My Sweet Lord vs. He's So Fine: Musical Plagiarism?

"cannot be answered in its present form".

He did, but I don't begrudge him for it.

I just heard parts of both on Sound Opinions, and I'm not hearing it.

Personally, I do believe in musical plagiarism and I don't think there's anything wrong with it; what I'm trying to get at with this thread is this: How similar do two songs have to be to count as plagiarism in a meaningful sense?

The first answer is the only correct one and the other two are wrong wrong and nothing but wrong. Plagiarism is wrong and nothing but wrong. Whoever isn't able to compose his own songs (which obviously George Harrison was - most of the time, at least) shouldn't make music at all.

Thanks for the warning.

http://i43.tinypic.com/29pbyuo.jpg

Whoever isn't able to compose his own songs (which obviously George Harrison was - most of the time, at least) shouldn't make music at all.

― Geir Hongro, Sunday, February 1, 2009 7:52 PM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark

Or should join Coldplay! GET IT?!

Just FYI

http://cip.law.ucla.edu/cases/case_brightharrisongs.html

This whole site is pretty fun:

http://cip.law.ucla.edu/song.html

Whoever isn't able to compose his own songs (which obviously George Harrison was - most of the time, at least) shouldn't make music at all.

Take that, Yo-Yo Ma!

There is a similarity, and I'm almost certain that George Harrison was familiar with the Chiffons song, but still, if this is plagiarism, Bob Dylan's entire song catalog is plagiarism.

Definitely plagiarized, but I don't think intentionally. Harrison couldn't have been that stupid to think people wouldn't hear the similarities. A much more shameful rip-off was the Beach Boys/Chuck Berry thing.
But who cares, anyway, for the reason stated by Jesus.

HI DERE!

Does plagiarism have to be intentional, or does unconscious copying still count? I'm unclear on the definition, and so cannot vote.

IMHO we have to appreciate music as a collective experience, and feel free to borrow from it in creating new music as well. Hiphop did it, folk music did it, rock music did it, traditional Irish music did it... up until all this legal bureaucracy started to take foot, it seems like songs belonged to cultures and societies, not to publishers and songwriters. Sure, there's nothing wrong with people getting royalties and songwriting credits, but come on. Almost all art builds on what came before it, and to put up legal barricades to prevent that denies the nature of art, and stunts its growth as well.

xpost - unintentional is also legally counted as plagiarism. this harrison case proves that.

Chiffons did a pretty nice cover of "My Sweet Lord", to show that there were no hard feelings...

This case came before the Ronald H. Selle vs the Bee Gees case, which makes it more difficult to substantiate in court.

(Then of course, the Biz markie case made it more difficult to sample...)

MAKE ART FREE!!

or I should say the Bee Gees' appeal made it more difficult.

xp

Chiffons did a pretty nice cover of "My Sweet Lord", to show that there were no hard feelings...

Perhaps they were not the ones who initiated the lawsuit.

Maybe it wasn't them ;-)

Borrowing happens in classical music as well; see, for example, the legion of Renaissance masses based off of Gregorian chants. You have to credit your source, though, and most off the copyright laws revolve around crediting and compensating those who came up with the musical idea you are working off of.

It'd be a lot easier to define musical plagiarism if the term applied only to written music.

You have to credit your source, though, and most off the copyright laws revolve around crediting and compensating those who came up with the musical idea you are working off of.

At what point is something considered a "source"?

It'd be a lot easier to define musical plagiarism if the term applied only to written music.

Not really, I think. If it did, a routine part of the extant music publishing industry would be to make a written version of each song in their possession.

(and that is disregarding the question of whether a recording actually constitutes a written record in the first place)

(IANAL, btw)

Does George Harrison (or whoever) suck?

Maybe the real question.

"he's so fine" is a great song and "my sweet lord" is good-to-great too, because of the borrowing. a musical act being worthwhile or enjoyable or meaningful is a seperate issue from who gets paid, and how.

plagiarism is great.

Badfinger's Day After Day > Joe Jackson's Braking Us in Two

I don't think that musical plagiarism can be established on the basis of a single component of a pop song, such as a verse or a chorus. Pop songs are far too simple for that to be reasonable.

Also, is it plagiarism if the source is "admittedly" plagiarized, as in the case of La Grange?

I don't think plagiarism can be established on the basis of a single component of an essay, such as a paragraph. Essays are far too simple for that to be reasonable.

The Ronald H Selle vs. Bee Gees case answers most of what's being beaten upon here.

Initially, Selle PROVED that his unreleased 1975 song was the source of "How Deep is Your Love" based on the mathematical idea that no two composers could write the same melody + chord changes. The Bee Gees were forced to pay up.

A year later, the Bee Gees successfully appealed, and set a precedent that basically says whatever, it's pop music, and shit will accidentally copy each other all the time.

I don't think plagiarism can be established on the basis of a single component of an essay, such as a paragraph. Essays are far too simple for that to be reasonable.

like whoa on the meta-commentary

The essay snark/comparison might hold water if the paragraph in question were entirely rewritten, yet contained the same content. Harrison might or might not have stolen from He's So Fine, but he unquestionably didn't sample it.

It kind of blows my mind that there must have been a first instance of (say) I vi IV V.

Most plagiarists do rewrite the content; see, for example, that girl who was going to go to Harvard who ripped off her favorite author for her book deal (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaavya_Viswanathan).

Conversely, a certain amount of rewriting is not considered plagiarism, depending on a lot of factors. Cf. much of Wikipedia.

Yes, such as for example attributing sources, something required of Wikipedia articles.

IMHO we have to appreciate music as a collective experience, and feel free to borrow from it in creating new music as well. Hiphop did it, folk music did it, rock music did it, traditional Irish music did it... up until all this legal bureaucracy started to take foot, it seems like songs belonged to cultures and societies, not to publishers and songwriters. Sure, there's nothing wrong with people getting royalties and songwriting credits, but come on. Almost all art builds on what came before it, and to put up legal barricades to prevent that denies the nature of art, and stunts its growth as well.

― Jesus Christ, Attorney at Law (res), Monday, February 2, 2009 9:34 AM Bookmark

^^^drop a gem on 'em

Also the girl rewrote more than one paragraph, did she not? xp

Scale has nothing to do with the definition of plagiarism.

"I only punched him once, ergo it isn't assault."

I think that when an invention is so incredibly simple that it is reasonable to suppose that anyone could have stumbled on it, then it cannot be the subject of plagiarism. I mean, as Ye Mad Puffin noted, zillions of people are guilty of plagiarizing SOMEONE for I iv VI V, yes?

This is why musical copyright for popular music is confined to melody and lyrics, not chord progressions.

Is any pop melody necessarily so complex as to be automatically plagiarizable, or are there a good number of these which are generic?

(also, specific recorded performances, in the context of sampling)

xp: Some are probably generic; there's no automatic "THAT'S PLAGIARIZED" switch that goes off when someone listens to a song unless you happen to have written it.

I'm of a mind that the part(s) in common of My Sweet Lord/He's So Fine are so simple as to be generic.

(Melodies tend to be suggested and/or permitted by the chords they're going over. Similarities in chord progressions tend to engender similarities in melody. There may be 12 theoretical possibilities in a given situation but only three of them will sound good in practice; I still think this could have been the case with "MSL.")

it always sounded to me like GH was trying to write a devotional song in the mode of an old girl-group love song, and it came out sounding a lot like the chiffons, but then produced it as a big post-beatles country pop tune because he's george harrison and it's 1969. i'm not up on my beatles lore so maybe that's way off.

This is why musical copyright for popular music is confined to melody and lyrics, not chord progressions.

Yep. Or whoever wrote "Basin Street Blues" would have been very healthy indeed by the 50s.

it was written by spencer chow, geir

Wealthy, that is.

Of course, there may be 12 bar blues songs written before that one too, but it is the oldest I can think of. So maybe it is indeed the original

"My Sweet Lord" was inspired by "Oh Happy Day," not "He's So Fine." It was a coincidence.

I wouldn't call "Basin Street Blues" a typical 12-bar blues song at all, Geir.

Borrowing happens in classical music as well

Yup, those devious bastards were constantly rewriting old folk tunes

"reimagined"

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

No seriously.. George was inspired by the Edwin Hawkins Singers. It won't not make any sense for George to use a plagiarized song for the first single off his first solo album after he had been trying to establish himself as a songwriter for several years up until that point.

would not*

But it doesn't matter what *inspired* him. The Harrison case stands for the idea that a songwriter who unconsciously plagiarizes a song he's familiar with has still infringed copyright.

you know what i really don't get is the 'come together'/'you can't catch me' beef. the chorus of 'my sweet lord' is clearly pretty close to that of 'he's soon fine,' but apart from quoting a single line (and changing it!), 'come together' doesn't sound ANYTHING like 'you can't catch me.' it'd be like if the beatles had sued simon and garfunkel for putting 'goo goo ga joob' in one of their songs.

Some people don't get the idea that you can quote and reference another song or piece without it coming close to "stealing."

Even a fair amount of the Led Zeppelin stuff that takes flak I always thought was closer to quoting/homage than plagiarism. To me it's plagiarism when you're really primarily relying on the work of another composer to make your song what it is.

those poll results are depressing. they confirm my suspicion that about half of ilm posters are tone deaf.

Difference was, Lennon nicked the first couple of lines and told everyone he'd done it.

Whereas Billy Bragg clearly did the same wrt "Leaves that are Green" but Paul Simon had appeared on "Fame" as someone that had 'accidentally' used one of Bruno's melodies but the episode ended by him showing Bruno that music was everywhere / everyone's, etc, so couldn't't really 'complain'..(I think Bill did 'apologise' in person to him)