smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
> http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org 

------------------------------

Message: 6
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:41:50 -0500 (EST)
From: "S. Alexander Reed" <alexreed at ufl.edu>
To: Deborah Burton <burtond at bu.edu>, "Locke, Ralph"
	<rlocke at esm.rochester.edu>
Cc: smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases
Message-ID:
	<687147497.179181261158110976.JavaMail.osg at osgjas02.cns.ufl.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset=us-ascii

In a recent high-profile case, Joe Satriani sued Coldplay over the 
melody for their mega-hit "Viva La Vida," which he asserted was 
lifted from his own "If I Could Fly."  The case was dismissed, 
however, and it appears that they may have settled out of court.

There are plenty of musical plagiarisms to be found in classical 
and popular music, though in a post-Negativland age (to say 
nothing of Andrew Lloyd Webber, Girl Talk, and increasingly 
ridiculous court-defined stipulations on what the music "is"), I 
think a lot of musicians feel a certain futility when it comes to 
defending what they view as their own intellectual property.  It 
certainly never makes one popular to do so.

Alex Reed
Assistant Professor
University of Florida

alexreed at ufl.edu

------------------------------

Message: 7
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:12:50 +0000
From: Richard Porterfield <porterfr at hotmail.com>
To: smt-talk smt <smt-talk at societymusictheory.org>
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases
Message-ID: <BLU113-W23E9FC2942E1D67AE5CEA8D5850 at phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

Richard, 

See the excellent http://cip.law.ucla.edu/caselist.html

Richard Porterfield

Ph.D. candidate, CUNY Graduate Center

Instructor, Mannes

Co-founder, Lionheart

porterfr at hotmail.com

> Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:22:17 +0000
> From: richardlewis at fastmail.co.uk
> To: smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
> Subject: [Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases
> 
> Dear SMT,
> 
> This question may be better directed at law scholars, but a colleague
> is interested in finding cases of music plagiarism which have been
> heard in court (in any country, but English or German proceedings will
> be easiest to read). Anyone know of any?
> 
> Best,
> Richard
> -- 
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> Richard Lewis
> ISMS, Computing
> Goldsmiths, University of London
> Tel: +44 (0)20 7078 5134
> Skype: richardjlewis
> JID: ironchicken at jabber.earth.li
> http://www.richard-lewis.me.uk/
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> +----------------------------------------------+
> | Support open access to scholarship |
> | http://freeculture.org/ http://www.doaj.org/ |
> +----------------------------------------------+
> _______________________________________________
> Smt-talk mailing list
> Smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
> http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org

_________________________________________________________________
Hotmail: Trusted email with Microsoft?s powerful SPAM protection.
http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/177141664/direct/01/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.societymusictheory.org/pipermail/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org/attachments/20091218/e62679cf/attachment-0001.htm>

------------------------------

Message: 8
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:56:45 +0100
From: "Daniel Wolf" <djwolf at snafu.de>
To: "Stephen Guy Soderberg" <ssod at loc.gov>,
	smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases
Message-ID: <op.u442gv2g83tlig at daniel-4f1dca55.fritz.box>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed; delsp=yes

The Batt case was not one of plagiarism but rather of failure to pay a  
license for work which Batt himself identified and credited Cage as an  
author.   Useful information about this is available starting here

http://johncagetrust.blogspot.com/2009/10/silence-is-golden.html

and following the links in the item.

Daniel Wolf
composer, Frankfurt

On Fri, 18 Dec 2009 15:26:41 +0100, Stephen Guy Soderberg <ssod at loc.gov>  
wrote:

> The most bizarre (or is it bazaar?) case I know of was when the John
> Cage Trust sued Mike Batt formerly of the Wombies over an album track
> consisting of one minute of silence.  Batt was upfront that it was a
> tribute to Cage, but the Trust claimed plagiarism of 4'33" and sued.
> Probably his mistake was listing the authorship of the track as
> "Batt/Cage" (heh, get it?)  You all probably think I'm making this up,
> but it's easy to search the web for info on this case and a quick
> summary is here: http://www.out-law.com/page-2978.  Evidently Batt
> settled for six figures!!  Well, after all... he DID quote 25% of the
> work note-for-note. 8-P

------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Smt-talk mailing list
Smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
http://lists.societymusictheory.org/listinfo.cgi/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org

End of Smt-talk Digest, Vol 11, Issue 5
***************************************

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: winmail.dat
Type: application/ms-tnef
Size: 10563 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.societymusictheory.org/pipermail/smt-talk-societymusictheory.org/attachments/20091218/ec347cd2/attachment-0004.bin>