8 Songs That 'Rip Off' Other Songs

this video is sponsored by piano I've made loads of videos now about songs that rip off other songs songs that intentionally or not copy existing pieces of music and sometimes these instances of copying wind up in a courtroom and sometimes it's brushed off as simple influence but today we're going to look at a whole range of other examples of songs that are copying other pieces of music this is Bruce Springsteen's 2009 song Outlaw Pete I wonder if you'll be able to clock which 1979 disco rock song Springsteen was lifting from when he wrote this song [Music] [Music] if we pitch shift the two songs into the same key we can hear how the main hook of Springsteen's song is the exact same Melody from The Kiss song [Music] are very much aware of this likeness between the two songs but as you'll see from this quote they decided not to pursue legal action against Springsteen kiss have sued lots of people for plagiarism and one but some people we don't Sue we didn't sue Bruce Springsteen for Outlaw Pete how do we decide who to Sue and who not to we like Springsteen we don't Sue for the next example I'm going to play you the verse of Huey Lewis and the news's 1983 song I want a new drug and I bet you can guess which 1984 song ripped off the Riff [Music] of course I'm talking about the Ghostbusters theme by Ray Parker Jr [Music] as you can hear both of these songs have a very similar bass line and chord riff leading to two songs that sound very similar so it's no surprise that when Huey Lewis sued Ray Parker Jr and Columbia Records over the likeness between the two songs they settled out of court in Lewis's favor now although Heroes was successful in suing Ray Parker Jr for plagiarizing I want new drug the reason I want new drug and Ghostbusters sound so similar could have instead been not because Ray Parker Jr copied Huey Lewis but instead because Ray Parker Jr and Huey Lewis both copied the same earlier song that song being pop music by m which was released in 1979. [Music] as you can hear pop music also has a similar bass line and similar chord riff at the end of the bar to that which we hear in I want a new drug and Ghostbusters but although pop music by m might have been Huey Lewis's original inspiration I don't think it was Ray Parker Jr's original inspiration that being because there's a far more simple explanation for why Ray Parker Jr would have been trying to sound like I want a new drug and that's because Huey Lewis and the News were allegedly originally asked to write the music for Ghostbusters after declining though the filmmakers of Ghostbusters then used their song I Want a New Drug as a temporary background music for many of the scenes in the film whilst Ray Parker Jr was writing the new now Famous soundtrack music so it makes perfect sense that Ray Parker Jr would have written something that sounded like I want a new drug as that was the music that was already synced to the film will be at a temporary stand-in for the final Soundtrack This is a notorious reason why songs written for films can often sound very much like other songs because directors often use existing music as a stand-in for the final soundtrack the director then effectively falls in love with how the music currently sounds with the temp music so asks their composer to write music that sounds like the temp music this is most likely why John Williams wrote so many scores that sound like Gustav holst's Planet suite for example foreign [Music] because George Lucas had supposedly used those pieces of music as stand-in temp music for Star Wars before John Williams got a chance to write his score to find out more about that check out my video about John Williams Australian singer Kylie Minogue's new hit song padam padam has a distinctive likeness to the Kaiser Chiefs 2005 song every day I love you less and less [Music] although in different Keys both of these Melodies use very similar phrasing and the likeness of the two songs is made even more apparent by a similar use of phrygian dominant Harmony which is a fancy way of saying both songs use the flat 2 chord alongside the major tonic chord quite a distinctive and unusual choice I would be surprised if the likeness between these two songs had not been noticed by the Kaiser Chiefs or their management but no legal action or even acknowledgment seems to have been made perhaps this is because the Kaiser Chiefs are turning a blind eye to the likeness between the two songs Kaiser Chiefs frontman Ricky Wilson and Kylie Minogue are both acquaintances having concurrently served as judges on the UK edition of The Voice so perhaps the reason that nothing has come off the Fairly clear likeness between these two songs is that both parties are friendly enough that they don't want to be dragged into a courtroom piano there's an online interactive resource for learning how to play the piano you might already be familiar with piano's YouTube channel but they also have an excellent online service where you can access tons of exclusive videos and resources to help you not only learn songs but develop skills which you can then apply across your playing piano to have a massive library of classic songs that you can learn and the best thing is that when you're learning from the sheet music it's synced to the original record to help you work out where you are in the song and you can even adjust the speed of the playback add a metronome and create practice Loops to help you master particularly tricky sections foreign [Music] also a subscription to piano that gives you full access to their sister services drumio guitario and singio making it really good value for money to learn more about piano follow the link in the description and do consider subscribing to their YouTube channel I'm gonna play you the main melodic Hook from the 1983 song I Need a Freak by sexual harassment and see if you can guess the 2005 hit song that recycled that very same hook this Sim Thrift was of course repurposed as the main hook for the Black Eyed Peas 2005 song My Humps [Music] now unlike the other examples we've looked at so far on this list the Black Eyed Peas did actually go through the correct procedure to license the use of the I Need a Freak Melody they had fully intentionally interpolated the riff from that song into their song and understandably they didn't want to get into legal trouble for using it so they licensed it from the producer of the original song James mccant however this song Still resulted in a court case but not a court case that the Black Eyed Peas were actually involved in instead the problem was producer James mccant wasn't actually in a position where he could Grant a license to the Black Eyed Peas the song's original songwriter Lynn Toliver took mccant to court for licensing the song to Black Eyed Peas without his permission and Toliver was awarded 1.2 million dollars of royalties by the court in 2003 The Flaming Lips admitted that part of their song Fight test lifts the Melody from Cat Stevens 1970 song Father and Son if I move both songs into the same key you can hear the clear likeness in the two melodies [Music] [Music] still young as you'll hear from this quote taken from an interview with the guardian in 2003 Flaming Lips front man Wayne Coyne seemed frustrated but ultimately apologetic for plagiarizing cat Steven's song I want to go on record for the first time and say that I really apologize for the whole thing I really love Cat Stevens I truly respect him as a great singer-songwriter there was a time during the recording when we said this has a similarity to Father and Son I do regret not contacting his record company and asking their opinion maybe we could have gone 50 50. as it is Cat Stevens is now getting 75 percent of royalties from fight test we could have easily changed the melody but we didn't I'm really sorry that Cat Stevens thinks that I'm purposefully plagiarizing his work I am ashamed there is obviously a fine line between being inspired and stealing but if anyone wanted to borrow part of a flaming lip song I don't think I'd bother pursuing it I've got better things to do anyway catch Stevens is never going to make much money out of us and the final example of Pop Song plagiarism that we're going to look at today is Demi Lovato's 2014 song Really Don't Care the verse Melody of really don't care is really quite similar to parts of the verse Melody from the 2012 hit song I Love It by Icona Pop [Music] if we move the Demi Lovato song up one time we tone into the same key as the icon of Pop Song and slightly increase its Tempo we can hear how similar these two Melodies are [Music] into the bridge [Music] considering that the Demi Lovato track is called really don't care and the main chorus lyric for the icon of pop song is I don't care it seems pretty unlikely that the likeness between the two songs was an accident despite this though for whatever reason it doesn't seem like there's been any legal action taken due to the apparent plagiarism in this Demi Lovato track so there is another installment of songs that are copying one way or another other existing songs if you can think of any other examples of this copying then do let me know in the comments [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 195,592

Keywords: plagiarize, plagiarise, copy, based on, law suit, compared, example, copyright, sued, borrow, the same, ghostbusters, padam padam, demi lovato, bruce springsteen, kiss, david bennett

Id: 4dRzebxu3XQ

Length: 11min 37sec (697 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 21 2023