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from the Gets-worse-before-it-can-get-better dept.
How low can copyright law go? Much further if the current lawsuits being flung around are any indication. Ed Sheeran is taking a hiatus to deal with a copyright claim from Sam Chokri against his song Shape Of You. The suit accuses Sheeran of stealing the Chorus from the song Oh Why after Chokri voluntarily submitted it to Sheeran's management. The resemblance between the tracks is said to be 'very slight', but this is not the first time Sheeran has been challenged in this matter, with the previous accusation being resolved by adding songwriting credits for parts borrowed from TLC's No Scrubs. Sam Smith caved in to Tom Petty's claim that his song Stay with me was in some way related to I Want Back Down, which must take a musician to spot, while Katy Perry lost a suit filed by a Christian hip hop artist who claimed that her song Dark Horse infringed on Joyful Noise due to that they both have "a slightly similar sharp stabbing synth and a basic trap beat" which resulted in Petty's lawyer commenting that “they’re trying to own basic building blocks of music, the alphabet of music that should be available to everyone.” With these big names being taken down by claims of similarity of the "feel" of the music this may be the beginning of the end of the music industry shooting itself in the foot.
Money better spent on hookers and blow.
See also, the short story Melancholy Elephants by Spider Robinson.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday September 08 2019, @05:52PM
Not only the geniuses, but the mediocrities and the could-have-beens and the want-to-bes as well. Not every artist is a genius, but if it has ever been written down or recorded, someone holds a copyright, or wants to hold the copyright.
Remember the "Happy Birthday" song? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Happy_Birthday_to_You [wikipedia.org]
People who had zero claim to the song started making claims almost 100 years after the song was published in at least one book, that was introduced as evidence. If Warner didn't already suck ass for hundreds of other reasons, they would suck ass for this one claim alone.
"Happy Birthday", and the song it was derived from, "Good Morning To You" weren't exactly "genius" works, IMO. It's just a nice, simple little tune that children can pick up easily.