Even when something is close enough that it makes me uneasy?

(Sing the verses of "Hot Legs" over the verse to "Tenth Avenue Freeze Out"...)

I still would have to feel like there was direct intent to steal.

There's this recent(well, I guess it's recent...) Taylor Swift tune where a background part in a verse was driving me up a wall. About a week in, it hits me that it is totally the start of "How Soon Is Now?"

Should straight up lifts like that be a court case?

Damn, I just learned that Ed Sheeran threatened to quit music if he lost this case.

Nope, I don't care, I'm still glad you can't fucking copyright I - iii - IV - V

numberthirty wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 12:01 am I still would have to feel like there was direct intent to steal.

This is about where I'm at, too, at least in theory, though proving or disproving it in court seems like it would be difficult in most scenarios (presuming the pilferer wasn't willing to flat-out admit it).

I don't know.. that wouldn't work for a term paper. "I subconsciously lifted the thesis from another paper.."

But thankfully AI can do what the Sheerans of the world do more efficiently, and they won't be needed much longer.

What's also insane is the songwriting team stuff on modern pop. Like, this is absolutely nuts:

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

Perry co-wrote the song with Gino Barletta, Hayley Warner and its producers Leah Haywood and Daniel James of Dreamlab, as well as Zedd, with whom Perry previously collaborated on "365".[14] The track is inspired by the 2017 song "Love You Like That", performed by Dagny and written by Dagny, Michelle Buzz and Jason Gill, who all received writing credits for "Never Really Over". Despite their credits, Dagny "never sat down in a room with Katy, or wrote the song for her", but had been contacted by Perry's team in early 2019 and told that "they had been really inspired, and had a song that was like their version of ["Love You Like That"]".[15]

So what's going on here? Do hitmaker teams preemptively negotiate with writers of similar material as this CYA effort? What happens if it turns out BOTH songs are derived from some other song? Does that mean Dagny takes the legal heat? Do these big artists get plagiarism insurance? It must be so unfun being a superstar.

twelvepoint wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 9:23 am So what's going on here? Do hitmaker teams preemptively negotiate with writers of similar material as this CYA effort? What happens if it turns out BOTH songs are derived from some other song?

haha.. I listened to one of those and it's the fuckin' Baba O'Riley rhythm/chord progression! It's not as close to it overall as the Sheeran song is to Gaye's, but good god the pop music well is dry..

edit: the Katy Perry version adds an extra chord at least.

penningtron wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 9:35 am

twelvepoint wrote: Fri May 05, 2023 9:23 am So what's going on here? Do hitmaker teams preemptively negotiate with writers of similar material as this CYA effort? What happens if it turns out BOTH songs are derived from some other song?

haha.. I listened to one of those and it's the fuckin' Baba O'Riley rhythm/chord progression! It's not as close to it overall as the Sheeran song is to Gaye's, but good god the pop music well is dry..

It sounds like a commercial for Royal Caribbean.

Full disclosure: I actually didn't listen to that Katy Perry tune til just now and yeah I hear that Baba progression. It's gotta be really weird writing music that's so formulaic. And it's probably rather difficult, because there are different, evolving formulas, but the goal is always to make the biggest hit possible, driven by what's popular at the time.

Kinda related, but one of the gross bits of pop music behavior I was reminded of by the podcasts Cocaine & Rhinestones and A History of Rock in 500 Songs was how skeevy producers would try to take advantage of fractured local markets to steal glory from rival artists.

For example, “You Really Got Me.” Mere months after that song came out in the UK, limp cover versions by fake studio “bands” appeared. (One version featured a young Steve Marriott.) These existed only because the producers were hoping to beat the Kinks to the US market.

Totally legal, and amazingly shitty.