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posted by martyb on Sunday September 08 2019, @03:19PM   Printer-friendly
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.


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  • (Score: 2) by jmichaelhudsondotnet on Monday September 09 2019, @07:46AM (1 child)

    by jmichaelhudsondotnet (8122) on Monday September 09 2019, @07:46AM (#891578) Journal

    Something like this might work, but no matter how well the rules are thought out, a system of non-artists counting the pennies is going to always twist it against the artists.

    What I am getting at is that the copyrights of art needs to by an institution that respects artists, which I don't think will happen until artists themselves make their own institutions to regulate the money.

    And then make sure it doesn't turn into a cult like nearly everything else tends to.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @02:37PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday September 09 2019, @02:37PM (#891691)

    This reminds me of the comments surrounding Mr Clete in Pratchett's book Soul Music.