9 Songs That 'Rip Off' Other Songs

this video is sponsored by piano a songwriter being inspired by the great songs that came before them is no crime in of itself in fact drawing from the great works of the past is how new art is made but influence and inspiration can sometimes cross over into the Realms of plagiarism so today I'm going to show you nine songs that have clear similarities to songs that came before them and you can decide whether they're ripping off the song in question just drawing influence or perhaps it's a complete coincidence trc's 1995 hit waterfalls borrows a line from Paul McCartney's 1980s song of the same name [Music] [Music] Paul is very much aware of this borrowing from his song mentioning it in a 2007 interview in fact somebody had a hit a few years ago using the first line then they go off into another song it's like excuse me as Paul mentions here the TLC song Only lifts the first line from McCartney's song and then goes off into a new Direction although even if they have just borrowed one line from McCartney's song that one line does serve as the main hook of their new song despite the clear lifting Paul McCartney and his Publishers have seemingly made no attempt to bring legal action over the usage of the song a similar instance of borrowing to this is the song keep forgetting by Michael McDonald just like in the TRC example with waterfalls Michael McDonald seems to have written keep forgetting after borrowing a single line from a previous song of the same title the 1962 song keep forgetting by Chuck Jackson written by legendary songwriters Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller [Music] I keep forgetting you don't love me no more keep forgetting you don't want me no as was the case with trc's waterfalls and Paul McCartney's waterfalls McDonald's has taken the opening line of Chuck Jackson's song but then gone and written a vastly different song from that point on unlike with the TLC Paul McCartney example Libra and styler did wind up being credited as songwriters on Michael McDonald's new version of keep forgetting the chorus of girlfriend written by Avril Lavigne and producer Dr Luke has a striking similarity to the chorus of the robinos 1979 song I want to be your boyfriend [Music] the writers of I want to be your boyfriend filed a lawsuit claiming the Avril Lavigne song had infringed their copyright Avril Lavigne denied any wrongdoing though despite the similar hey hey you you hook in both songs Levine pointed to the song's Get off My Cloud by The Rolling Stones and I want to be your boyfriend by The Ramones as other examples of these Hooks and ideas being used [Music] eventually the two parties reached an undisclosed out-of-court settlement and the lawsuit was dropped however it should be noted that this out of court settlement did not involve the writers of I want to be your boyfriend being credited as songwriters on Avril Lavigne song the next song I'll show you actually lifts from two other songs the main Melody from Rod Stewart's 1978 hit do you think I'm sexy is suspiciously similar to The Melody from the song Taj Mahal by Brazilian artist George benjour foreign [Music] Stewart over the use of his Melody and the case was settled in Joe's favor Rod Stewart admitted that although he didn't actively copy bend your song he had heard the song while attending the Rio Carnival in 1978 and he must have unknowingly copied it clearly the melody had lodged itself in my memory and then resurfaced when I was trying to find a line to fit the chords unconscious plagiarism plain and simple I handed over the royalties in contrast to this though the other song that Rod Stewart lifted from to write his hit do you think I'm sexy was copied knowingly and intentionally the simp string Melody that we hear on do you think I'm sexy is directly lifted from put something down on it by Bobby Womack [Music] foreign [Music] Stewart claims though that he's perfectly within his rights to lift the string line from the Womack song because in his words the rules are you can lift a line from an arrangement rather than the melody line without infringing copyright so you can't touch me for that now although I can see where Rod is coming from here this isn't strictly true although The Melody of the song is usually the focus of a copyright infringement lawsuit the strings line that Rod Stewart Has Lifted here is still arguably a Melody it's just not the vocal Melody of the song and furthermore lawsuits such as Marvin Gaye vs Blurred Lines were successful purely on the basis of similarities between the two songs Arrangement and Vibe not Melody but regardless 45 years on and Rod Stewart Is Yet To Face any legal action for this instance of borrowing so it seems like he got away with it in 1974 a lawsuit was filed on behalf of songwriter buddy K claiming that Elton John's 1972 hit Crocodile Rock had borrowed its famous falsetto Melody from the 1961 song Speedy Gonzalez foreign [Music] although both Melodies aren't identical they are very similar and performed in a similar falsetto vocal style against the same chord progression it's not clear what the outcome of this lawsuit was but it seems a settlement was reached although it should be noted that the songwriters of sweetie Gonzalez did not wind up being listed as songwriters of Crocodile Rock piano notes 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 [Music] foreign [Music] also a subscription to piano gives you full access to their sister services drummio 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 sure you're familiar with Johnny Cash's 1955 classic Folsom Prison Blues but although build as an original song written by Johnny Cash the song is actually quite extensively based on the 1953 song Crescent City Blues by Gordon Jenkins I hear the train are coming it's rolling around the bend I hear the trainer come and I ain't been kissed Lord since I don't know where Sunshine slips of course many blues songs are very similar particularly when they're based on the same consistent 12 Bar Blues chord progression as is the case with both of these songs but the similarities between false imprisoned blues and Crescent City Blues go much deeper than the chord progression and blue styling not only are The Melodies here near identical but Johnny Cash's lyrics are very reminiscent of those of Crescent City Blues although it wasn't until the 1970s Jenkins did eventually Sue Johnny Cash who had to pay a settlement of approximately seventy five thousand dollars not all songwriters though want to sue when they hear that their song has potentially been plagiarized by another songwriter for example when the doors released their 1968 song hello I love you the Publishers who represent the band The Kinks notice that the vocal Melody of hello I love you was quite similar to that of all day and all of the Night by The Kinks [Music] King's songwriter Ray Davies however was not keen on the idea of suing the doors over the likeness my publisher wanted to Sue I was unwilling to do that although I think they cut a deal somewhere but I don't know the details as Davies mentioned in that quote as is often the case Publishers and rights holders will often Sue other writers over plagiarism even when the songwriter of the original song doesn't want them to after all Publishers are in the business of making money not music an Infamous example of a copyright infringement lawsuit is that of the verve's 1997 song British Sweet Symphony Bittersweet Symphony is based on a sample from the Rolling Stone song the last time however if you compared the two songs you'll find very little in common and that is because the Verve didn't sample the original Rolling Stones recording of the song but instead sampled an Orchestral Version recorded by the Andrew Oldman Orchestra Andrew Oldman actually being the producer of The Rolling Stones [Applause] foreign [Music] of course as is the correct protocol when you sample an existing recording The Verve did contact the Rolling Stones record label Decker records and get permission to use the sample but fatally they didn't get all of the permissions they needed namely the permission of X Rolling Stones manager Alan Klein who actually held the copyright of the song the last time during his career Alan Klein infamously made a business of exploiting and squeezing money out of song copyrights and Bitter Sweet Symphony would be no different he sued The Verve and strong-armed them into sacrificing not only 100 of the song's earnings but the full writer's credits so the official writers of Bittersweet Symphony the verb's biggest hit would be Jagger and Richards of The Rolling Stones and this is extra absurd when you remember that the music that The Verve sampled wasn't even written by Jagger and Richards it just happened to be part of an arrangement of a rolling stone song the strings line that The Verve actually sampled was written by composer David Whitaker but despite the lawsuit he didn't even get any of the royalties or credit thankfully though the story does have a happy ending in 2019 Jagger and Richards finally agreed to return the Bittersweet Symphony royalties and songwriter credits to Richard Ashcroft of The Verve and the last example I'll share with you today is Coldplay's 2008 hit Viva la Vida shortly after the release of Viva la Vida guitarist Joe Satriani filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Coldplay claiming that they had plagiarized his 2004 instrumental if I could fly [Music] foreign the first two bars of both Melodies are near identical but the second two bars although similar to each other are not the same something though that certainly makes both Melodies sound extra alike is the fact that they're both played over the same chord progression of four five one six and this is a very common chord progression so common in fact that I actually made a video about songs that use this chord progression in 2009 satriani's lawsuit against Coldplay was dismissed although an undisclosed out-of-court settlement might have been agreed between the two parties but Satriani wasn't the only artist who attempted to sue Coldplay over Viva la Vida singer-songwriter Cat Stevens who's now known as Yusuf Islam claimed that Viva la Vida copied part of his Foreigner Suite [Music] and American band creaky boards also claimed that Coldplay had ripped off their song called the songs I didn't write as we can hear there's a likeness between all of these songs even if the likeness does come down to a couple of bars of Melody but the thing is when you've got this many different songwriters all claiming that Coldplay stole from them they can't all be right the likely reason really that all four of these songs share the same melodic Hook is because they're all built from a near identical very generic major key chord progression Melodies are written to work over the chords to work with them and there are only so many Melodies that can work with a particular set of chords so with literally hundreds of songs having been written with this chord progression eventually you will see songwriters independently composing the same melodies over the chords and really if this was all about authorship and plagiarism then surely Cat Stevens shouldn't have tried suing Coldplay for their use of the melody he should have sued Joe Satriani or at least sued both of them because they've both used the similar Melody that supposedly comes from his song but of course we all know why the massive international number one hit record Viva la Vida was the target of all of these plagiarism accusations as Coldplay drummer wheel Champion said in the 2009 interview for some reason God Only Knows Why the successful songs seem to be the ones that are accused of being stolen if you can think of any other examples of songs that plagiarize or seemingly copy other songs do let me know in the comments and I'll try to include them in a future video [Music] foreign [Music]

Channel: David Bennett Piano

Views: 460,979

Keywords: plagiarize, plagiarise, copy, based on, law suit, compared, example, copyright, sued, borrow, the same

Id: gMbm-mHNIe4

Length: 14min 48sec (888 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 16 2023