"Do I use the lighter or the carnation to start my cigarette? I can never remember!"

 

That's why I said similar. You probably know better than me that a melody is composed by different things: rhythm, motion during time (going up, going down), accents, etc. etc. If you copy *some* of these elements, then what's the problem? You're just "taking inspiration".

 

Nothing personal, my friend . I wholeheartedly disagree with your statement "A melody alone does not make a song" and I'm sure there's some monks rolling over in their graves hearing you say that
Now, if you'd like to debate whether it's between melody and harmony; which comes first the chicken or the egg?...
I tend to lean towards the egg(melody) as it's the more primitive .

 

It's when your "inspiration" becomes recognizable as "plagiary" that legal problems will arise. Of course it's a fine line, but as of late, that line hasn't been so fine.

As far as I know - regarding music - it's lyrics and melody you have to be careful about plagiarizing.

 

Last edited: Sep 25, 2016

Taken out of context I would agree that my sentence could be difficult. But in this context I was thinking about the situation, that two people, independently of one another develop the same sequence of notes. The question is if anyone of those would be technically accusable of stealing (morally it isn't stealing at all, but courts don't judge morally). I then imagined a melody as those sequence of notes, but in the first example it is set in a dark slow wave song with lots of minor chords, and in the second set in a fast paced, major chords, happy polka. Now I imagined the polka dude would accuse the dark wave dude of stealing. I can't think of a situation where a court would judge in favour of the polka dude or vice versa.
Of course, it is different when it comes to well known iconic melodies (da da da daa, to mention Beethoven's 5th), but that was not the question of the op.

I hope the monks can now rest in piece again

 

Unless thousands of dollars are at stake....nobody will care....not even the courts. Move on with your life.

 

Don't listen to people who say, "Don't sweat it." Just let the other artist know that you acknowledge your (unconsicous?) plagiarism and that you will cease-and-desist and pull your track from release. Not even to evade (or defy threat of) litigation, just on moral grounds. Be a stand-up dude; be so honest with yourself that you have to be honest unto others. Also try to come up with some song that's incontrovertibly original. You'll be a better person for that, too.

When people rip me off right under my nose, I reach for my baseball bat – so, there's that element, too.

 

If bass lines could be copyrighted, there would be lawsuits up the wazoo about them. (ride the E, now ride the A, now ride the E, now ride the B). They are usually not the main melody and can't be copyrighted unless they are. I have never filled out a copyright form for bass or drums. You can't sample it from the recording because that and the performance are also copyrighted. But rarely is a songs main melody in the bass line only.

 

"The authorization before any"

"Ask permission ? Easy! ", You think. Well actually, no. To use the extract of a work, the famous sesame can be obtained from the rights holders. These are the entities with any right in the work in question. Among them, we can list the songwriters, publisher, producer, lead artist and performers. These are five people who will (potentially) bring you a patent lawsuit if you use part of their music without them you give ... the right.

Under Article L122-4 of the Code of Intellectual Property, "any complete or partial representation or reproduction made without the consent of the author or his successors or assigns shall be unlawful." And under the Article L335-3 of the ICC, "is a forgery offense all reproduction, representation or circulation by any means whatsoever, of a work of the mind in violation of the copyright, as defined and regulated by the law. " Incidentally, the offense of forgery is punishable by three years imprisonment and 300 000 € fine (Article L335-2-1 ICC).

How to get permission from all parties at once? "You have to request permission from the editor's work," said a source at the Sacem. It is he who is responsible for commercially exploiting the work and defend the copyright. "And it is he who has the instructions songwriters and other parties." Also, if you get the permission of the publisher, you can use the music of artists he manages music.

"Contractual approach"

But the editor will he grant you permission so easily? Not quite. Does it cost? "There is obviously a contractual approach that the musician will have with the publisher," says our source SACEM. Although she wishes to temper "but it can be free." An approach not always obvious to contract a large number of samples of consumers DJs who do not own ... and prefer to conceal.

Camouflage samples? Well yes. Each parameter of your sound fragments can be modified: range, rhythm, other effects such as saturation, echo or reverb ... and sometimes it all at once.

"One for the money, two for the show"

An example ? Nothing less than the famous "Barbara Streisand" by Duck Sauce, the group formed by A-Trak and Armand Van Helden, nothing but a "large sample of Boney M from beginning to end, himself a recovery of "Hallo Bimmelbahn" by Nighttrain "says our source. A sample so recognizable that in his "A-Trak had to ask permission, make a big check and do not touch anything on the copyright."

Obviously, the calculation is elsewhere, "even if they do not receive rights to this song was a worldwide hit [editor's note: number 1 in Belgium, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland second and third in the UK and France] and brought him money for lives / DJ sets and a worldwide recognition. "

 

Until your song blows up.

 

Nope, not difficult, or taken out of context, sorry but there's no other way to interpret that
My point is you cannot even"borrow" a melody.

(having said that, I guess parody doesn't exist in music? )

The odds of this happening are something you should look into

Here's one:

In this situation the original artist's name was added to the writing credit of the other's.

Well, here's his question

Maybe I'm taking OPs question the wrong way, but my second point I think sums up OPs question.

We could always go deeper and ask, does OP know the original artist? Has OP ever heard the original song before? Could it possibly have been subconsciously lifted? (I personally have done this with a bassline in the past. Before I could even play keyboards or new anything about writing music, I banged out a bassline through trial and error only to have my friend point out it was note for note a bassline we both knew quite well, in fact it was one of my favorite tunes and I had unknowingly pieced together. Once I realized I then rearranged the notes to make it my own, but i digress. I'm doubtful it was chance.

OP certainly titled this thread very well; it IS a very SERIOUS question. Reputations are at stake and people can DIE!!!!

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment...-sour-for-a-beautiful-man-20120419-1xa5w.html
http://www.news.com.au/entertainmen...e/news-story/db47d17797386c960b7a7737974ea1ce

The lesson here, is be careful. Do you want to be remembered for being an artist or a rip-off artist?

PS Sure this can be just a fun and a hobby for some, but let's see how much of a hobby it is when your little song becomes a hit! and the man comes knocking


PPS I just remember another goodie:

Tensnake (born 1975[1]), is a German DJ and producer from Hamburg[2] best known for his 2010 track "Coma Cat", which appeared on at least 15 compilations that year.[3] "Coma Cat" reached number 85 on the UK Singles Chart, number 11 on the UK Indie Chart and number 17 on the UK Dance Chart.[4] Tensnake emerged in the mid-2000s with a disco-influenced style and rose to critical acclaim by the end of the decade. He is most widely known for his popular 2010 song "Coma Cat".

Anthony and the Camp - What I like

Tensnake lost all copyright and monies of "HIS" BIGGEST TUNE! And this was after he personally called - I think it was Sony - and told them what he'd done AFTER THE FACT that his tune had blow the fuck up. If he had done it prior and licensed it as a sample or as a cover version all the while being transparent to what he'd done, he'd not of lost these things...( as well as respect as an artist - that's my personal opinion anyway )

Oddly enough he's managed to keep this little episode out of the press quite well as I noticed it's also not mentioned on wikipedia. But it is fact.




I'll leave this as my parting note:
The musician had reportedly fallen back into alcohol abuse and was quoted as saying: “I’m terribly disappointed that’s the way I’m going to be remembered — for copying something.”
“Gregory felt terribly guilty about having played the line, unconsciously or not, he goes downhill and can’t seem to conquer whatever demons were going on,” Hay says (regarding the kookaburra flute line)

 

Last edited: Sep 26, 2016

@almightyshux I can't quote your whole post, it's too long. But I try to answer. The Tom Petty video you posted, is NOT what I am referring too. You can clearly see that some 20 Years lie between the songs. That's not what I was thinking of. I interpreted the op's question (and maybe wrong) as two people making each a song at the same time, independently of one another, where a sequence of notes is similar. And now that I read your interpretation of the question, I might have been totally off. I already said in a previous post that it is another story if it is about an already existing, iconic melody. And if something like that is the case here, my contributions are just nonsense.

For example if A released a song, B releases a song a month later, then A accuses B of stealing. That's a whole other plot, and if this was meant by the op, forget all about my posts. They don't make sense in that situation.

 

Not sure about legal systems in other territories but in regards to United States, a lot of chord progressions can be considered "common" so the melody itself may not be sufficient enough to make a plagiarism claim. To make the accusation someone must show a willful intent to copy another work, to what degree, and what kind of access they had to the original work. IE; if a rock star makes a hit and a somebody comes forward to accuse of stealing then they have to prove the rock star had access to the original work for starters (Prince would instruct to throw away unsolicited demos to avoid such claims). More to the point of OP's question there will not be a court case unless there was a substantial amount of money at stake. As can be seen by all of the back and forth in this thread it can be a tedious and expensive process to bring these cases to court and prove things.

 

Nobody should ever believe this.

 

A fresh dispute between two deejays, Trus'Me and Roberto Clementi:

https://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=36397

 

Rule number one, remove original parts to release on your own. I've had labels decide against releasing my remixes due to contractual complications with the artist and have THEM suggest to ME to remove the original parts and to release as my own.
Though they did make a reasonable offer to calm the situation, only after the fact of pure negligence, it's pure bullsh¡t they didn't know what they were doing. Or if they did, then it just proves that the facade of being a real musician leads you down a path of ignorance. When you actually write something, you know every single nuance. If you don't you're playing yourself. Trus'me played himself and no apology or offer will change that in my eyes.

EDIT: Something they could have offered on top of the others would have been a public admission. Like a Facebook post explaining what happened. The thing is, those physical copies are written in stone, 20 years from now, no one will remember the drama. And since when did anyone check the metadata of an MP3 for writing credit.

"Trus'me - Stolen Ideas.mp3"

or even just "Stolen Ideas.mp3"

 

Last edited: Sep 28, 2016

By disagreeing with my statement you just further prove my point. THANK YOU!
I did enjoy our discourse and learned a few things myself. I hope you did too, but i have a feeling you haven't. Kudos

 

Is the other melody similar enough for yours to be considered a copy under the principles of reasonability?

If yes, just apologize and say you didn't do it on purpose. It should be ok, if you're being honest. It happens all the time.

If no, relax and enjoy your song.

R.

 

I may be wrong, but if I remember well, there are certain copyright limitations on "how much" can be same before it's considered "copied",
can be a whole melody loop, few beats, just a beat, or tune in certain tempo.... best to check website of your local music copyrights provider