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I've been reading on a few Bandmix posts about copywrite lawsuits for "stealing" riffs or measures. Why even bother to copywrite anything? Sooner or later somebody is going to develop a computer program with every song ever copywritten on it where the computer can compare any new copywritten song to every copywritten song. Therefore if even one riff is deemed to be "stolen" the copywrite is refused and future lawsuits can be avoided. Therefore maybe the solution is to copywrite only the lyrics and/or throw out all copywrite lawsuits based on riffs and not based on the entire song. It's getting to the point of our having such a frivilous legal system that the smallest chance of a lawsuit is jumped on by one of the many attorneys who can't make a legitimate living otherwise. I wonder if just copywriting lyrics is the way to go and not bother copywriting the music...

fisherman bob wrote:I've been reading on a few Bandmix posts about copywrite lawsuits for "stealing" riffs or measures. Why even bother to copywrite anything? Sooner or later somebody is going to develop a computer program with every song ever copywritten on it where the computer can compare any new copywritten song to every copywritten song. Therefore if even one riff is deemed to be "stolen" the copywrite is refused and future lawsuits can be avoided. Therefore maybe the solution is to copywrite only the lyrics and/or throw out all copywrite lawsuits based on riffs and not based on the entire song. It's getting to the point of our having such a frivilous legal system that the smallest chance of a lawsuit is jumped on by one of the many attorneys who can't make a legitimate living otherwise. I wonder if just copywriting lyrics is the way to go and not bother copywriting the music...

I think it has to defined as "Identical" if they want to call it infringement.
Otherwise, a giant can of worms gets opened and dumped on the artistic landscape.

I don't think Beethoven, Philip Glass or Al di Meola would agree with your view. Music is every bit as much intellectual property as the written word, it's just in a different notation. Motion denied.

you can't copyright a chord progression. there are only 12 keys and only so many chords within that key. 95% of all rock music is that simple.

You don't change key five times, you don't use chords beyond the basic seven chords that align in any one key.

let me take that back... you can copyright anything you want... and you can sue anyone you want... but I suspect very few lawsuits based on music alone ever get very far.

music and lyrics the same? there are no new stories... only new ways to tell them.

Ah but you can. "My Sweet Lord" and "He's So Fine" come to mind.

I also believe that one must prove that the original was HEARD by the offender, which in the "My Sweet Lord" case was easy to prove.

No I don't believe you must prove that the piece was heard, only that the two pieces are substantially similar. For example, what if a deaf composer wrote music that was judged to be plagiarized?

If I re-call correctly, I believe if it's three notes that are played exactly like the original, then it's considered infringement. It may have changed, cause Hip-Hop seems to get away with a lot anymore.

Therefore maybe the solution is to copywrite only the lyrics and/or throw out all copywrite lawsuits based on riffs and not based on the entire song.

Copywrite is base on melody and lyrics ... and that about it.

Jimmy is right in pretty much everything he stated.


Some of the other comments are urban legends, repeated myths, etc...


Our founding fathers were VERY creative and VERY intellectual men. They VALUED intellectual property rights, and it is THEY who created the basis for our current copyright laws. They believed that artists should be COMPENSATED for their art, and their originality PROTECTED, rather than stolen.

philbymon wrote:I also believe that one must prove that the original was HEARD by the offender

No, you can infringe on someone's work completely by ACCIDENT.

Where foreknowledge matters, is in INTENTION. If it can be proven that you DELIBERATELY infringed on someone else's copyright, the fines are enormously stiff, compared to incidental infringement. But even in accidental infringement, you will be responsible for paying royalties to the author who FIRST copyrighted the work.

OOPS. I'm sorry.

I think I accidentally wandered into the law offices of "Cheatum and How".

Does "intellectual property rights" include riffs (a few notes) or parts of a song (a few measures perhaps)? Where does this mess end? How few notes strung together or a few chords strung together get defined as "intellectual property rights" where somebody can be sued for "stealing" a riff or a few chords? It's getting ridiculous. If I hit a weird chord on my bass in a recorded copywritten tune, perhaps even by accident, and say ten years later somebody hits the same weird chord by accident on their copywritten tune then do I have the right to sue them because they stole my "intellectual property rights?" Shouldn't the legal definition of copywrite infringement be based entirely on whether the original artist LOST INCOME as a result of the stealing? The whole concept of a legitimate lawsuit should be based on denying income to the original artist. Copying a few riffs isn't going to TAKE MONEY OUT OF THE POCKETS OF THE ORIGINAL ARTIST. That's what pisses me off about this whole mess and what pisses me off about our entire legal system. There's so many damn lawyers looking at any conceivable way to make money. They should rightfully throw out any of these lawsuits that are so frivilous that they are laughable at best. It's mind boggling that our society pisses billions of dollars into a vast black hole of unnecessary red tape and a legal bureaucracy that is for the most part a COMPLETE WASTE OF taxpayer's money. What B.S....

Was there a lawsuit involved with "He's So Fine" and "My Sweet Lord"? I asusme He's So Fine came before My Sweet Lord. Even though the two songs may have similar progressions they sound nothing alike. They have a completely different feel and completely different lyrical content. Also I can't imagaine that the author of He's So Fine lost any money as a result of the publication of My Sweet Lord. If I were the deciding judge in a lawsui9t concerning these two songs I would summarily dismiss it from my court room.

You can't copyright chords or chord progressions, or even brief riffs for that matter. You can copyright SONGS (defined as melody plus lyrics) and you can copyright an INSTRUMENTAL (melody only) and you can copyright a SOUND RECORDING (the entire album you intend to sell).

Chords are too common, just as 4/4 Drum Beats are too common.

But a distinguishable melody line, or lyrics, become UNIQUE, and are easily identifiable and recognizable. These can be protected, but not forever. A copyright lasts for the LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, plus 70 years (something like that) and then it enters the PUBLIC DOMAIN and can be used by all future generations WITHOUT PAYING ROYALTIES.

Copyright law, really was well thought out, to be fair and as reasonable as possible.... balancing the protection of the author (author profits for his life, and immediate children's lives) and balancing that with the public welfare as a whole (no one can own a melody forever).

Our founding fathers were brilliant men.