Blurred Lines

[regretfullySaid]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziz9HW2ZmmY

The similarities are mostly in texture. Drums, percussion, synth bass. Sparse arrangement with lots of space in the bass line; four on the floor kick pattern.

To my knowledge you can't copyright instrumentation, orchestration, or texture and the notes and rhythms in the bass are not similar enough to warrant a ruling of copyright infringement.

Similar overall feel, yes, but nothing in there is identical. I don't know if those are the original keys in that youtube comparison I posted above, but you can't copyright a key either.

This, end of story. Jesus, just play each bass line and you'll realize they aren't the same, at all. This ruling is insane and will hopefully be overturned on appeal.

Ditto to both. It's not even sampled. As much as Robin and Pharrell can blow me imo it's blatantly not a copy. Since one of them said they wanted a feel like Gayes track, I think the intent was to make it very similar. Obviously they made it too similar, or maybe the fucking JUDGE AND JURY'S EARS ARE SHIT AND THEY DONT KNOW THEIR ASS FROM OPRAH.

Also there was some mention about pop music collapsing on itself and Bo Diddly making millions.
If this is just a first in the suing of vague similarity then someone has an agenda with pop music like Rupert Murdoch has with news.

The RIAA are probably still stroking themselves furiously.

[Matt_Quinn]

Here's a good breakdown...comments are a good read too.

http://joebennett.net/2014/02/01/did-ro ... rvin-gaye/

[Angstrom]

the Gaye family have now decided that Pharrell's Happy infringes on Marvin Gaye's Ain’t That Peculiar.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/m ... other-copy

I think this might be their undoing, because the public view Pharrell quite differently than they view Robin Thicke. I can see that Pharrell might get a bit more support against this bullshitery.

[TomViolenz]

the Gaye family have now decided that Pharrell's Happy infringes on Marvin Gaye's Ain’t That Peculiar.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/m ... other-copy

I think this might be their undoing, because the public view Pharrell quite differently than they view Robin Thicke. I can see that Pharrell might get a bit more support against this bullshitery.

unfortunately (fortunately?) theses cases are not decided in the court of public opinion

[stringtapper]

Here's a good breakdown...comments are a good read too.

http://joebennett.net/2014/02/01/did-ro ... rvin-gaye/

The OP linked that in the first post.

But yeah those transcriptions definitively show that the musical content is not the same.

And that gets me wondering who these "musicologists" are that the plaintiffs had testify. If anyone can track that information down I'd love to see who they are.

[beats me]

the Gaye family have now decided that Pharrell's Happy infringes on Marvin Gaye's Ain’t That Peculiar.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/m ... other-copy

I think this might be their undoing, because the public view Pharrell quite differently than they view Robin Thicke. I can see that Pharrell might get a bit more support against this bullshitery.

unfortunately (fortunately?) theses cases are not decided in the court of public opinion

But that’s the way it’s being tried in The Lounge of public opinion. Again, if this was Justin Bieber we were talking about here absolutely nobody would be in his corner and everybody would want the court to stick it to him even further. We wouldn’t be posting links written by chin strokers for chin strokers and commented on by chin strokers. In fact those articles would probably never be written.

Pharrell is the only link to sympathy in this whole thing.

[regretfullySaid]

Well like i said i for one think they both blow but that ruling was BS. It's not about Pharrell or robin, it's about the US becoming easy Germany 20 years sooner than i thought. They're guilty of conceptual similarity.every goddammit pop song is a 5th generation copy already aka homage but if those old fats think it's going to make 'song writers' think twice it's just going to make them proactively copy just like with sampling, pirating, etc.

[stringtapper]

But that’s the way it’s being tried in The Lounge of public opinion. Again, if this was Justin Bieber we were talking about here absolutely nobody would be in his corner and everybody would want the court to stick it to him even further. We wouldn’t be posting links written by chin strokers for chin strokers and commented on by chin strokers. In fact those articles would probably never be written.

Pharrell is the only link to sympathy in this whole thing.

Bullshit. I don't give two shits about anybody in this entire affair besides the dead man who doesn't even have a chance to say anything about it all.

It's the details of the music that concern me, that and the fact that a ruling like this goes against hundreds of years of compositional practice, specifically the practices of imitation and quotation.

Composers have been imitating each other since there were composers. From Machaut to Palestrina to Bach to Schoenberg I can show you evidence of this happening throughout history. Progress is never made in a vacuum. Influences take hold and are assimilated into music either consciously or unconsciously.

I'm getting a sense that the differences in opinion here are cut sharply across the DJ vs. musician line.

[regretfullySaid]

Everyone needs to understand that imitation /influence/ on a conscious or subconscious level is not central to music or even art in general.
There is a difference between blatant stealing though. You know, like when Zomby stole a collaborators track and called it his own, the one that probably landed him the 4A record deal. And shame on 4A.

[re:dream]

the Gaye family have now decided that Pharrell's Happy infringes on Marvin Gaye's Ain’t That Peculiar.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/m ... other-copy

I think this might be their undoing, because the public view Pharrell quite differently than they view Robin Thicke. I can see that Pharrell might get a bit more support against this bullshitery.

unfortunately (fortunately?) theses cases are not decided in the court of public opinion

But that’s the way it’s being tried in The Lounge of public opinion. Again, if this was Justin Bieber we were talking about here absolutely nobody would be in his corner and everybody would want the court to stick it to him even further. We wouldn’t be posting links written by chin strokers for chin strokers and commented on by chin strokers. In fact those articles would probably never be written.

Pharrell is the only link to sympathy in this whole thing.

Just for the record, I don't give a shit about Pharrel, or Thicke, or about Beiber, whoever he is. I don't have any sympathy with anyone on either side. I just don't see how you can make a copyright case stick between two pieces of music with different actual, like, notes.

But then again, what does what I think matter. Apparently I stroke my chin. And you know what we think about chin strokers.

[stringtapper]

Oh, and my girlfriend the librarian found the musicologists who testified:

Judith Finell (Gaye) – http://www2.jfmusicservices.com
Sandy Wilbur (Thicke/Williams) – http://www.musicology.com/about.html

Both run businesses that do music copyright consultation. Neither appear to have terminal degrees in musicology or theory, although Wilbur has an M.M. in ethnomusicology from UCLA (can't tell what Finell's M.M. was in). Neither of them have any scholarly publications to their name.

So it appears that what makes them "experts" is the fact that they had the idea to create a business based on that niche market in the first place.

Not impressed, and not surprised.

[TomViolenz]

it's about the US becoming easy Germany 20 years sooner than i thought.

Say what?!


And really, she's not that easy....

[Matt_Quinn]

Here's a good breakdown...comments are a good read too.

http://joebennett.net/2014/02/01/did-ro ... rvin-gaye/

The OP linked that in the first post.

But yeah those transcriptions definitively show that the musical content is not the same.

And that gets me wondering who these "musicologists" are that the plaintiffs had testify. If anyone can track that information down I'd love to see who they are.

My bad! As a mea culpa, here's your plaintiffs musicologists:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-es ... how-780743

"We had two great musicologists — Judith Finell and Ingrid Monson — who broke down the songs and showed that there was copying, not just of feeling. "

[stringtapper]

Everyone needs to understand that imitation /influence/ on a conscious or subconscious level is not central to music or even art in general.

Perhaps not central, but unavoidable at some level.

[Matt_Quinn]

God damn it, too slow again.