Plagiarism in music occurs when an artist represents another artist’s work—melody, motif, and/or lyrics—as their own, and often results in lawsuits. Precedents such as a famous 1971 case involving similarities between George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” (recorded in 1969) and the Chiffons’ “He’s So Fine” (recorded in 1962), which resulted in the finding that Harrison had “subconsciously plagiarized” the track, make court rulings in these cases a grey area.
Another controversial issue is that of sampling, which is when a portion of one song is looped to create a beat, or reused in another song, often with a different instrument. “That mess is so ridiculous. Sample and stole is two different things,” said record producer Timbaland in 2007, when accused of “knowingly and willfully” using production (both motifs and samples) from Finnish composer Janne Suni’s 2000 song “Acidjazzed Evening” for Nelly Furtado’s “Do It,” released in 2006. A video posted on YouTube in January 2007 by an anonymous user made the first accusation against Timbaland.
“How can someone look in the mirror and know they didn’t do something and their name is on it? For money? For credit? It’s a lie,” said songwriter Diane Warren, who has written for artists such as Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Mary J. Blige, in an interview with Songwriting & Beyond, a music blog.
In Cold Blood
The popular Coldplay single “Viva La Vida” was hit with plagiarism accusations by three separate artists (although only one lawsuit was actually filed). “With the greatest possible respect to Joe Satriani, if there are any similarities between our two pieces of music, they are entirely coincidental, and just as surprising to us as to him,” said Coldplay in an official statement following the suit by Satriani claiming that the track was similar to his 2004 song “If I Could Fly.”
“…we're talking about a piece of art that I created, and that's something I feel is important,” Satriani told MusicRadar.com in 2008. “I'm just doing what I need to do as an artist, to protect what's mine,” he added.
Out of Line
Other artists, in contrast to Satriani, choose not to sue. In 1992, Roger Waters (in an interview with Q magazine) responded to allegations that parts of Pink Floyd’s song “Echoes” were used in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s soundtrack to Broadway musical Phantom of the Opera. “I couldn't believe it when I heard it… It probably is actionable,” said Waters, one of the band’s lead singers, who went on to record and perform solo work. “But I think that life's too long to bother with suing Andrew f*cking Lloyd Webber.”
However, although he decided not to take legal action, Waters did respond more subtly by including the line “Lloyd Webber's awful stuff runs for years and years and years” in his song “It’s A Miracle.”
“Musicians have an old saying: Adam and Eve wrote the first song and we've been ripping it off ever since,” said an anonymous user on Mog.com, a music blogging site.
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