Whilst I was in Memphis I became a reporter for The Daily Helmsman newspaper for one semester. The University print newspaper had daily editions in both digital and print formats distributed across the city.
The Daily Helmsman
The Daily Helmsman
Time after time: Theres only so many notes?
By Luke Chapman
If anyone is concerned about plagiarism within a musical piece, the first step is to reach out to a musicologist. Although this sounds like one of the most wonderful job titles in the world, the title simply represents someone who can thoroughly analyse a piece of music in various means. The analysis may entail investigation within characteristics of harmony, melody, structure and more recently, “feel” (among others). To many, the idea of a songs “feel” would be extremely subjective, however recently it has been stated in court that this can be taken into account when assessing if a song has been plagiarised. A song can even be sued due to its similarity within its “feel”. Personally, I fail to see how one could lawfully prove that a song impacts one’s feelings in a similar sense, however, this example of a lawsuit is now present within the industry, thus opening more avenues to the opportunists who feel they have been robbed.
Another fine line of the plagiarism debate is the area of sampling. Sampling is taking a segment of audio from one piece and re-using it in another. With the rise and always present use of sampling within dance music, pop music along with many other genres have been influenced by this creative technique in numerous ways. In Taylor Swift’s comeback hit “look what you made me do” she sampled Right said Fred’s “I’m too sexy”. Cases like this aren’t uncommon, and are legal providing the correct royalties and credits are present. Drake is another example of sampling, the majority of Drake’s songs are sampled in one way or another. His hit “One dance” is a sample of Huntingdon based singer Kyla, and more recently he has used a sample of Lauryn Hill within “nice for what”. The difference with the example of Drake is that, most people don’t know the vast majority of his catalogue was around before he intervened. A lot of people believe that “One dance” and “Nice for what” are Drake originals, so is it his responsibility to make people aware he uses other artist’s music? Or is it our responsibility to educate ourselves on this musical knowledge?
I believe the main debate within the genre of plagiarism is whether an artist genuinely believes their music has been plagiarised, or whether they just see money out of a successful law suit. Although not the lawful definition, but in my opinion, I believe a song has been plagiarised if the person has purposely and consciously taken an aspect of a different song and introduced it into their own creation. There is also the case of the unconscious copyright infringement, this is where someone has subconsciously utilised pieces from another song in their writing process without realising it is from elsewhere. In these cases, someone will usually pick up the similarities as it goes up the ranks of the record label before its release.
The most notable example within the question of conscious plagiarism mainly lays to one man, Ed Sheeran. In no way am I diminishing his credibility or song writing process, however there has been numerous law suits brought against Sheeran. Could this be due to his songs having a genuine resemblance against other songs, or is it that Ed’s songs generate a lot of revenue, attracting people to attempt law suits in pursuit of high figures of money? Representatives of the girl band TLC recently brought a law suit against Ed Sheeran for infringing upon the song “No Scrubs” within his own “Shape of you”. This was quickly combatted with Sheeran adding the co-writers of “No Scrubs” to his writing credits. Is this admitting plagiarism from Ed, or is he aware that he may lose the lawsuit if he claimed he didn’t copy the song? Alongside this notable event, in January this year two songwriters sued Ed Sheeran for allegedly stealing a melody from their song, and using it within a song Sheeran wrote for Faith Hill and Tim Mcgraw. Separately, a song written for Matt Cardle by Ed has also been scrutinised by Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard. Then, most recently, Irish popstars The Script are suing Sheeran for allegedly using parts of their song “The man who can’t be moved” for “Say you won’t let go” by James Arthur which Ed Sheeran wrote. As I say, I am in no way scrutinising Sheeran or his abilities, but I believe these cases raise and highlight one of the main points around this topic. Are these songs being copied, or are people cashing in on the fact that we’re running out of new musical possibilities?
The landmark “Blurred Lines” court case is essentially what brought this whole new era to light. The estate of Marvin Gaye sued Robin Thicke and Pharrel for allegedly copying aspects of Gaye’s song “Got to give up” within “Blurred lines”. The case saw Pharrel and Thicke in court explaining their song writing process and how they created the song, countering any opinions that the song was fraudulent towards Gaye. At the end of the case, the judge ruled that Gaye’s copyrights were infringed upon and Marvin’s estate were awarded over $7m in damages. This was the beginning of brand new cases being opened throughout the years to come. The case essentially brought light to the fact that these types of lawsuits can be won, or at least proving maybe it’s worth a shot to make a cheap buck from someone? Marvin Gaye’s family have also been back at it again this year, now filing a $100 million law suit against the one and only, Ed Sheeran. They allege that Sheeran stole elements of “Let’s get it on” within his number one smash “Thinking out loud”. Is this another ploy at trying to claw money back from the grasps of the successful, or did Sheeran genuinely infringe Gaye’s copyrights?
There are countless numbers of court cases in similar fashions to those outlined above, and no doubt they will continue to roll in until something is done to cease these incessant imbecilic provocations. Until then, it’s down to the court system to prove that music is still alive, and that modern musicians aren’t just artists of illegality, and are indeed the pinnacle of talent they proclaim to be.
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There are only 12 notes in the traditional musical alphabet. Most pieces of music are composed containing a combination of these notes, allowing the question, are all songs just a recycling of the order of the differing notes? With this in mind, at which point is a new composition simply a remix or reshuffle of an unrelated song? The human ear can recognise sounds between the range of 20Hz to 20,000Hz, therefore limiting the range of sounds we can use within music. With the human ear only being able to hear a certain amount of tones, has plagiarism always been imminent? Will there be a point where songs are solely copied from elsewhere, or will the forever changing face of music allow us to eternally create new and invigorating inventions?