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Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

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Re: Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

#101

Post by nominated1 »

gregmac wrote: post #44
ericcholis wrote: post #9

Good video breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg

The video is absolutely worth watching, but one of the more relevant bits is this: > [...] in Dark Horse it's just the background texture for one of the verses. It has the same musical function as a chord progression or a drum groove: it serves to highlight the melody but it's not the song itself. Up until this point it seemed like only melodies could be copyrighted in the composition of song, however the recent cour…

What, if any, blow-back can Todd Decker expect from this? Didn’t he just put his reputation in jeopardy?

Re: Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

#102

Post by rotrux »

dwohnitmok wrote: post #31

I wonder at what point similarities with past works becomes inevitable. There's only a finite amount of original music out there, especially if you're talking about the length of an average riff or motif, leave out a lot of the more extreme attempts of contemporary art music, and stick to what sounds pleasing in popular music genres. And the output of number of musical compositions seems only to be increasing. An int…

> "I wonder at what point similarities with past works becomes inevitable."

This question gets at the crux of the problem; its answer depends entirely on "what are the atomic constituents of a musical work?"

With consensus around a legal catalog of sounds, you could use reasonable assumptions to estimate a year by which all musicians have a 99.999% chance of being dirty-dirty infringing criminals.

Re: Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

#103

Post by hajile »

coldtea wrote: post #72
hajile wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather horrible breakdown IMO. The "prior art" from 1984 he mentions is radically different in the note pattern used which alone defeats that entire line of argument. Similarly, reaching back to classical music to talk about modern synth beats is a red herring. All he succeeded in doing here was showing that there wasn't actually prior art. He does a bit on how the pagan aspects of the lyrics and video are irrelevant…

> The "prior art" from 1984 he mentions is radically different in the note pattern used which alone defeats that entire line of argument. It's not radically different at all. I'm a musician, but even for a lay person, this is as close as it gets without it being 100% the same. > Similarly, reaching back to classical music to talk about modern synth beats is a red herring. This doesn't even make sense. It's like sayin…

Jumping UP an entire FIFTH is hardly the same as dropping DOWN a single NOTE then dropping down another single note. In what world are these two even remotely similar?

> This doesn't even make sense. It's like saying that referring to a 18th century invention to invalidate a 2019 patent is a red herring. Music is music.

Point out even one classical music piece were any instrument is used even remotely similarly to how this piece ties together the song. It does not exist. Trimming out a few similar notes used in an entirely different manner for an entirely different effect is like saying Picasso and Rembrandt are similar because they use similar lines and curves.

> No, it only indicates that these persons have a limited repertoire.

Copyright exists for the general public (as stated in the US constitution). If you need an expert to tell you two pieces of music seem to be similar, but actually are not, then there's probably something wrong.

Re: Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

#104

Post by really3452 »

52-6F-62 wrote: post #49
dwohnitmok wrote: post #31

I wonder at what point similarities with past works becomes inevitable. There's only a finite amount of original music out there, especially if you're talking about the length of an average riff or motif, leave out a lot of the more extreme attempts of contemporary art music, and stick to what sounds pleasing in popular music genres. And the output of number of musical compositions seems only to be increasing. An int…

Punk rock would be a minefield. And that's all only come out of the blues (skipping some historical points) which relies heavily on "standards". So many of the compositions along that tract are made up of three to five notes in a limited variety of voicings and arrangements. I - III - V - IV Try Johnny Be Goode. Chuck Berry has his reputation but he could have pulled a move like this a large number of times by now [a…

Obligatory Axis of Awesome - 4 Four Chord Song Exmple

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

Re: Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

#105

Post by really3452 »

blang wrote: post #70
dwohnitmok wrote: post #31

I wonder at what point similarities with past works becomes inevitable. There's only a finite amount of original music out there, especially if you're talking about the length of an average riff or motif, leave out a lot of the more extreme attempts of contemporary art music, and stick to what sounds pleasing in popular music genres. And the output of number of musical compositions seems only to be increasing. An int…

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

Yup, Axis of Awesome's 4 Four Chord Song. First thing that came to my mind too.

Re: Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

#106

Post by sarah180 »

ericcholis wrote: post #9

Good video breakdown: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvg

I strongly recommend this one: https://youtu.be/t-tsw6Z4eHc

I like Adam Neely, but Leonard French is an actual copyright attorney. He meanders a bit, but does a good job explaining the law here, including why this decision is narrower and more defensible than a lot of musicians might think.

Re: Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

#107

Post by coldtea »

hajile wrote: post #103
coldtea wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The "prior art" from 1984 he mentions is radically different in the note pattern used which alone defeats that entire line of argument. It's not radically different at all. I'm a musician, but even for a lay person, this is as close as it gets without it being 100% the same. > Similarly, reaching back to classical music to talk about modern synth beats is a red herring. This doesn't even make sense. It's like sayin…

Jumping UP an entire FIFTH is hardly the same as dropping DOWN a single NOTE then dropping down another single note. In what world are these two even remotely similar? > This doesn't even make sense. It's like saying that referring to a 18th century invention to invalidate a 2019 patent is a red herring. Music is music. Point out even one classical music piece were any instrument is used even remotely similarly to ho…

>Point out even one classical music piece were any instrument is used even remotely similarly to how this piece ties together the song. It does not exist.

Actually tons of classical pieces depend on a key motif by a particular instrument...

>Copyright exists for the general public (as stated in the US constitution).

The US constitution is wrong: copyright as it stands exists for fat company executives.

Re: Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

#108

Post by 52-6F-62 »

really3452 wrote: post #104
52-6F-62 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Punk rock would be a minefield. And that's all only come out of the blues (skipping some historical points) which relies heavily on "standards". So many of the compositions along that tract are made up of three to five notes in a limited variety of voicings and arrangements. I - III - V - IV Try Johnny Be Goode. Chuck Berry has his reputation but he could have pulled a move like this a large number of times by now [a…

Obligatory Axis of Awesome - 4 Four Chord Song Exmple https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I

Haha! Thanks for this. Spot on.

To add to that, if you haven't seen it yet: https://youtu.be/YWUQg0bqhVw

Re: Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

#109

Post by sarah180 »

srfilipek wrote: post #83
ModernMech wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always assumed it's peers as opposed to superiors. I.e. Your jury is not the king and queen but other commoners like you.

A peer of the defendant? Because the defendant was a musician in this case.

The standard of "substantial similarity" in copyright law depends not on how an expert would see things, but on how a reasonable average person would see things. Juries are not perfect, but a jury of random people is probably the most qualified way to determine the question "would average people see these two things as substantially the same."

Leonard French—a YouTuber and actual copyright attorney—does a good job covering the legal standards and issues here: https://youtu.be/t-tsw6Z4eHc.

Re: Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry

#110

Post by winternett »

rotrux wrote: post #102
dwohnitmok wrote: post #31

I wonder at what point similarities with past works becomes inevitable. There's only a finite amount of original music out there, especially if you're talking about the length of an average riff or motif, leave out a lot of the more extreme attempts of contemporary art music, and stick to what sounds pleasing in popular music genres. And the output of number of musical compositions seems only to be increasing. An int…

> "I wonder at what point similarities with past works becomes inevitable." This question gets at the crux of the problem; its answer depends entirely on "what are the atomic constituents of a musical work?" With consensus around a legal catalog of sounds, you could use reasonable assumptions to estimate a year by which all musicians have a 99.999% chance of being dirty-dirty infringing criminals.

I worry about the future as I own a record label as well. I think the period that works go into public domain should be 10 years instead of the current 75... If you think about it, music releases usually make most of their money within the first 10 years of release, and then after that they may become classics, but then people who want to find the music generally seek the originals. Remixing can also make the original songs popular again, so labels need to really account for that before suing. 75 years ago most recording technology was not even good enough to generate anything worth sampling.

Courts should also be more fair in awarding damages and follow-up royalties. All of the restrictions on copyright for sampled music really stifle the possibilities when it comes to music making.

What driving all of this at the end of the day is that big money wins... Big labels and artists get to sample whoever they want and just pay out a small percentage of the proceeds later on and tunes are even made more popular by sample controversies like this one, while the little people not only get ignored by radio, magazines, and music outlets, but then you won't even hear them because flagged samples in their work prevent them from even posting their music anywhere.

I did a remix of Beautiful Girls by Sean Kingston and can't post it anywhere because of copyright flags when I try to upload it and give proper credits... The original came out long ago and now is probably past the sales hump. Played it out once on a club night and it was a hit there... It's just sitting on my Hard Drive forever... Never to be heard.

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