Blurred Lines is nothing like the My Sweet Lord case. In the latter case, there should be a chilling effect for people who dream up exact replicas of someone else’s song. You can still copy it, just give a proper writing credit for ripping off the exact melody line. Do it subconsciously, like Mick Jagger did to KD Lang’s song? Give a writing credit.
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Copyright isn’t about ideas, it’s about representations in fixed media, supposedly. The argument in the case was almost more of a trademark argument: there were no parts lifted directly from the song, but it sounds vaguely like a Marvin Gaye song to the point where maybe if you’re not really paying attention you might mistake it for one.
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I thought of it first and have legally registered the method with a patent filing, several copyrights, a couple trademarks, a handful of contracts, an LLC, a sprinkling of domain registrations and consider this note a cease and decist; so suck it Mr. 8:30.
Sincerely,
Mr. 8:29
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Roger that! Blurred Lines is a terrible song.
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There’s a small fee for formal registration. But generally you can establish copyright simply by publishing/performing. Particularly if its formally documented and dated in some fashion. The old trick was to mail a copy to yourself and keep the copy in the sealed post marked envelope.
Its always better to file. But technically you can establish a claim for free. OR manufacture a false history after the fact. Best ROI would be from using your program to generate songs just close enough to valuable recent ones to sue over. Then falsify your high school Ska band throwing them up on Myspace 20 years ago.
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My band makes 60s garage rock. All our songs sound like all other 60s garage rock songs.
For almost 60 years bands have been milking the same sounds and chord progressions.
There’s a thousand songs with the Louie Louie progression. And they are all awesome.
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Some of the worlds best music was written in a time when copyright just didn’t exist and nobody cared about composers using/rephrasing each others music.
The process of selling recorded music of course makes a difference, but it’s not inherently morally better that other musicians are forbidden from ‘stealing’ a good idea when they hear one. It’s just the way the economy has evolved.
For human creativity itself the whole copyright system is a net loss.
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Yes, Kpopalypse is an angry edgelord who wants you to believe that he likes nothing more than “fapping” to hawt K-Pop girls, but underneath that crap he seems to know what he’s talking about.
Are those “elements” melodies and are they identical?
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One is reminded of the copyright fight between Captain Marvel and Superman, where DC attempted to claim that other strong guys in skin-tight costumes with capes were infringements on superman
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Comics_Publications,_Inc._v._Fawcett_Publications,_Inc.
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I am glad nobody listens to the music I make
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Curses. . . OUTTROLLED!!1!
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I have trouble taking your argument seriously when you don’t even name a Marvin Gaye song that Blurred Lines supposedly copies.
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Don’t forget “Fly Me Off The Händel”:
Where do I begin? He’s killing me softly with his song in Hotel California, but if you fly me to the moon I will survive.
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LOL, you were supposed to threaten my dog and take it to the next level!
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I don’t think it’s sad at all. The myth of the “original idea” comes from the same place as the “self-made man”, and it’s past time we stopped believing in fairy tales of hyper-individualism.
Ideas, like wealth, are constructed collaboratively out of whatever is laying around. And what’s laying around is stuff that other people collaboratively constructed previously.
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No, it’s not “ethically ambivalent.” It’s ethically 100% okay. Moreover, copying somebody else’s original idea is 100% legally permissible, so long as you’re not copying their expression of that idea. 17 U.S.C. s. 102(b) (“In no case does copyright protection for an original work of authorship extend to any idea…”).
This is fortunate, because you, for example, are not the first person to have the idea that copying ideas is bad. Somebody else had that original idea long ago. But because you (probably) did not copy their expression of that idea, you are (probably) not liable for copyright infringement.
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The copyright has expired long ago, and is now in the public domain. This only happened because people in the past realised it was a bad idea to stop all copying.
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Mmm, yes, vague and nonspecific, just like expert testimony.
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