In the music industry, the most
popular type of legal controversy or incident that happens is copyright
infringement on songwriting. Of the more recent incidents, the one that hit
most of social media would be the Tom Petty and Sam Smith case. Sam Smith wrote
a song called Stay With Me, and a few weeks ago there was an article that Tom
Petty claimed that Sam Smith’s song sounded too much like his original song, “I
Won’t Back Down.” This infringement settled on an agreement where Smith would
give Petty songwriting royalties.
This song
was not lyrically the same, but chordally. Many of the incidents I found were
songs that sounded the same rather than a conflict of lyrics.
For
example, many, if not everybody remembers the famous copyright incident with
Vanilla Ice and Queen. Vanilla Ice made the song “Ice Ice, Baby” which in turn,
created a huge controversy because the bass line sounded exactly the same as
Queen’s “Under Pressure.” Ultimately, Vanilla Ice got to keep the rights to his
song because he claimed that indeed it was similar, but different to where
there was one or two notes that made it completely different.
The last
example I found, which I never knew about was an incident with George Harrison.
Harrison wrote a song called “My Sweet Lord” and it hit the top of the charts
for a while. The incident came when the song was argued to be the same as a
song called “He’s So Fine.” The Chiffons recorded this song in 1962. Ultimately,
the judge believed Harrison did not intentionally mean to copy the song but he
did rule that the two songs sound very similar to which Harrison was found
guilty of ‘subconscious plagiarism.”
These
articles really display how one must really protect them and make sure their
art is very unique and original in the event a song or product gets publicity.
A step I take when I have written a song or created a product is Google
different aspects of it. Sometimes people create art and don’t even know that
it was created, such as the events of Harrison. The reason to Google the title,
a chord progression, is to check to see if it has been done, how many times,
and protect the fact that if you decide to sell it, you’re protected.
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