Fedimento asked:


"I always wondered what is the worst that could happen if getting sued for plagerism? Nobody knew you, now they do. You made more money because people are now listening because of the suit. Your name gets out there."

Well first of all, you would never be sued unless it's a hit. The only time you hear of copyright lawsuits are when one song becomes successful and then is sued by someone else, (George Harrison vs. Bright Tunes). So 99.99% of songs never make any difference anyway. In order to get TO a hit song inthe first place, it would go through many legal incarnations, and usually someone would catch it along the way and make arrangements in the process.

For example, a few years back, Kid Rock had a hugely successful hit, "PLAYING SWEET HOME ALABAMA ALL SUMMER LONG." which featured direct pieces of the hit songs "SWEET HOME ALABAMA" by Skynyrd, and "WEREWOLVES OF LONDON" by Warren Zevon. In that song, Kid Rock included the writers of those songs and their estates in the song which was a HUGE financial windfall. Everyone was happy.

In songs like the Marvin Gaye Lawsuit, (on a song that didn't remotely sound like the original song) the writers were doing a "homage" to the feel of a Marvin Gaye song, but Marvin's family felt it was too close and they sued. Weird situation there.

But most get worked out long before they become hits. Most of these writers either know each other, or the circles, publishers, record labels, etc. will all work out behind the scene deals to ward off any legal action.

Legal action can be a pain for many reasons. First no royalties can be paid while outstanding legal action is going on. So with court casing taking an average of 5-8 years to even get a song on the docket, all the while the writers are having to pay lawyers for filing briefs in the suits. A person I know here had a huge hit song in the early 2000's. Out of nowhere, a lawsuit comes from a nobody in New Jersey who claimed that this guy had stolen his song as well as the two guys who wrote "my heart will go on" from the movie Titanic. The guy doing the suing claimed he mailed in a song to their publishers and those writers STOLE HIS SONG! Nonsense.
I've got A HUGE PROBLEM with these nobodies who never leave their living rooms, make all these claims on people who have multiple hit songs.
Michael Jackson once paid out a lawsuit for $250,000. Now you are telling me that a guy who had been having hit records since he was TWELVE FREAKING YEARS OLD, and sold some of the biggest records in history, needs some outsider who lives in his parents basement for ideas? Not likely.
Why pay out? Because they were sitting on several millions of dollars in royalties that were sitting unpaid and law fees were piling up. sometimes they pay them just to get them to go away.

But the guy I knew had to pay $60.000 to defend himself on a law suit that was thrown out on it's merits. It's totally insane.

It's why modern writers won't really listen to anything outside things from people they know. That's why there is the "NO UNSOLICITED MATERIAL" policy and why no publishers (except for the shady ones) will even listen to anything from anyone they don't know.

Other songs that might have questions on them, will be stopped before they ever get released. I know of several examples of people that had big singles coming out on huge artists, and the songs were stopped and shelved due to questions about it's authenticy. Publishers and labels don't care to pay for lawsuits so there are a ton of more songs to put out. Each artist will overcut around 15-18 songs in the first place, for a 12 song project, so dumping one and inserting another is not problem. And today with the return to singles, dropping songs are pretty routine.

I've had a few interesting examples my self. One day I was writing with a friend of mine, "Danny Wells." Danny is a huge writer, having written a George Strait numbe one "CHECK YES OR NO" and years later, hit songs for Rascal Flatts, and many others. We were writing this general idea and melody of Dannys. He had a lot of it already thought out and the song just sort of fell together in a couple of hours. Was a pretty good co-write and we left the appointment feeling pretty good about what we had done.
Then about three days later, he calls me up and says "we've got to stop that song. It sounds exactly like a song that's on the radio. We write a ton of songs here so I felt okay, we'll write something else. A couple of days later I was listening to the radio and heard the song he was talking about. It was EXACTLY like that song! Danny had just picked it up in his subconcious and translated it into what we were doing. It happens.

Another time happened to me on the other side. For years I had been doing a song in my songwriter workshops called "MY WISH." It was a nice little final song, a ballad wishing all songwriters good luck, and for people to have good lives. Simple, but did have a pretty nice melody and message. I did it for years and closed all my shows with it. It was quite well known in Nashville. One day I start getting all these phone calls and emails from friends, people I haven't heard from in years, congratulating me on my new RASCAL FLATTS HIT "MY WISH." That was funny, because I was not aware that I HAD a new Rascall Flatts cut. There are many legal papers you have to sign before something is released. And I certainly was not aware of any pitches that had been done on my song.

Then I heard the RASCAL FLATTS song "MY WISH." And DAMN!!! It sounded a LOT like mine. Same decending scale, very similar notes, some pretty striking similarities. Again. I wrote it up to "that's just what happens." I then found out that the writer was actually a friend of mine, monster hit writer JEFFERY STEELE, one of Nashville's most successful writers. Jeff and I are friends, are both wild up tempo writers, are both left handed and have done a lot of shows together. So not only had he heard the song, he had been standing right next to me when I did it and actually commented on it.
But did he steal it? HELL NO! It was just fairly common melody, was a common sentament, neither one of us were the first to use the title "MY WISH.: He had written his for his Daughter's wedding, I had written mine for songwriters, and aside from two or three places in the songs were very different. Just coincidence.

Today we face a different animal. All things are sounding EXACTLY ALIKE. They use the same drum loops, writers are writing the exact same things, same lines, same melodies. I've been told that in pop and hip hop, multiple writers will be given the style, groove, subject matter, on a song, and all be writing the same song at the same time, but independent of each other. You'll have up to 12-14 writers all doing the same thing, and doing the same tracks. Then producers, will assemble a song out of multiple songs, taking a line here and a line there, thereby you have dozens of people on the final product. And you have twenty names on a song, collecting literally tens of dollars and splitting it. A lot of trouble to go through for not much of anything. I guess if you get a Cardi B cut you will at least get some press attention and controversy.

So I don't know how copyrights in the future will even be administered and enforced. I think we will probably see copyright lawsuits go away completely, as there us not going to be anything remotely enforcable.Maybe all music will just be PUBLIC DOMAIN to begin with. I foresee a time coming where there is no money paid for music at all. It/s just something that millions of people do and nobody pays for in the first place. Today, many of my contemporaries, hit writers, myself and many others are writing custom songs on assignment for private parties. It's the same as the old Grand Masters, Michaelangelo, Rembrant, Da Vinci, painting or sculpting a work for a Pope, Kings, Queens, the government. They had patrons of the arts who paid for this privately or through grants. That's where so much of this is going.

Studios will sell tracks of existing songs, which I already have mentioned. Companies like FIVER will do their own works and you do whatever you want with them.

The entire game has changed and we have to adapt to new ways of thinking about what we do. We will still create and in some cases will be paid. But most of the time we won't. My suggestion for new writers, do research on songs. If you have something that everyone seems to go "Hey that sounds like..." listen to what they are saying, find out what they are talking about, and go to the source. If it's too similar, change yours. Easily enough done.

MAB

Last edited by Marc Barnette; 04/27/21 06:51 PM.