An argument as old as the bible I suspect. If in fact both compositions were exactly the same, shame on someone, however the odds of that happening by mistake are bigger than the odds of winning the lottery.

In response to some stating earlier about how someone had plagiarized a riff, was infringing on the copyright of another, if that were true half of the country artists of today would be so tied up in court, they wouldn't have time to do anything else. Listen to Brooks and Dunn's smash hit "Rock My World Little Country Girl", you cant help but hear the opening riff from Creedence Clearwater Revivals "Green River", Alan Jackson's
"Gone Country"

clearly invoked part of the music from "On the Road To Shambala", you see it over and over again through out music. It never ends up in court because it's not an infringement as defined in the copy right laws. The reason is that the copyright laws say that if you change 8 bars of any musical composition it is a new song. That's all it takes 8 bars.

You see many performers rewrite the arrangement to a popular song so they can perform it in their shows, and literally take credit as the writer for their arrangement. It becomes their version, and they copyright it as such. Really not all the uncommon.

Now who was that idiot that said " Imitation was the greatest form of flattery"?

Billy Darnell

http://www.billydarnell.com

http://www.songwriterservices.biz