Katy Perry's Dark Horse Lawsuit Makes Waves in Music Industry • Hacker News Board

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

#81

Post by wrs » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 5:14 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #14

aaronarduino wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

New business model: have an AI generate every chord progression in every tempo, release the "songs" on your own label, and sue everyone who releases a song after you.

You’d need to show some likelihood of the defendant hearing the music they’re allegedly copying, though — and I sure wouldn’t listen to the channel you’re proposing!

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

#82

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

xealgo wrote: post #21

Good artist copy. Great artist steal. However, in this case, I'm hard pressed to believe it's a case of either.

[deleted]

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

#83

Post by srfilipek » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 5:17 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #64

sitkack wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why a Jury of Peers [1] wouldn't be comprised of domain experts and not just random people off the street. And it seems like having domain knowledge is likely to get one NOT selected for jury duty. Can any lawyers chime in on this (even armchair hn lawyers)? [1] https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/what-is-a-ju...

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.

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

#84

Post by rtkwe » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

52-6F-62 wrote: post #62

CalChris wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Country music, three chords and the truth, has it worse.

Also from the blues! But [usually] in the pocket instead of syncopated. But definitely. Especially modern pop country (gag) as even all the themes are the same! Red truck, light beer, America. Am I missing anything? Anyway yeah—all the way back to Hank Williams you could form the basis of a case that any song that progresses Gmaj - Amaj - Dmaj on an acoustic guitar with a mournful vocal tone and downtrodden lyric con…

You forgot a 'guuurl' usually with a short skirt.

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

#85

Post by gsg21 » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 5:28 PM UTC

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #29

redm wrote: post #23

This reminds me of Under Pressure and Ice Ice Baby, the latter also having to pay up.

In that case, the baseline was directly ripped off, it wasn’t just “sounded similar”, it was an actual sample.

But to hear Vanilla Ice explain it is pretty hilarious - https://youtu.be/6TLo4Z_LWu4

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

#86

Post by ertemplin » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

This is literally how musicians create new music. When I was in high school jazz band, every improvisation had pieces of popular jazz songs in it. That's just how it works.

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

#87

Post by froindt » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 5:44 PM UTC

freehunter wrote: post #14

aaronarduino wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

New business model: have an AI generate every chord progression in every tempo, release the "songs" on your own label, and sue everyone who releases a song after you.

Unfortunately you'd be opening yourself up to lawsuits for any of your songs that have a passing resemblance to existing songs, since after all, you've created every chord progression and tempo!

Maybe if you keep a low profile and insisted on NDA's for settlements, you wouldn't get sued as much for "stealing" from every piece of music made prior to your [Mega Album] dropping. I'd also recommend getting the copyright registered, but remaining out of every music database you possibly could, to enhance the obscurity of it all.

Also, if you know someone is infringing on your work and you don't actively pursue it, you could lose your rights to the copyright, so you need to find a cabin in the woods to lay low for awhile until you're ready to sue everyone in existence.

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

#88

Post by tialaramex » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

sitkack wrote: post #51

gregmac wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't understand why a Jury of Peers [1] wouldn't be comprised of domain experts and not just random people off the street. And it seems like having domain knowledge is likely to get one NOT selected for jury duty. Can any lawyers chime in on this (even armchair hn lawyers)? [1] https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/what-is-a-ju...

Juries are completely inappropriate tools for the job of deciding civil trials. Like lots of things that are crazy in the US the Americans did it as a perverse imitation of how England did it back when they became independent.

Today nobody else does this, England for example only really uses jury trial to decide serious criminal cases (for minor stuff there isn't a professional judge at all, a panel of lay magistrates decides, they mostly seem disappointed rather than angry - like parents whose teenager was caught smoking).

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

#89

Post by rtkwe » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

goda90 wrote: post #41

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In that case, the baseline was directly ripped off, it wasn’t just “sounded similar”, it was an actual sample.

If sampling to create new art were better protected, then cases like this wouldn't even come up. The documentary "Good Copy Bad Copy" was talking about this 12 years ago

Yeah I think we're long overdue to reevaluate what copyright means in music. I think it should be much closer to how we treat fashion where anything but a direct rip off is 100% fair game (and that is even more about trademarks because the actual design can't be copyrighted).

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

#90

Post by dbcurtis » Wed, Aug 07, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

ModernMech wrote: post #64

sitkack wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why a Jury of Peers [1] wouldn't be comprised of domain experts and not just random people off the street. And it seems like having domain knowledge is likely to get one NOT selected for jury duty. Can any lawyers chime in on this (even armchair hn lawyers)? [1] https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-procedure/what-is-a-ju...

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.

> other commoners

Ummmm..... the Magna Carta was not about protecting the commoners from the king. It was about protecting the peerage from the king. "Jury of peers" is a jury of other members of the peerage trying a peer. Commoners were not part of the program.