The blurred lines surrounding music copyrights

Dua Lipa’s song, “Levitating”, has now been on pop music charts for 72 weeks in a row. But a band called Artikal Sound System is suing her for stealing one of her songs“Live your life.”

Both songs have the same key and tempo, the same melody and the same chords.

These judgments have history. The first big one to go to trial was the Chiffons (“He’s So Fine”) against George Harrison (“My Sweet Lord”). Harrison lost and paid more than half a million dollars.

But here’s the thing: when you write a song, you don’t have many notes to choose from. And most songs use only a few chords. Inevitably, sooner or later, two people will write songs with sections that sound the same, right? Should there even be judgments?

Attorney Richard Busch asked correspondent David Pogue, “How many letters are in the alphabet?”

“Twenty six.”

“And how many words can you create with these 26 letters? Billions? Millions? Yes? So I don’t care how many notes there are, or how many chords; there are a myriad of ways to mix these notes. chords, to create original music “.

Busch has sued several notorious gangs for theft, and has won every time, including the “Blurred Lines” case.

For Jan Gaye, Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams’ 2013 hit “Blurred Lines” sounded a lot like a 1977 song called “Got to Give It Up” by her ex-husband, Marvin Gaye. “It was a nightmare,” he said. “I lost a lot of faith in people and their motivations in the music business.”

Pogue asked, “Didn’t anyone need to convince you how much it sounded like ‘Do you have to give up?’

“Not for a moment,” Gaye replied. “No, I was there when Marvin made the record, so there was no doubt, no confusion.”

Richard Busch won the case. The Gaye family raised $ 5 million and a half of all future copyrights.

What made the “Blurred Lines” case so notorious is that the two songs are not so technically alike. The melodies and lyrics are different; the chords and bass lines are different. What they do have in common is their atmosphere: the rhythm, the cowbell, the party talk.

The verdict seemed to open the door to similar lawsuits against famous gangs.

In 2016, a band called Collage (“Young Girls”) sued Bruno Mars and Mark Ronson (“Uptown Funk”) and reached an agreement.

Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard (“Amazing”) sued Ed Sheeran (“Photography”) and earned co-writing credit and copyright.

Now, to win one of these lawsuits, you have to prove three things: first, you have to prove that you own the original song; second, you have to prove that the thief had access to it, that he heard your song at some point; and finally, the big one, you have to prove that the two songs are substantially similar.

And this is where things get complicated.

Lawyer Ilene Farkas has represented composers accused of stealing songs. “No one can have individual notes,” he said. “No one can own chord progressions. No one can own a guitar riff. No one can definitely have a song.”

He argues that there is a difference between copy and inspiration: “The Beatles were inspired by Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones by the great Delta Blues artists and Robert Johnson, Elvis by BB King. They gave it their own twist and focus. And that’s what creativity is all about. “

Damien Riehl, a musician, lawyer and programmer, showed Pogue a hard drive: “.

He and a friend wrote software to generate these 68 billion melodies, to make it clear that suing for a snippet of a song is absurd. “What we’ve done is take all these songs, all these tunes, and put them all in the public domain,” Riehl said, “so that anyone can use them freely, without having to worry about being sued.”

Pogue asked, “How far would you go with this idea of ​​’Are these demands stupid?’ Like, I just wrote a song that says, “Saturday, all my dalmatians seemed so far away!” How, okay? “

“Absolutely not!” Riehl smiled. “If someone steals an entire song, yes. Ask these people for everything it’s worth! But for phrases of very short melodies, and maybe even longer melodies, they shouldn’t be copyrighted.”

Farkas isn’t sure that hard drive full of tunes will hold up in court. But maybe the acrobatics made their point. In more recent demands, the pendulum has begun to rise. “I think there has been some course correction in the cases that have followed ‘Blurred Lines,'” he said.

When a band called Spirit (“Taurus”) sued Led Zeppelin (“Stairway to Heaven”) in 2014, they finally lost. And when a rapper named Flame (“Joyful Noise”) sued Katy Perry (“Dark Horse”) in 2019, he also lost on appeal. The judge wrote that these eight notes “are not a particularly unique or rare combination.”

Farkas said: “These are two great examples of courts that said, ‘We will not start dissecting music and looking for similarities so that we can share ownership of the pieces of music.’ No one wins if that happens.”

And so, in the case of Dua Lipa, what would it be you decide if you are the judge?

Richard Busch knows what he he thinks.

Pogue asked, “There are people who believe that there should be no lawsuit for copyright infringement, that ‘good artists copy, great artists steal,’ that we build on existing works.”

Busch laughed, “People who say that probably haven’t had their stuff stolen!”

For more information:

• Richard Busch, King & Ballow
• Ilene Farkas, Pryor Cashman
• Damien Riehl, Fastcase

Story produced by Gabriel Falcon. Editor: Lauren Barnello.

See also:

• Plagiarism: Stop word thieves (“Sunday Morning”)

In:
• Plagiarism