Copyright and plagiarism - part III

It seems every time I look into a case of musos ripping off other musos it leads to about a dozen more, so this may not be the last time I write about the thievery and alleged thievery in the music biz.

So here we go - five more cases of conscious or unconscious musical mimicry.

Rolling Stones vs The Verve

THE strange thing about the matter of Bittersweet Symphony is that The Verve actually got permission to sample the Andrew Oldham Orchestra's rendition of The Rolling Stones song The Last Time. But Bittersweet Symphony went mega, and the Stones' manager, the late Allen Klein, saw dollar signs and sued, arguing The Verve had used "too much" of the sample. The original deal of a 50/50 profit share between The Verve and the Jagger-Richards combo was thrown out by a judge, who awarded 100 per cent of the profits to the Stones. To add insult to injury, Klein seized on Verve singer Richard Ashcroft's hatred of having his music used in commercials, and licensed Bittersweet Symphony for use in ads by Nike, Opel and Vauxhall. And it's not as though The Rolling Stones are adverse to ripping off other artists - rather than go through a lawsuit over their song Anybody Seen My Baby?, which sounded remarkably similar to k.d. lang's Constant Craving, they simply gave lang a co-writing credit.

2 Live Crew vs Roy Orbison

FEW bands have spent more time in court than sexed-up rappers 2 Live Crew. When they weren't hiring lawyers to defend their First Amendment rights to sing such songs as We Want Some Pussy or getting sued by George Lucas (not kidding), they were fighting at the forefront of the sampling debate, most notably against representatives of the Big O himself. 2 Live Crew copped the bass line and title of Pretty Woman, but turned into a questionable rap about a hairy woman and her bald friend. The case proved seminal because of the finding in favour of 2 Live Crew - the judge ruled that parody constituted fair use, even if the parodists made a profit (and weren't funny). Many years later, 2 Live Crew's former manager, who owned the rights to the group's songs, later accused rapper 50 Cent of copping the line "it's your birthday" from 2 Live Crew's song of 1994 song of the same name for Fiddy's In Da Club. The judge said 'no', due to the commonplace nature of the line.

Led Zeppelin vs everyone

THERE'S at least one site on the web that features a lengthy list of Led Zeppelin numbers that featured borrowed riffs or lyrics, with much of the stolen goods coming from old blues artists including Bukka White, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf and Blind Wilie Johnson. Sometimes the songwriters got a credit but mostly they didn't - folk singer Anne Bredon had to sue to get acknowledged as a co-writer on Babe I'm Gonna Leave You. Perhaps the most famous rip-off is their monumental epic Stairway To Heaven, the opening riff of which sounds just like Taurus by largely unknown Californian band Spirit, who actually opened for Zeppelin on a US tour. Spirit never sued - they were just hoping for a thank-you (they didn't get one). The same went for Jake Holmes, who had his song Dazed & Confused stolen by Zep guitarist Jimmy Page after Holmes opened for Page's previous band The Yardbirds. Holmes wrote Page a letter asking for a co-credit and a bit of cash. He didn't even get a reply. No wonder Zeppelin have been written off by many as "a f***ing covers band".

Metallica vs everyone

THRASH-METAL pioneers Metallica accused Napster users of stealing their music, but lots of people have also accused Metallica of stealing riffs and melodies from other acts. Some of these suggested thievings are featured in My Apocalypse (The Offspring's Have You Ever), End Of The Line (Pearl Jam's Why Go), and Thorn Within (Danzig's Snakes Of Christ or maybe Stone Temple Pilots's Sex Type Thing). But to be honest these are mostly generic riffs or particular guitar tricks that aren't uncommon throughout rock and metal. So while Metallica's The Unforgiven II sounds a lot like Iron Maiden's Children Of The Damned, certain elements (a few chords and arpeggiations) can even be traced back, according to Cracked.com, to Jimi Hendrix's 1983 (A Merman I Should Turn To Be). But what's really interesting is that they've actually admitted ripping off a riff (they didn't say from who) for their track Welcome Home (Sanitarium). Cracked.com, once again, pointed to Bleak House's Rainbow Warrior, and the match is uncanny and not helped by the admission of theft in a guitar mag. And if you think that's bad, wait 'til you hear Excel's Tapping Into The Emotional Void and compare that with Metallica's Enter Sandman. Add in the fact both bands are from the same music scene and era. No lawsuits have been forthcoming, mostly because Excel admitted they "borrowed heavily" from Rush's XYZ in Tapping Into The Emotional Void.

Nirvana vs Killing Joke

ACCORDING to Rolling Stone magazine, when Nirvana and their label were trying to decide what the follow-up single to Smells Like Teen Spirit would be, Kurt Cobain was nervous about using Come As You Are because it was "too similar to a Killing Joke song", in particular a tune called Eighties. Cobain's fears went unheeded and upon release, Killing Joke called plagiarism. Whether they sued or not is up for debate. Rolling Stone says they didn't, while other sources say they did and the case was either thrown out or dropped after Cobain's death. What's strange is that The Damned's Life Goes On, which pre-dates Killing Joke's Eighties by two years, sounds more like Come As You Are than Eighties does. But there can't have been too much bad blood between Killing Joke and Nirvana - the latter's drummer Dave Grohl not only covered one of the former's songs (Requiem), but also drummed for them on the second self-titled album (2003).