

The Blurred Lines Copyright Verdict Is Bad News for Music - tbirdz
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/03/blurred-lines-copyright-verdict-bad-news-music

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6stringmerc
"Musicians will have to think twice before creating any new songs that evoke
the feel of the music that inspired them in their youth."

That wasn't the issue of the case and the EFF is being shitty by pretending
that it is - the "recording" is what evokes the feel / vibe, but the case was
about the composition. There's a big, big difference. That's why, in the
courtroom, the jury was NOT allowed to listen to the recordings back-to-back.
They were only allowed to listen to the SHEET MUSIC played on a piano.

So, what they concluded is that the music was infringing - not that "Oh dear
it sounds too funky!" or "Gee we better rule against the Gaye family to make
sure nobody ever sounds like Jimi Hendrix again." If imitating a style was
actual copyright infringement I could rattle off a list so long that your eyes
would roll into the back of your head - but that ain't what the case was
about, and the EFF's take on it is pure shill bullshit.

You want a decent discussion of the case? Go read over at Complete Music
Update. Chris was surprised at the verdict, but at least tracked the case
properly:

[http://www.completemusicupdate.com/article/gaye-family-
win-b...](http://www.completemusicupdate.com/article/gaye-family-win-blurred-
lines-dispute/)

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josho
This is a good step. Things have to get bad enough to force any improvements.
When monied interests feel the pain of overzealous copyright laws, only then
will we see improvements.

~~~
normloman
You have too much faith in the "things have to get better before they get
worse" myth. The major record labels, which hold the rights to most music from
the last few decades, will simply agree not to sue each other. It's in their
best interests. But surely they will sue the pants off independent artists who
pose a threat.

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cJ0th
In a way it is almost funny that such an agressive industry hasn't stepped
upped their game. Why not introduce patents on instrumentation or sound
design?

Just imagine how much money one could have made if you could patent "a kick
drum triggering the side chain compressor on a saw-wave bassine"

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ChristianGeek
Oh please, the intro to "Blurred Lines" went way, way beyond simply
referencing "Got to Give it Up." I would have been disappointed if the ruling
HADN'T gone the way it did.

Sam Smith was enough of a gentleman to admit his mistake and come to friendly
financial terms with Tom Petty. It's too bad Alan Thicke couldn't do the
same...he deserves the ruling.

~~~
normloman
The only thing Sam Smith's song has in common with Tom Petty's is a chord
progression and a vaguely similar melody. Compare that with 12 bar blues,
where every song has the exact same progression, and limited melodic
possibilities. In fact, there are thousands of songs guilty of the same crimes
Smith's is accused of, and none of them were put on trial. Smith wasn't a
gentleman, but a coward.

Blurred Lines has even less in common with it's inspiration. It does what
music has been doing since the beginning - updating the best ideas of the past
with a twist from the present. If writing a song like Blurred Lines is against
the law, I don't see how music can thrive.

~~~
6stringmerc
Sure, I'll compare the Smith/Petty thing with 12 bar blues because I can play
12 bar blues in my sleep and have covered about a dozen Petty songs to date.

12 bar blues is, essentially, a musical metronome. 12 bar blues inherently
does not have a melody. It's an assembled grouping of public domain chords set
in a public domain tempo. The point of the musical metronome of 12 bar blues
is for the melody line to be added. That's what differentiates "Stormy Monday"
from "Cold Shot" from "Steel Mill" from "Who Do You Love."

By comparison, using a melody on top of a chord progression is what is called
a "musical composition." In the case of the Smith/Petty situation, there was a
noteworthy musical composition overlap. Do I think it was very strong? Not
especially, but was it there? Yeah, it was.

That's what makes the Blurred Lines case so easy for me to understand - it
wasn't about the song taking a "feel" or "sound" \- which it most certainly
did - it was about the song taking the structural components in the form of
progression and melody and trying to lift them under the guise of doing
something new. That's not legally protected, and I think the jury got it
right.

I totally see how music can thrive - now, if I come up with a cool new pop
song, some sticky fingered producer can't simply come along and song-jack me.
I can be inspired by Jimi Hendrix, just like Stevie Ray Vaughan. I can be
inspired by Dimebag Darrell, but there's no way that I'd go out and try to re-
work "Floods" or "Cowboys From Hell" and pass it off as my own work. Music has
been around longer than the internet, longer than even the written word.

I think it's foolish to say "Oh music is in danger!" when the reality of the
situation is actually "Oh the music business of making profits is in danger!"
The former is certainly not true with the advent of new music technologies.
The latter is fundamentally threatened by the former, and I'm perfectly fine
with that.

~~~
normloman
A composition's more than a melody and a progression. It's about the
arrangement, the rhythm, even the words. If two songs share a lot of the same
elements, they can sound similar. But sharing just two elements isn't the same
as swiping a song. Stay With Me has the same chords as Won't Back Down, and it
has a similar 6 note sequence in the Melody. But the rest of the melody is
very different. And the tempo, voicing, arrangement, words, all contribute to
make Stay With Me an original composition. Nobody confused the two songs until
Petty's lawyers pointed it out.

I was using the blues as an easily available example of musical borrowing. You
seem to think different rules should apply to blues songs than to
"compositions." Blues songs are compositions. They have melodies. Their chord
progression is just as common the one used in Stay With Me.

You're incorrect about Blurred Lines. The song did NOT take the progression
and melody from the Marvin Gaye song. They have different progressions and
melodies. What Blurred Lines took from Marvin Gaye was the drum beat. As a
drummer, I can tell you thousands of songs use the exact same drum beat.
Granted, this beat is pretty unique. But so is the Purdie shuffle, and to my
knowledge, Bernard Purdie never sued John Bonham for Fool in the Rain.

Here's where you're right: It is foolish to say "Music is in danger." But what
I said was that it will be harder for music to thrive. Look what patent trolls
are doing to the tech industry. If we agree that having the same drumbeat is
plagiarism, the same thing could happen to music.

