Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

cbc.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 128 posts

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

#111

Post by degenerate »

aaronarduino wrote: post #5
iamben wrote: post #4

I posted this the other day. Absolutely terrible, IMO. A minor artist can take millions from an artist who releases a song with a passing resemblance. You can hear similarities in SO many songs. And SO many songs are inspired by others - great art is full of inspiration. I dread where this ends up.

This sort of feels like the start of the music business's version of patent trolls. I think this verdict devalues music and hampers creativity.

Especially with electronic music... simply use AI to release 20 million songs that nobody ever heard of, and copyright them all. Then just sit back and wait for a hot song to have similar-sounding segments and rake in the cash.

The songs don't even need to have lyrics or be enjoyable. They just need to cover enough possible sounds that can be made with modern electronic music tools.

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

#112

Post by EvanAnderson »

segmondy wrote: post #98

What a schadenfreude for me. I see most people are saying it sucks, I for one can cheer on. Screw the music, movie and media industry. Tons of laws and garbage we suffer on the internet today is because of them and their lobbying efforts. There approach towards everything has been litigation hell, let them feel their own pain.

While I share your amusement that the publishing industry is hoist with their own petard creators will inevitably be targeted as a result of this decision. That really troubles me. I see this decision as a weapon for the publishing industry.

"Pirates" have been held-up as being publishers' enemies. I think this decision will serve to make independent creators a bigger target. Machine learning-based analysis of music along w/ this decision will create a distopia where independent musicians are hit with automatically-generated copyright infringement extortion letters. It'll be similar to the letters "downloaders" received a few years ago, except that the infringement will be the act of creation rather than "consumption".

My hope is the lunacy of this decision will spark more conversation about reigning United States copyright back into some semblance of its original form. I've been pining for that conversation since the creation of the DMCA, though, and it shows no sign of coming. The litigation wasteland that this decision will create might make that happen, but, then again, it might just serve to cement the idea that you can't be a legitimate content creator w/o going thru the traditional publishing system (and all the rent-seeking that comes with it).

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

#113

Post by [deleted] »

coldtea wrote: post #107
hajile wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

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

#114

Post by vortico »

ptah wrote: post #36
vortico wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not 16 notes but three notes. C B A. The first note is repeated for a measure, the second is repeated for a half note, and the third is played once. Yes, it's undoubtedly a coincidence. See https://i.cbc.ca/1.5235857.1564861522!/fileImage/httpImage/i...

the repetition is super important. in modern music the rhythm is more important than the variety of tones. the same rhythm and the same tonal distance is too big to be a coincidence

How large do you think the design space is?

Technically, it's enormous, maybe 8^15 possible melodies.

But what about good-sounding melodies? That drastically reduces the space.

What about memorable, good-sounding melodies? Most melodies aren't catchy, so that limits the space some more.

What about culturally-appropriate, memorable, good-sounding melodies? It likely wouldn't make sense to use a Turkish opera melody in a pop song. Genres typically encompass a small space of melodies (e.g. Blues, Boogie Woogie).

What about such melodies that follow a particular rhythm, or match the vocalist's range, or that follow a desired chord progression?

After all this is considered, you're probably down to only a million combinations. But there are a billion songs out there...

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

#115

Post by tzs »

Just listening to both songs once, I didn't notice anything close.

What I'm curious about are the cases where it is extremely obvious that one song is based on another, and no one says anything.

Case in point: "Jolly Roger" by Adam and the Ants [1], from 1980. This is extremely similar to "The March of the MacGregors" by Ennio Morricone, from the 1966 film "Seven Guns for the MacGregors" [2].

It's not only the same melody, "Jolly Roger" is also largely the same arrangement.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc_-vSIy3fY

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5JQ1JTsJ4k

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

#118

Post by rrauenza »

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

Rob Paravonian's Pachebel Rant I think predates this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdxkVQy7QLM

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

#119

Post by kpU8efre7r »

iamben wrote: post #4

I posted this the other day. Absolutely terrible, IMO. A minor artist can take millions from an artist who releases a song with a passing resemblance. You can hear similarities in SO many songs. And SO many songs are inspired by others - great art is full of inspiration. I dread where this ends up.

Everything is a Remix

https://youtu.be/nJPERZDfyWc

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

#120

Post by 1290cc »

Incredible to think that rap music would never have existed or become a popular genre if this law existed in the 80's and was weaponized against artists.

Ultimately this will strengthen a labels position as signed artists will be "allowed" to be influenced by songs the record label already owns.

Anyone else will be stuck in court.

There's a fantastic documentary on this called Copyright Criminals that breaks down this area and just how intertwined the entire music industry is as artists are naturally inspired by each other. The conclusion from this film was that innovation and creation will then come from places where these laws do not exist.

Post reply on HN