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Tom (UWS) and his comment about Jerry Herman's "Hello, Dolly! is incorrect. Mack David's song was "Sunflower", not "My Kansas". Also, the copyright infringement case never went to court. However much Jerry Herman wanted to fight the case, Louis Armstrong's recording and the Broadway Musical was major hits. Entering into such a lawsuit would have cost the property millions, especially since 20th Century Fox would not sign the contract to make the film version of the popular show until it was settled and these lawsuits could possibly go on for years. Since the money and livelihood of those who would prosper from selling the film rights (David Merrick, Gower Champion, Michael Stewart, and Jerry Herman) would be compromised, Jerry Herman paid $200,000 to have it settled immediately and kept the complete rights to the song. He does not sharen credit in his royalties with anyone. If Jerry Herman had actually entertained this lawsuit, he most likely would have won. It was a matter of circumstances and financial considerations that Jerry Herman decided not to put up a fight. the song was and remains a big success, while "Sunflower" is a forgotten tune that was played on Country & Western stations in the late forties. "Hello Dolly wasn't stolen,, it has endured, and then rights all belong to Jerry Herman.

people really shouldnt care about plagiarism watch this video and see how much culture was created because the winstons didnt care...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SaFTm2bcac
his fascinating, brilliant 20-minute video narrates the history of the "Amen Break," a six-second drum sample from the b-side of a chart-topping single from 1969. This sample was used extensively in early hiphop and sample-based music, and became the basis for drum-and-bass and jungle music -- a six-second clip that spawned several entire subcultures. Nate Harrison's 2004 video is a meditation on the ownership of culture, the nature of art and creativity, and the history of a remarkable music clip.

There's a huge challenge in trying to simultaneously expose yourself to every song you can in the world, and then also synthesize something entirely new out of the same few existing western notes and time signatures.

As recorded music has become easier and easier to create, and as the world population (and therefore musicianship) expands, and as information becomes so much more document-able, portable and available for comparison, there is no way that discretely different and yet still pleasing tunes can continue to be churned out when compared to every song known. There's no way a human could possibly keep track of all the songs we've been exposed to over our lifetime, yet a computer could compare and find a match anywhere from the trillions of existing songs - and then create embarrassment and financial woe? That's pretty depressing. Imagine how many new songs are written in a single year nowadays.

That would be an interesting show... to take some kind of a census on different cultures and regions and postulate how many songs are "written" per year, trends, etc...

Kelly Clarkson’s “My Life Would Suck”=Kelly Clarkson’s “Since You’ve Been Gone”

Alicia Keys “No One” =Black Eyed Peas “Where is the Love”

Alicia Keys” Like You’ll Never See Me Again” –the end of Prince’s “Purple Rain”

“Crazy” “Amazing” “Crying” All by Aerosmith, all the same melody at least in the chorus.

Listen long enough to music and everything starts to sound the same.

why does beyonce make me cry?

As a professional songwriter who has worked in jingles as well, my experience is that you are more likely to be successfully sued for subconscious plagiarism than conscious plagiarism. In conscious plagiarism, which I do not practice but have observed in the jingle and songwriting industry, people tend to slightly alter and existing melody and arrangement to the point of making it just legally "original."

Songs that are exactly the same melodically often tend to have very different arrangements, because they are subconsciously stolen. After all, why would a successful songwriter like Chris Martin or George Harrison consciously steal a melody of a popular song and expect to get away with it?

For a good example of what I call a "jingled" song, take a listen to Boys Like Girls "Punchdrunk Love" which has a chorus that clearly modifies ever so slightly the melody and arrangement of The Killers "Somebody Told Me."

Eytan Oren
www.myspace.com/eytanmusic

Remember Len Barry's number one hit, "1, 2, 3?" The legendary Motown producer/songwriters Holland, Dozier and Holland recognized their song "Ask Any Girl" and sued. The Len Barry writers quickly aclnowledged they had stolen the melody. HDH now claim "1, 2, 3" in their canon.

Imagaine if J.S. Pachelbel was alive today...I would have to guess he would be a bizillionaire if he knew about this new plagarism software.
Pop music and folk music are such simple structures of music composition, of course you are going to find similarities in melodies and chord prgogressions. Maybe Cold Play should start thinking about arranging 12 tone rows to stay clear of plagarism cases ;)

What was the study that Dr Müllensiefen mentioned that described how the more often we hear something, the more it's pleasing to us? Would love to hear more about that.

As so many people aren't paying for music anyway online, I don't think that this kind of consumer cares.

Shepard Fairey should start writing songs.

It seems to also come down to producers. It's okay for a producer to use a similar hook with more than one artist. Mutt Lange does it all the time. You just can't take from someone else's stable of acts.

Here's one for you: The Yardbird's thinly disguised version of "Train Keeps A Runnin'" featured in the film Blow-Up as "Stroll On" Probably changed for copyright reasons

Seems to me that pop music is a form that welcomes and thrives on "borrowing" Many musicians are very open about it. I think of it as a type of collage.

I think Bittersweet Symphany was a situation with a sample that had been approved but was then deemed to be used too much (whatever that means--mostly likely that the song was too successful). Bogus. It was a great song.

No one should be able to copyright fragments of musical works since everyone uses the same chord changes, and melodies, like the in Coldplay example, come directly out of the chords. Can only one composer follow the tonic notes of a II, V, I change as a melody? Of course not. Copyright infringement should be based on INTENT to copy or steal another's work, not on happenstance similarity.

No doubt "He's Fo Fine" and "My Sweet Lord" sound similar but the feeling behind it it so different. It seems impossible that Harrison intentionally ripped off.

how sweet the ladder is!

Is it OK to use a song in public domain such as as the Bob Dylan Song "When the Deal Goes Down" so similar in melody to Bing Crosby's "Where the Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day."

This happened before with the Cat Stevens song "Father and Son" and the later Flaming Lips song "Fight Test," which did result in a lawsuit; royalties from "Fight Test" are now split between the two. Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips acknowledges the similarity between the songs and imagines that he was inspired by the Stevens song subconsciously. That argument actually seems reasonable to me; we hear so many songs all the time, and I find in myself that sometimes little bits get stuck in my head and I have little waking memory of how they got there. It seems reasonable for one to believe in similar circumstances that they generated these musical ideas themselves.

I didn't see the closeness of the Stevens and Coldplay songs.

Its usually about greedy lawyers and jealous artists.

How the Lennon/Berry you can't catch me and the Stones/KD Lang constant craving was settled is the best way these have been handled.

what about bittersweet symphony by the verve and the rolling stones sued them?

I'd slightly disagree with Nick from UWS. As an avid music consumer, hearing a song with a stikingly similar melody to another is very distracting. There is a song by Tori Amos that sounds very similar to the end of Prince's Purple Rain. It's not a situation of plagarism in my opinion but it's irksome as a music listener because of how distinctive the original material was.

Man, Chris Martin's a hack!

how many permutations of notes are there? I think all this new soul (amy winehouse) rips off old motown melodies.

Are lawsuits only brought up when the offending song is hit? Just curious if this is ever about the ego of the musician that thinks he/she was ripped off.

shouldn't Cat Stevens take issue with Satriani for the melody lift instead of taking on Coldplay?

shouldn't Cat Stevens take issue with Satriani for the melody lift instead of taking on Coldplay?

oh my god; just shit my pants; that was a popular song too, wasn't it?; thought they were genuises?; john, you dirty dog!

Has Dr. Müllensiefen tried this software with music involved in famous cases like the famous George Harrison lawsuit?

The program could be a nice aid to composers, who could detect similarities before publishing.
Jerry Herman lost a case over the iconic tune "Hello Dolly" - the writers of "My Kansas" succeeded in showing a strong similarity. Herman probably never heard the earlier song, but his inadvertently very similar tune did, in fact, infringe on the earlier copyright.
In most cases melodic copyright infringement will be accidental - but holders of earlier copyrights do have RIGHTS to the tune. So they get a cut of the earnings from the later, usually more famous song.

What an absurdity.

- I guess this will result in the prosecution of untold thousands of blues artists and blues-based songwriters, all the way from Eric Clapton on down.

- From my long experience as a professional songwriter, I've concluded that melodic plagiarism is something only songwriters and publishers care about when they smell possible money to be sucked out of a major artist's pocket. The listening public could not give less of a damn when a song sounds somewhat like another one, as long as they enjoy it. Witness doo-wop for example; a million songs exactly the same.

- The less recognizable and melodically unique a song is, the easier it is to plagiarize. A song like "Yesterday" for example could not possibly be plagiarized. So plagiarized songs are a huge grey area to begin with, and lawsuits based on plagiarism often come from minimally talented writers who see a chance for a big payout because a major artist had a hit with a song that had 4 notes of the unknown writer's unreleased half-baked song in it. This is why major publishers usually do not take unsolicited tapes.