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Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

108 points by aaronarduino 7y ago

AS126 7y ago
> "If you can be liable for allegedly copying a three-note phrase, I think that really dampens the creative output of artists," said Keyes. I don't like where this is going. Those songs have key differences in percussion and partly in melody too, as explained in the graphic. This sets an interesting precedent, to say the least.
- ddingus 7y ago
  Interesting is the nice word for it. Honestly, there is nothing the same, and only a couple similarities such that one may be reminded of the other song. Remarkably, Pery added a ton of her own expression. These tunes are just not very similar. Prior to this decision, I would have said no way to infringement. Basically, the flood gates from hell were just opened. Music is about to get devalued (again), attorneys will make a killing, and the scope of new music will be reduced away from anything even remotely close to what major artists have released. The latter may actually bring some new ideas forward, but I fear appetite for risk will prove more limiting than the new ideas may be potentially compelling.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ptah 7y ago
  in the graphic 16 notes are green (meaning the same) so saying 3 is not accurate at all
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
    Three different notes. Repeating the same note is rhythm, but the allegations are about melody.
    - ptah 7y ago
      three different tones, but you are ignoring the most important aspect of modern music: rhythm. a modern music piece uses only a few different tones
iamben 7y ago
I posted this the other day. Absolutely terrible, IMO. A minor artist can take millions from an artist who releases a song with a passing resemblance. You can hear similarities in SO many songs. And SO many songs are inspired by others - great art is full of inspiration. I dread where this ends up.
- aaronarduino 7y ago
  This sort of feels like the start of the music business's version of patent trolls. I think this verdict devalues music and hampers creativity.
  - freehunter 7y ago
    New business model: have an AI generate every chord progression in every tempo, release the "songs" on your own label, and sue everyone who releases a song after you.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - lostphilosopher 7y ago
      Pattern Trolls
      - auto 7y ago
        Slightly ironically an awesome band name.
        sitkack 7y ago
        A Moiré Monsters - For the Love of Money.
    - Glyptodon 7y ago
      I've always wondered if someone could copyright strike most of YouTube by having a channel filled with permutations of various sorts of ambient background noise.
unethical_ban 7y ago
There is only so much someone can do with a particular set of notes and instruments. It is sad for the arts that a three note riff is the basis of lawsuits.
povertyworld 7y ago
Finally, these major label "artists" have to compensate the creatives they steal from.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  Which "creatives"? Cause it looks like he ripped it off himself - he should probably get sued. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg
- quadrangle 7y ago
  you forgot the sarcasm mark or rather https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law applies
ericcholis 7y ago
Good video breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg
- TheRodsterz 7y ago
  Came here to post this.. was too late!
- libria 7y ago
  Well where the hell was this guy when Perry's team was building their defense? It's apparent what his position is, but he presents well, sounds sincere, and AFAICT has better evidence.
- gregmac 7y ago
  The video is absolutely worth watching, but one of the more relevant bits is this: > [...] in Dark Horse it's just the background texture for one of the verses. It has the same musical function as a chord progression or a drum groove: it serves to highlight the melody but it's not the song itself. Up until this point it seemed like only melodies could be copyrighted in the composition of song, however the recent court decisions surrounding Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines and Marvin Gaye's Got To Give You Up has thrown all of this into question. > This is why the lawsuit demanded a trial by jury: because they wanted to confuse non-musician non expert jurors with fancy music theory jargon. He also specifically calls out the expert witness, saying: > You're doing it in a fairly intellectually dishonest manner because I sincerely doubt you would make the arguments that you made in court at [an] academic conference for example, or you wouldn't write them down in a scholarly article, because your academic peers would absolutely eviscerate you for saying some of those things -- and yet in front of a jury of your peers you said them.
  - sitkack 7y ago
    I don't understand why a Jury of Peers [1] wouldn't be comprised of domain experts and not just random people off the street. And it seems like having domain knowledge is likely to get one NOT selected for jury duty. Can any lawyers chime in on this (even armchair hn lawyers)? [1] https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/what-is-a-jury-of-peers.html https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/what-is-a-ju...
ptah 7y ago
16 notes in the same sequence? that's too big of a coincidence
- vortico 7y ago
  It's not 16 notes but three notes. C B A. The first note is repeated for a measure, the second is repeated for a half note, and the third is played once. Yes, it's undoubtedly a coincidence. See https://i.cbc.ca/1.5235857.1564861522!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/dark-horse.jpg https://i.cbc.ca/1.5235857.1564861522!/fileImage/httpImage/i...
  - ptah 7y ago
    the repetition is super important. in modern music the rhythm is more important than the variety of tones. the same rhythm and the same tonal distance is too big to be a coincidence
    - vortico 7y ago
      How large do you think the design space is? Technically, it's enormous, maybe 8^15 possible melodies. But what about good-sounding melodies? That drastically reduces the space. What about memorable, good-sounding melodies? Most melodies aren't catchy, so that limits the space some more. What about culturally-appropriate, memorable, good-sounding melodies? It likely wouldn't make sense to use a Turkish opera melody in a pop song. Genres typically encompass a small space of melodies (e.g. Blues, Boogie Woogie). What about such melodies that follow a particular rhythm, or match the vocalist's range, or that follow a desired chord progression? After all this is considered, you're probably down to only a million combinations. But there are a billion songs out there...
      - ptah 7y ago
        the range of notes in pentatonic scale is only five. but the rhythms (the important part of modern music) have a lot more combinations. katy perry's writers used the exact same rhythm with the same notes, which is highly improbable
xealgo 7y ago
Good artist copy. Great artist steal. However, in this case, I'm hard pressed to believe it's a case of either.
- faissaloo 7y ago
  I think the main problem is that the artist would have to at least be good.
- deleted 7y ago
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120bits 7y ago
I was wondering, does Shazam can differentiate well between these two songs? I'm not entirely sure about the internal working of it, but was curious to know how these pattern recognition apps can help in this. Also, reminds me of the Silicon Valley where Richard was able to disproof Patent troll by using his music/search app.
- lukecameron 7y ago
  The technique you're looking for is Acoustic Fingerprinting [1]. There's a pretty easily understandable python implementation[2] of it if you're interested. In Shazam's case it is looking for peaks in the sound's spectrograph, so I don't think it would likely confuse two songs based on melody alone. It would have to be very close in rhythm, melody, and possibly even be in the same key. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_fingerprint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_fingerprint [2] - https://github.com/worldveil/dejavu https://github.com/worldveil/dejavu
- uw_rob 7y ago
  From my understanding, Shazam can differentiate between songs that share samples by doing classification on a windowed section of input. I.e, take 5 seconds of recording, and classify on t=0..2, 1..3, 2..4, 3..5. The idea being that the sample usage won't continue forever, and you will eventually get a new pattern. (You can even use your classifications from t=0..2 as priors for future classifications!). For an easy intro to how Shazam works, see this: https://www.toptal.com/algorithms/shazam-it-music-processing-fingerprinting-and-recognition https://www.toptal.com/algorithms/shazam-it-music-processing...
redm 7y ago
This reminds me of Under Pressure and Ice Ice Baby, the latter also having to pay up.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  In that case, the baseline was directly ripped off, it wasn’t just “sounded similar”, it was an actual sample.
  - goda90 7y ago
    If sampling to create new art were better protected, then cases like this wouldn't even come up. The documentary "Good Copy Bad Copy" was talking about this 12 years ago
    - rtkwe 7y ago
      Yeah I think we're long overdue to reevaluate what copyright means in music. I think it should be much closer to how we treat fashion where anything but a direct rip off is 100% fair game (and that is even more about trademarks because the actual design can't be copyrighted).
  - gsg21 7y ago
    But to hear Vanilla Ice explain it is pretty hilarious - https://youtu.be/6TLo4Z_LWu4 https://youtu.be/6TLo4Z_LWu4
- Sahhaese 7y ago
  It's nothing like that because in that case, the latter directly sampled the former.
- cwzwarich 7y ago
  But in that case, Ice Ice Baby sampled the recording of Under Pressure verbatim.
- xxs 7y ago
  https://xkcd.com/159/ https://xkcd.com/159/ Leading with that relevant xkcd Under pressure likely features the most recognizable bass line of the 20th century. So even claiming new art would be deeply influenced by the former
Marazan 7y ago
After getting away with ripping off "All the things she said" it must be pretty galling to get dinged by this one.
velcrovan 7y ago
On the plus side, looking forward to the coming total legal meltdown of country music
- saidajigumi 7y ago
  What's the half-life of the byproducts of reaching litigational critical mass?
- mighty_bander 7y ago
  To say nothing of reggae, dubstep, etc. etc.
  - faissaloo 7y ago
    Noise should be fine tho
    - coldtea 7y ago
      Actually noise is the most homogeneous of all...
dwohnitmok 7y ago
I wonder at what point similarities with past works becomes inevitable. There's only a finite amount of original music out there, especially if you're talking about the length of an average riff or motif, leave out a lot of the more extreme attempts of contemporary art music, and stick to what sounds pleasing in popular music genres. And the output of number of musical compositions seems only to be increasing. An interesting short story in this vein is http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm A bit on the melodramatic side, but explores the same general point.
- pixl97 7y ago
  This reminds me of the entire Right to Read by RMS.
- 52-6F-62 7y ago
  Punk rock would be a minefield. And that's all only come out of the blues (skipping some historical points) which relies heavily on "standards". So many of the compositions along that tract are made up of three to five notes in a limited variety of voicings and arrangements. I - III - V - IV Try Johnny Be Goode. Chuck Berry has his reputation but he could have pulled a move like this a large number of times by now [and somehow hasn't! (don't quote me on that, though) I (4 Bars) - III (2 Bars) - I (2Bars) - V (2 Bars) - I (4 Bars) Or something like that. But there's 90% of the song, repeated over.
  - CalChris 7y ago
    Country music, three chords and the truth, has it worse.
    - 52-6F-62 7y ago
      Also from the blues! But [usually] in the pocket instead of syncopated. But definitely. Especially modern pop country (gag) as even all the themes are the same! Red truck, light beer, America. Am I missing anything? Anyway yeah—all the way back to Hank Williams you could form the basis of a case that any song that progresses Gmaj - Amaj - Dmaj on an acoustic guitar with a mournful vocal tone and downtrodden lyric content is a "rip off".
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hedora 7y ago
Does this mean Axis of Awesome will finally get paid for Four Chord Song? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I
ilamont 7y ago
In the early 1990s I worked for Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond's record label, back when they were dominating the UK and European pop charts as The KLF (https://weirdestbandintheworld.com/2011/10/20/the-klf/ https://weirdestbandintheworld.com/2011/10/20/the-klf/). One day we received in the mail a cassette tape and a letter from a law firm representing a composer or publisher (I can't remember which) of a famous Broadway soundtrack from the 1960s. The letter accused the KLF of infringement. The cassette contained one of the songs on the Broadway soundtrack, an instrumental section of which repeated a three note riff that sounded a lot like the same three-note sequence from one of the KLFs biggest hits. The rhythms and song structures were otherwise nothing alike. It didn't seem like an obvious example of copying, and it was quite possible it was a coincidence or some obscure influence on The KLF or their core musical collaborators, who would have been youths when the Broadway soundtrack was released. "Are you going to fight this?" I asked the label's president. The answer: "No." From The KLF's perspective, it wasn't worth a long, expensive legal fight they might lose. The KLF had been burned before for rampant unauthorized sampling in a previous incarnation of the band called The JAMMs, as described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_(What_the_Fuck_Is_Going_On%3F) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_(What_the_Fuck_Is_Going_O... Also, the label president didn't say it, but potential bad press could have also been on her mind. At the time, the KLF had the British music press eating out of their hands, and a public legal fight could change the narrative of the KLF as being brilliant pop iconoclasts to something less favorable.
JustSomeNobody 7y ago
I don't know much about music, but there's only so many ways to arrange notes and of those ways there are far fewer ways to arrange them that sound ... pleasing to the ear. What happens when all the pleasing ways are copyrighted and owned by some sort of Pantone for music? Good grief what are we becoming?
deleted 7y ago
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sudosteph 7y ago
I would be more sympathetic to Katy Perry's case here if I could ever get past the fact that a major part of "Firework" sounds so much like Erasure's "Always". I'm all for creative freedom, but massively profitable pop music labels shouldn't be able to just crib the essence a catchy melody and make it the whole basis of their song just because the person who wrote the original version wasn't that popular. If it really was a coincidence in this case, then it's unfortunate, but it isn't life-changing to someone as well-off as her. If the original composer really was copied from though, actually being credited and received recognition as deserved, could be life-changing, so I don't blame him for suing.
dnjdrbdhdbs 7y ago
The problem is using juries for this. Music copyrights should be adjudicated by a panel of professional musicologists, funded by a cut of the awards. That way there’s at least some consistency. The concept would extend to other disciplines. Of course a purely functional improvement to governance is a political nonstarter in today’s environment.
- human20190310 7y ago
  It was the opinion of a professional musicologist, presented to a jury, that resulted in the lawsuit being successful. At least with a jury there's a chance of calling bullshit, even though it did not occur in this case.
  - xxs 7y ago
    Jury in pretty much any case is a subpar solution. However, patent or copyright ones are total bonkers to be decided by jury panels. Leaving justice outcome to chance is rather weak way to 'benefit the society'.
  - UncleMeat 7y ago
    A musicologist that was hired by one of the legal teams. If you are paid by one side of the lawsuit you definitely aren't impartial. Loads of professionals think that this (and similar suits) are not only bogus but dangerous.
acomjean 7y ago
This is direct fallout from the Marvin Gaye Estate/ Robin Thicke "blurred lines" lawsuit mentioned in the article. Those songs aren't that similar (the jury didn't even hear both songs if I remember correctly), and after the verdict wasn't corrected on appeal the stage was set for more of these. The "easy money" angle of results (5 million to the estate of a singer for a 70s song.... just get lawyers). It seems likely we are going to see more and more of these lawsuits. Sort of a sad state.
jordigh 7y ago
How was Flame able to demonstrate that they heard the song before? Remember that independent discovery is a valid defense a against a copyright infringement claim. Katy Perry's legal defense was that nobody had ever heard Flame's music. The CBC article doesn't seem to indicate how the jury was convinced that Katy Perry's team knew of the other song, except that "obviously they heard it because it was awarded a Grammy". Huh? Is that all it took?
georgeecollins 7y ago
I wonder if you could make an AI program to make a bunch (millions)of unique melodies a minute or less and publish them somewhere like YouTube. Then just scan new hit songs and see if they somehow copy what your computer generated..
camjohnson26 7y ago
Anecdotal, but I’m a big fan of Lecrae’s music and Joyful Noise was probably the biggest hit in Christian hip hop of the time. First time I heard Dark Horse on the radio I laughed and told a friend that they totally ripped off Joyful Noise, it was very obvious since that riff is the focal point of the song. Don’t know if I agree with the lawsuit but the similarities are there. Joyful Noise: https://youtu.be/jTLeHuvHXuk https://youtu.be/jTLeHuvHXuk Dark horse: https://youtu.be/0KSOMA3QBU0 https://youtu.be/0KSOMA3QBU0
ertemplin 7y ago
This is literally how musicians create new music. When I was in high school jazz band, every improvisation had pieces of popular jazz songs in it. That's just how it works.
didibus 7y ago
What about sampling and remixes?
beautifulfreak 7y ago
A similar case involving Kraftwerk was decided recently. https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8524267/kraftwerk-european-court-justice-ruling-metall-auf-metall https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8524267/kraftwer... "European Court Rules In Favor Of Kraftwerk In 20 Year-Long Copyright Dispute"
segmondy 7y ago
What a schadenfreude for me. I see most people are saying it sucks, I for one can cheer on. Screw the music, movie and media industry. Tons of laws and garbage we suffer on the internet today is because of them and their lobbying efforts. There approach towards everything has been litigation hell, let them feel their own pain.
- EvanAnderson 7y ago
  While I share your amusement that the publishing industry is hoist with their own petard creators will inevitably be targeted as a result of this decision. That really troubles me. I see this decision as a weapon for the publishing industry. "Pirates" have been held-up as being publishers' enemies. I think this decision will serve to make independent creators a bigger target. Machine learning-based analysis of music along w/ this decision will create a distopia where independent musicians are hit with automatically-generated copyright infringement extortion letters. It'll be similar to the letters "downloaders" received a few years ago, except that the infringement will be the act of creation rather than "consumption". My hope is the lunacy of this decision will spark more conversation about reigning United States copyright back into some semblance of its original form. I've been pining for that conversation since the creation of the DMCA, though, and it shows no sign of coming. The litigation wasteland that this decision will create might make that happen, but, then again, it might just serve to cement the idea that you can't be a legitimate content creator w/o going thru the traditional publishing system (and all the rent-seeking that comes with it).
tzs 7y ago
Just listening to both songs once, I didn't notice anything close. What I'm curious about are the cases where it is extremely obvious that one song is based on another, and no one says anything. Case in point: "Jolly Roger" by Adam and the Ants [1], from 1980. This is extremely similar to "The March of the MacGregors" by Ennio Morricone, from the 1966 film "Seven Guns for the MacGregors" [2]. It's not only the same melody, "Jolly Roger" is also largely the same arrangement. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc_-vSIy3fY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc_-vSIy3fY [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5JQ1JTsJ4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5JQ1JTsJ4k
Yaa101 7y ago
This is obvious a case of "be careful what you wish for" the music industry has itself to blame for this. I hope it will get more ridiculous over time.
1290cc 7y ago
Incredible to think that rap music would never have existed or become a popular genre if this law existed in the 80's and was weaponized against artists. Ultimately this will strengthen a labels position as signed artists will be "allowed" to be influenced by songs the record label already owns. Anyone else will be stuck in court. There's a fantastic documentary on this called Copyright Criminals that breaks down this area and just how intertwined the entire music industry is as artists are naturally inspired by each other. The conclusion from this film was that innovation and creation will then come from places where these laws do not exist.

108 points by aaronarduino 7y ago

> "If you can be liable for allegedly copying a three-note phrase, I think that really dampens the creative output of artists," said Keyes. I don't like where this is going. Those songs have key differences in percussion and partly in melody too, as explained in the graphic. This sets an interesting precedent, to say the least.

ddingus 7y ago
Interesting is the nice word for it. Honestly, there is nothing the same, and only a couple similarities such that one may be reminded of the other song. Remarkably, Pery added a ton of her own expression. These tunes are just not very similar. Prior to this decision, I would have said no way to infringement. Basically, the flood gates from hell were just opened. Music is about to get devalued (again), attorneys will make a killing, and the scope of new music will be reduced away from anything even remotely close to what major artists have released. The latter may actually bring some new ideas forward, but I fear appetite for risk will prove more limiting than the new ideas may be potentially compelling.
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ptah 7y ago
in the graphic 16 notes are green (meaning the same) so saying 3 is not accurate at all
- IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
  Three different notes. Repeating the same note is rhythm, but the allegations are about melody.
  - ptah 7y ago
    three different tones, but you are ignoring the most important aspect of modern music: rhythm. a modern music piece uses only a few different tones

iamben 7y ago

I posted this the other day. Absolutely terrible, IMO. A minor artist can take millions from an artist who releases a song with a passing resemblance. You can hear similarities in SO many songs. And SO many songs are inspired by others - great art is full of inspiration. I dread where this ends up.

aaronarduino 7y ago
This sort of feels like the start of the music business's version of patent trolls. I think this verdict devalues music and hampers creativity.
- freehunter 7y ago
  New business model: have an AI generate every chord progression in every tempo, release the "songs" on your own label, and sue everyone who releases a song after you.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - lostphilosopher 7y ago
    Pattern Trolls
    - auto 7y ago
      Slightly ironically an awesome band name.
      - sitkack 7y ago
        A Moiré Monsters - For the Love of Money.
  - Glyptodon 7y ago
    I've always wondered if someone could copyright strike most of YouTube by having a channel filled with permutations of various sorts of ambient background noise.

unethical_ban 7y ago

There is only so much someone can do with a particular set of notes and instruments. It is sad for the arts that a three note riff is the basis of lawsuits.

povertyworld 7y ago

Finally, these major label "artists" have to compensate the creatives they steal from.

SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
Which "creatives"? Cause it looks like he ripped it off himself - he should probably get sued. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg
quadrangle 7y ago
you forgot the sarcasm mark or rather https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law applies

ericcholis 7y ago

Good video breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg

TheRodsterz 7y ago
Came here to post this.. was too late!
libria 7y ago
Well where the hell was this guy when Perry's team was building their defense? It's apparent what his position is, but he presents well, sounds sincere, and AFAICT has better evidence.
gregmac 7y ago
The video is absolutely worth watching, but one of the more relevant bits is this: > [...] in Dark Horse it's just the background texture for one of the verses. It has the same musical function as a chord progression or a drum groove: it serves to highlight the melody but it's not the song itself. Up until this point it seemed like only melodies could be copyrighted in the composition of song, however the recent court decisions surrounding Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines and Marvin Gaye's Got To Give You Up has thrown all of this into question. > This is why the lawsuit demanded a trial by jury: because they wanted to confuse non-musician non expert jurors with fancy music theory jargon. He also specifically calls out the expert witness, saying: > You're doing it in a fairly intellectually dishonest manner because I sincerely doubt you would make the arguments that you made in court at [an] academic conference for example, or you wouldn't write them down in a scholarly article, because your academic peers would absolutely eviscerate you for saying some of those things -- and yet in front of a jury of your peers you said them.
- sitkack 7y ago
  I don't understand why a Jury of Peers [1] wouldn't be comprised of domain experts and not just random people off the street. And it seems like having domain knowledge is likely to get one NOT selected for jury duty. Can any lawyers chime in on this (even armchair hn lawyers)? [1] https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/what-is-a-jury-of-peers.html https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/what-is-a-ju...

ptah 7y ago

16 notes in the same sequence? that's too big of a coincidence

vortico 7y ago
It's not 16 notes but three notes. C B A. The first note is repeated for a measure, the second is repeated for a half note, and the third is played once. Yes, it's undoubtedly a coincidence. See https://i.cbc.ca/1.5235857.1564861522!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/dark-horse.jpg https://i.cbc.ca/1.5235857.1564861522!/fileImage/httpImage/i...
- ptah 7y ago
  the repetition is super important. in modern music the rhythm is more important than the variety of tones. the same rhythm and the same tonal distance is too big to be a coincidence
  - vortico 7y ago
    How large do you think the design space is? Technically, it's enormous, maybe 8^15 possible melodies. But what about good-sounding melodies? That drastically reduces the space. What about memorable, good-sounding melodies? Most melodies aren't catchy, so that limits the space some more. What about culturally-appropriate, memorable, good-sounding melodies? It likely wouldn't make sense to use a Turkish opera melody in a pop song. Genres typically encompass a small space of melodies (e.g. Blues, Boogie Woogie). What about such melodies that follow a particular rhythm, or match the vocalist's range, or that follow a desired chord progression? After all this is considered, you're probably down to only a million combinations. But there are a billion songs out there...
    - ptah 7y ago
      the range of notes in pentatonic scale is only five. but the rhythms (the important part of modern music) have a lot more combinations. katy perry's writers used the exact same rhythm with the same notes, which is highly improbable

xealgo 7y ago

Good artist copy. Great artist steal. However, in this case, I'm hard pressed to believe it's a case of either.

faissaloo 7y ago
I think the main problem is that the artist would have to at least be good.
deleted 7y ago
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120bits 7y ago

I was wondering, does Shazam can differentiate well between these two songs? I'm not entirely sure about the internal working of it, but was curious to know how these pattern recognition apps can help in this. Also, reminds me of the Silicon Valley where Richard was able to disproof Patent troll by using his music/search app.

lukecameron 7y ago
The technique you're looking for is Acoustic Fingerprinting [1]. There's a pretty easily understandable python implementation[2] of it if you're interested. In Shazam's case it is looking for peaks in the sound's spectrograph, so I don't think it would likely confuse two songs based on melody alone. It would have to be very close in rhythm, melody, and possibly even be in the same key. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_fingerprint https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_fingerprint [2] - https://github.com/worldveil/dejavu https://github.com/worldveil/dejavu
uw_rob 7y ago
From my understanding, Shazam can differentiate between songs that share samples by doing classification on a windowed section of input. I.e, take 5 seconds of recording, and classify on t=0..2, 1..3, 2..4, 3..5. The idea being that the sample usage won't continue forever, and you will eventually get a new pattern. (You can even use your classifications from t=0..2 as priors for future classifications!). For an easy intro to how Shazam works, see this: https://www.toptal.com/algorithms/shazam-it-music-processing-fingerprinting-and-recognition https://www.toptal.com/algorithms/shazam-it-music-processing...

redm 7y ago

This reminds me of Under Pressure and Ice Ice Baby, the latter also having to pay up.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
In that case, the baseline was directly ripped off, it wasn’t just “sounded similar”, it was an actual sample.
- goda90 7y ago
  If sampling to create new art were better protected, then cases like this wouldn't even come up. The documentary "Good Copy Bad Copy" was talking about this 12 years ago
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    Yeah I think we're long overdue to reevaluate what copyright means in music. I think it should be much closer to how we treat fashion where anything but a direct rip off is 100% fair game (and that is even more about trademarks because the actual design can't be copyrighted).
- gsg21 7y ago
  But to hear Vanilla Ice explain it is pretty hilarious - https://youtu.be/6TLo4Z_LWu4 https://youtu.be/6TLo4Z_LWu4
Sahhaese 7y ago
It's nothing like that because in that case, the latter directly sampled the former.
cwzwarich 7y ago
But in that case, Ice Ice Baby sampled the recording of Under Pressure verbatim.
xxs 7y ago
https://xkcd.com/159/ https://xkcd.com/159/ Leading with that relevant xkcd Under pressure likely features the most recognizable bass line of the 20th century. So even claiming new art would be deeply influenced by the former

Marazan 7y ago

After getting away with ripping off "All the things she said" it must be pretty galling to get dinged by this one.

velcrovan 7y ago

On the plus side, looking forward to the coming total legal meltdown of country music

saidajigumi 7y ago
What's the half-life of the byproducts of reaching litigational critical mass?
mighty_bander 7y ago
To say nothing of reggae, dubstep, etc. etc.
- faissaloo 7y ago
  Noise should be fine tho
  - coldtea 7y ago
    Actually noise is the most homogeneous of all...

dwohnitmok 7y ago

I wonder at what point similarities with past works becomes inevitable. There's only a finite amount of original music out there, especially if you're talking about the length of an average riff or motif, leave out a lot of the more extreme attempts of contemporary art music, and stick to what sounds pleasing in popular music genres. And the output of number of musical compositions seems only to be increasing. An interesting short story in this vein is http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm http://www.baen.com/chapters/W200011/0671319744___1.htm A bit on the melodramatic side, but explores the same general point.

pixl97 7y ago
This reminds me of the entire Right to Read by RMS.
52-6F-62 7y ago
Punk rock would be a minefield. And that's all only come out of the blues (skipping some historical points) which relies heavily on "standards". So many of the compositions along that tract are made up of three to five notes in a limited variety of voicings and arrangements. I - III - V - IV Try Johnny Be Goode. Chuck Berry has his reputation but he could have pulled a move like this a large number of times by now [and somehow hasn't! (don't quote me on that, though) I (4 Bars) - III (2 Bars) - I (2Bars) - V (2 Bars) - I (4 Bars) Or something like that. But there's 90% of the song, repeated over.
- CalChris 7y ago
  Country music, three chords and the truth, has it worse.
  - 52-6F-62 7y ago
    Also from the blues! But [usually] in the pocket instead of syncopated. But definitely. Especially modern pop country (gag) as even all the themes are the same! Red truck, light beer, America. Am I missing anything? Anyway yeah—all the way back to Hank Williams you could form the basis of a case that any song that progresses Gmaj - Amaj - Dmaj on an acoustic guitar with a mournful vocal tone and downtrodden lyric content is a "rip off".

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hedora 7y ago

Does this mean Axis of Awesome will finally get paid for Four Chord Song? https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

ilamont 7y ago

In the early 1990s I worked for Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond's record label, back when they were dominating the UK and European pop charts as The KLF (https://weirdestbandintheworld.com/2011/10/20/the-klf/ https://weirdestbandintheworld.com/2011/10/20/the-klf/). One day we received in the mail a cassette tape and a letter from a law firm representing a composer or publisher (I can't remember which) of a famous Broadway soundtrack from the 1960s. The letter accused the KLF of infringement. The cassette contained one of the songs on the Broadway soundtrack, an instrumental section of which repeated a three note riff that sounded a lot like the same three-note sequence from one of the KLFs biggest hits. The rhythms and song structures were otherwise nothing alike. It didn't seem like an obvious example of copying, and it was quite possible it was a coincidence or some obscure influence on The KLF or their core musical collaborators, who would have been youths when the Broadway soundtrack was released. "Are you going to fight this?" I asked the label's president. The answer: "No." From The KLF's perspective, it wasn't worth a long, expensive legal fight they might lose. The KLF had been burned before for rampant unauthorized sampling in a previous incarnation of the band called The JAMMs, as described here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_(What_the_Fuck_Is_Going_On%3F) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_(What_the_Fuck_Is_Going_O... Also, the label president didn't say it, but potential bad press could have also been on her mind. At the time, the KLF had the British music press eating out of their hands, and a public legal fight could change the narrative of the KLF as being brilliant pop iconoclasts to something less favorable.

JustSomeNobody 7y ago

I don't know much about music, but there's only so many ways to arrange notes and of those ways there are far fewer ways to arrange them that sound ... pleasing to the ear. What happens when all the pleasing ways are copyrighted and owned by some sort of Pantone for music? Good grief what are we becoming?

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sudosteph 7y ago

I would be more sympathetic to Katy Perry's case here if I could ever get past the fact that a major part of "Firework" sounds so much like Erasure's "Always". I'm all for creative freedom, but massively profitable pop music labels shouldn't be able to just crib the essence a catchy melody and make it the whole basis of their song just because the person who wrote the original version wasn't that popular. If it really was a coincidence in this case, then it's unfortunate, but it isn't life-changing to someone as well-off as her. If the original composer really was copied from though, actually being credited and received recognition as deserved, could be life-changing, so I don't blame him for suing.

dnjdrbdhdbs 7y ago

The problem is using juries for this. Music copyrights should be adjudicated by a panel of professional musicologists, funded by a cut of the awards. That way there’s at least some consistency. The concept would extend to other disciplines. Of course a purely functional improvement to governance is a political nonstarter in today’s environment.

human20190310 7y ago
It was the opinion of a professional musicologist, presented to a jury, that resulted in the lawsuit being successful. At least with a jury there's a chance of calling bullshit, even though it did not occur in this case.
- xxs 7y ago
  Jury in pretty much any case is a subpar solution. However, patent or copyright ones are total bonkers to be decided by jury panels. Leaving justice outcome to chance is rather weak way to 'benefit the society'.
- UncleMeat 7y ago
  A musicologist that was hired by one of the legal teams. If you are paid by one side of the lawsuit you definitely aren't impartial. Loads of professionals think that this (and similar suits) are not only bogus but dangerous.

acomjean 7y ago

This is direct fallout from the Marvin Gaye Estate/ Robin Thicke "blurred lines" lawsuit mentioned in the article. Those songs aren't that similar (the jury didn't even hear both songs if I remember correctly), and after the verdict wasn't corrected on appeal the stage was set for more of these. The "easy money" angle of results (5 million to the estate of a singer for a 70s song.... just get lawyers). It seems likely we are going to see more and more of these lawsuits. Sort of a sad state.

jordigh 7y ago

How was Flame able to demonstrate that they heard the song before? Remember that independent discovery is a valid defense a against a copyright infringement claim. Katy Perry's legal defense was that nobody had ever heard Flame's music. The CBC article doesn't seem to indicate how the jury was convinced that Katy Perry's team knew of the other song, except that "obviously they heard it because it was awarded a Grammy". Huh? Is that all it took?

georgeecollins 7y ago

I wonder if you could make an AI program to make a bunch (millions)of unique melodies a minute or less and publish them somewhere like YouTube. Then just scan new hit songs and see if they somehow copy what your computer generated..

camjohnson26 7y ago

Anecdotal, but I’m a big fan of Lecrae’s music and Joyful Noise was probably the biggest hit in Christian hip hop of the time. First time I heard Dark Horse on the radio I laughed and told a friend that they totally ripped off Joyful Noise, it was very obvious since that riff is the focal point of the song. Don’t know if I agree with the lawsuit but the similarities are there. Joyful Noise: https://youtu.be/jTLeHuvHXuk https://youtu.be/jTLeHuvHXuk Dark horse: https://youtu.be/0KSOMA3QBU0 https://youtu.be/0KSOMA3QBU0

ertemplin 7y ago

This is literally how musicians create new music. When I was in high school jazz band, every improvisation had pieces of popular jazz songs in it. That's just how it works.

didibus 7y ago

What about sampling and remixes?

beautifulfreak 7y ago

A similar case involving Kraftwerk was decided recently. https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8524267/kraftwerk-european-court-justice-ruling-metall-auf-metall https://www.billboard.com/articles/business/8524267/kraftwer... "European Court Rules In Favor Of Kraftwerk In 20 Year-Long Copyright Dispute"

segmondy 7y ago

What a schadenfreude for me. I see most people are saying it sucks, I for one can cheer on. Screw the music, movie and media industry. Tons of laws and garbage we suffer on the internet today is because of them and their lobbying efforts. There approach towards everything has been litigation hell, let them feel their own pain.

EvanAnderson 7y ago
While I share your amusement that the publishing industry is hoist with their own petard creators will inevitably be targeted as a result of this decision. That really troubles me. I see this decision as a weapon for the publishing industry. "Pirates" have been held-up as being publishers' enemies. I think this decision will serve to make independent creators a bigger target. Machine learning-based analysis of music along w/ this decision will create a distopia where independent musicians are hit with automatically-generated copyright infringement extortion letters. It'll be similar to the letters "downloaders" received a few years ago, except that the infringement will be the act of creation rather than "consumption". My hope is the lunacy of this decision will spark more conversation about reigning United States copyright back into some semblance of its original form. I've been pining for that conversation since the creation of the DMCA, though, and it shows no sign of coming. The litigation wasteland that this decision will create might make that happen, but, then again, it might just serve to cement the idea that you can't be a legitimate content creator w/o going thru the traditional publishing system (and all the rent-seeking that comes with it).

tzs 7y ago

Just listening to both songs once, I didn't notice anything close. What I'm curious about are the cases where it is extremely obvious that one song is based on another, and no one says anything. Case in point: "Jolly Roger" by Adam and the Ants [1], from 1980. This is extremely similar to "The March of the MacGregors" by Ennio Morricone, from the 1966 film "Seven Guns for the MacGregors" [2]. It's not only the same melody, "Jolly Roger" is also largely the same arrangement. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc_-vSIy3fY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc_-vSIy3fY [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5JQ1JTsJ4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5JQ1JTsJ4k

Yaa101 7y ago

This is obvious a case of "be careful what you wish for" the music industry has itself to blame for this. I hope it will get more ridiculous over time.

1290cc 7y ago

Incredible to think that rap music would never have existed or become a popular genre if this law existed in the 80's and was weaponized against artists. Ultimately this will strengthen a labels position as signed artists will be "allowed" to be influenced by songs the record label already owns. Anyone else will be stuck in court. There's a fantastic documentary on this called Copyright Criminals that breaks down this area and just how intertwined the entire music industry is as artists are naturally inspired by each other. The conclusion from this film was that innovation and creation will then come from places where these laws do not exist.