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The only thing Sam Smith's song has in common with Tom Petty's is a chord progression and a vaguely similar melody. Compare that with 12 bar blues, where every

The only thing Sam Smith's song has in common with Tom Petty's is a chord progression and a vaguely similar melody. Compare that with 12 bar blues, where every song has the exact same progression, and limited melodic possibilities. In fact, there are thousands of songs guilty of the same crimes Smith's is accused of, and none of them were put on trial. Smith wasn't a gentleman, but a coward. Blurred Lines has even less in common with it's inspiration. It does what music has been doing since the beginning - updating the best ideas of the past with a twist from the present. If writing a song like Blurred Lines is against the law, I don't see how music can thrive.

6stringmerc 12y ago
Sure, I'll compare the Smith/Petty thing with 12 bar blues because I can play 12 bar blues in my sleep and have covered about a dozen Petty songs to date. 12 bar blues is, essentially, a musical metronome. 12 bar blues inherently does not have a melody. It's an assembled grouping of public domain chords set in a public domain tempo. The point of the musical metronome of 12 bar blues is for the melody line to be added. That's what differentiates "Stormy Monday" from "Cold Shot" from "Steel Mill" from "Who Do You Love." By comparison, using a melody on top of a chord progression is what is called a "musical composition." In the case of the Smith/Petty situation, there was a noteworthy musical composition overlap. Do I think it was very strong? Not especially, but was it there? Yeah, it was. That's what makes the Blurred Lines case so easy for me to understand - it wasn't about the song taking a "feel" or "sound" - which it most certainly did - it was about the song taking the structural components in the form of progression and melody and trying to lift them under the guise of doing something new. That's not legally protected, and I think the jury got it right. I totally see how music can thrive - now, if I come up with a cool new pop song, some sticky fingered producer can't simply come along and song-jack me. I can be inspired by Jimi Hendrix, just like Stevie Ray Vaughan. I can be inspired by Dimebag Darrell, but there's no way that I'd go out and try to re-work "Floods" or "Cowboys From Hell" and pass it off as my own work. Music has been around longer than the internet, longer than even the written word. I think it's foolish to say "Oh music is in danger!" when the reality of the situation is actually "Oh the music business of making profits is in danger!" The former is certainly not true with the advent of new music technologies. The latter is fundamentally threatened by the former, and I'm perfectly fine with that.
- normloman 12y ago
  A composition's more than a melody and a progression. It's about the arrangement, the rhythm, even the words. If two songs share a lot of the same elements, they can sound similar. But sharing just two elements isn't the same as swiping a song. Stay With Me has the same chords as Won't Back Down, and it has a similar 6 note sequence in the Melody. But the rest of the melody is very different. And the tempo, voicing, arrangement, words, all contribute to make Stay With Me an original composition. Nobody confused the two songs until Petty's lawyers pointed it out. I was using the blues as an easily available example of musical borrowing. You seem to think different rules should apply to blues songs than to "compositions." Blues songs are compositions. They have melodies. Their chord progression is just as common the one used in Stay With Me. You're incorrect about Blurred Lines. The song did NOT take the progression and melody from the Marvin Gaye song. They have different progressions and melodies. What Blurred Lines took from Marvin Gaye was the drum beat. As a drummer, I can tell you thousands of songs use the exact same drum beat. Granted, this beat is pretty unique. But so is the Purdie shuffle, and to my knowledge, Bernard Purdie never sued John Bonham for Fool in the Rain. Here's where you're right: It is foolish to say "Music is in danger." But what I said was that it will be harder for music to thrive. Look what patent trolls are doing to the tech industry. If we agree that having the same drumbeat is plagiarism, the same thing could happen to music.

6stringmerc 12y ago

Sure, I'll compare the Smith/Petty thing with 12 bar blues because I can play 12 bar blues in my sleep and have covered about a dozen Petty songs to date. 12 bar blues is, essentially, a musical metronome. 12 bar blues inherently does not have a melody. It's an assembled grouping of public domain chords set in a public domain tempo. The point of the musical metronome of 12 bar blues is for the melody line to be added. That's what differentiates "Stormy Monday" from "Cold Shot" from "Steel Mill" from "Who Do You Love." By comparison, using a melody on top of a chord progression is what is called a "musical composition." In the case of the Smith/Petty situation, there was a noteworthy musical composition overlap. Do I think it was very strong? Not especially, but was it there? Yeah, it was. That's what makes the Blurred Lines case so easy for me to understand - it wasn't about the song taking a "feel" or "sound" - which it most certainly did - it was about the song taking the structural components in the form of progression and melody and trying to lift them under the guise of doing something new. That's not legally protected, and I think the jury got it right. I totally see how music can thrive - now, if I come up with a cool new pop song, some sticky fingered producer can't simply come along and song-jack me. I can be inspired by Jimi Hendrix, just like Stevie Ray Vaughan. I can be inspired by Dimebag Darrell, but there's no way that I'd go out and try to re-work "Floods" or "Cowboys From Hell" and pass it off as my own work. Music has been around longer than the internet, longer than even the written word. I think it's foolish to say "Oh music is in danger!" when the reality of the situation is actually "Oh the music business of making profits is in danger!" The former is certainly not true with the advent of new music technologies. The latter is fundamentally threatened by the former, and I'm perfectly fine with that.

normloman 12y ago
A composition's more than a melody and a progression. It's about the arrangement, the rhythm, even the words. If two songs share a lot of the same elements, they can sound similar. But sharing just two elements isn't the same as swiping a song. Stay With Me has the same chords as Won't Back Down, and it has a similar 6 note sequence in the Melody. But the rest of the melody is very different. And the tempo, voicing, arrangement, words, all contribute to make Stay With Me an original composition. Nobody confused the two songs until Petty's lawyers pointed it out. I was using the blues as an easily available example of musical borrowing. You seem to think different rules should apply to blues songs than to "compositions." Blues songs are compositions. They have melodies. Their chord progression is just as common the one used in Stay With Me. You're incorrect about Blurred Lines. The song did NOT take the progression and melody from the Marvin Gaye song. They have different progressions and melodies. What Blurred Lines took from Marvin Gaye was the drum beat. As a drummer, I can tell you thousands of songs use the exact same drum beat. Granted, this beat is pretty unique. But so is the Purdie shuffle, and to my knowledge, Bernard Purdie never sued John Bonham for Fool in the Rain. Here's where you're right: It is foolish to say "Music is in danger." But what I said was that it will be harder for music to thrive. Look what patent trolls are doing to the tech industry. If we agree that having the same drumbeat is plagiarism, the same thing could happen to music.