Copywrite- How different does it have to be?

[coloradojay]

First off I've waded a bunch of the 75 or so threads that talk about copywrite here, and can't find info on my question.

I am doing the percussion/tracking for a commercial this weekend, and I have a question about the music we are doing. The commercial will be played on local cable slots and local radio.

The guy/business who is having the commercial made gave my friend (the video guy), a low-res 1 minute sample of a little acoustic guitar ditty that he wants on his commercial. He said basically "I want it to sound like that- but add some percussion". I've never heard it before but it sounds similar to every finger-picked bluegrass/folk tune I've ever heard.

The question. I have no idea where the guitar tune came from, and no way (I know of) to figure out if it is copywritten or not. Even though I don't really stand to get in any trouble since I'm just being hired to track it/add original percussion, I'm curious:

How would you go about researching if a non-descript tune like this has a copywrite?

If it is copywritten, how different would you have to make the tune keep the video/production guy/studio guitar player/audio engineer guy, from the chance of legal trouble?

Some of my thoughts:

-The guitar player will likely be changing it a little anyway since he doesn't have music or tab for the tune, so he's playing it by ear and really it only has to "sound like that"

-The percussion will change the feel of the tune some anyway since it didn't have any before

-We've all heard commercials on TV that sound like another tune, but are slightly changed. What do you guys feel about the moral implications of this kind of copycatish jingle?

[TexRoadkill]

If it's a traditional blue grass or blues riff than it probably sounds like 1000 other songs. What would get you in trouble is lifting the melody from a copywrited tune. Traditional chord progressions and arpeggios can't be copywrited.

[coloradojay]

Originally posted by TexRoadkill
If it's a traditional blue grass or blues riff than it probably sounds like 1000 other songs.

Yup, it sure does. So in this case I think we're OK, because it's a pretty common sounding piece. Also it's pretty small peanuts, it's not like it's going to play on the Superbowl or anything.


What would get you in trouble is lifting the melody from a copywrited tune.

What if the client said "I want it to sound just like Zepplin's Kashmir"?

How different would it need to sound?

What if we played Kashmir note-for-note? Who would be liable? The musicians, the studio, the guy who paid us to do the work? Everyone?

My friend doing the video production is super talented, and it looks like I am going to be seeing more work from him in the near future, so I want to figure this out before more situations like this arrise.

[Aaron Cheney]

You can't copyright a chord progression or scale. Otherwise, we'd all owe the guy that invented the IV -V -I a lot of $!!!!!
Funny you should mention Zep. I used to do sessions with a guy that copped riffs from well know songs for bumper music and stuff like that all the time. Blatantly. Once we did "Misty Mountain Hop" note for note as bumper music for some DJ in D.C. Another time we did a hard-rock version of "Take Me out to the Ballgame". He explained the legality of it to me once. He said it's the same reason that Wierd Al or Muzak can do what they do without fear of lawsuit.

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com

[dafduc]

There's also a seven note rule - more a rule-of-thumb than a hard and fast one. But if your seven notes are the same as seven notes of a copyrighted song, you're open to some suing. It's hearsay, but I've changed my pieces to comply, just in case.

There's a lot of composer tricks you can do - inverting passages is a favorite of mine. Changing passing tones is another, so that all your "stressed" notes land in the same place, but the line is still different.

And I understand what you're up against - I wrote a bluegrass tune that sounds a whole lot like SOMETHING - hopefully it's not one of those subconscious total recall things - that could land me in a lot of trouble!

Daf

[sjjohnston]

A few random thoughts:

It's "copyright", not copywrite. As in "right to copy." Thus, it follows that it's also "copyrighted" not "copywritten."

Everything that's "fixed" is copyrighted. If it's recorded (which I guess it must be, since you heard it), it's copyrighted. It's possible that the copyright has expired, but not likely.

Something -- by itself -- as minimual as a chord progression, or a strumming pattern, or rhythm, isn't ordinarily sufficient to hold copyright. Without knowing more about what this "ditty" sounds like, and how much what you're recording sounds like it, it's sort of impossible to tell whether it infringes. I don't know about this supposed "seven-note rule." Try copying the the six note guitar line from "My Girl," and see what happens.

You really can't find out where this ditty came from? The guy who gave you the recording of it doesn't know where he got it? Something smells a bit fishy there.

[coloradojay]

Thanks Aaron, it'll probably come out sounding like "Three Kazoos and a Nose Flute" anyway! <(c;

I remember my dad telling me that their was a song that had a settlement awarded because it had a melody just like the oldy "He's so fine, shoo-lang, shoo-lang shoo-lang" the other song replaced the words with "My sweet Lord, Hallelulia, Chrishna Chrishna".

Anyone know about that?

[coloradojay]

Thanks for the tips Daf. I know that lots of people have both conciously and subconciously copied songs with slight changes and got away with it, for sure (like Aaron mentions above)

Originally posted by sjjohnston

You really can't find out where this ditty came from? The guy who gave you the recording of it doesn't know where he got it? Something smells a bit fishy there.

Well, if I wanted to make an issue about it I could have the video guy ask his client were the clip is from. Really I am not getting paid much to do this, and don't want to cause a hassel if I don't stand to get in trouble over it. I also want to know for future reference how much I should care about the liability doing jingles like this.

[sjjohnston]

Originally posted by Aaron Cheney
Another time we did a hard-rock version of "Take Me out to the Ballgame". He explained the legality of it to me once.

That copyright may have expired. Not sure.

He said it's the same reason that Wierd Al or Muzak can do what they do without fear of lawsuit.

Muzak pays royalties. I bet "Weird Al" does too; or at least he gets permission. Some of his stuff might be permitted as "fair use" also (parody).

[coloradojay]

Originally posted by coloradojay
I remember my dad telling me that their was a song that had a settlement awarded because it had a melody just like the oldy "He's so fine, shoo-lang, shoo-lang shoo-lang" the other song replaced the words with "My sweet Lord, Hallelulia, Chrishna Chrishna".

Anyone know about that?

OK replying to myself now! <(c;

I just found a link to a couple articles on that case and it looks like it started in 1971 and was still being battled out as late as 93!!!

The alleged melody thief was non other than George Harrison.

http://abbeyrd.best.vwh.net/mysweet.htm

http://classicrock.about.com/gi/dyna...2Fharrison.htm


The about site has some other famous copywrite cases here:

http://classicrock.about.com/gi/dyna...2Fharrison.htm

It seems to me that the "blood from a turnip" rule applies here. I can see the payout from sueing a guy like Harrison or Vanilla Ice (who blatantly jacked Queen's "Under Pressure"), who have some bucks, but they would be hard pressed to cover legal costs to sue little-ole-me.

[Aaron Cheney]

Ya...."Take Me Out to the Ballgame" might be in the public domain. I'm not sure either.

Fair Use might be what I was thinking of. It's the same principal that keeps the Beatles from sueing you if you say...included a question about them in a trvia game you invented.

And coloradojay comes through with a hip persoanal reference. I'm very flattered!

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com

[coloradojay]

Originally posted by Aaron Cheney

And coloradojay comes through with a hip persoanal reference. I'm very flattered!

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com

That noseflute shit cracked me up man! Pretty cool site, basic, but at least it's not overwhelming or slow. Looks like you are doing some fun work.

I don't beleive the little disclaimer that VooDoo was not involved in the making of the products though.

Got gris-gris?

[dafduc]

Originally posted by sjjohnston
Try copying the the six note guitar line from "My Girl," and see what happens.

You mean the major pentatonic scale? AKA the first six notes of "Someone to Watch Over Me?"



Daf

[willovercome]

side note -

'their' - possession ('that is their song')

'there' - location ('they played that song over there')

'they're' - contraction ('they're ripping off the beatles')

your posts will sound more intelligent and people will respect what you have to say.

[bdbdbucksKID]

There are millions of songs and only so many chords/notes...what ever order you play it in shouldn't matter. I think it's safe to use it. There are so many musicians that take the same tune and put different words to so many of the same chord progressions. And you can copyright the tune accompanied with lyrics and/or media. I think the only sound that has been contested lately was Harley Davidson vs. Honda for trying to duplicate the sound that the chopper makes (think that was also a trademark issue)!!! Anyway, two cents isn't much...but if you save everybody's you gotta lotta pennies!!!!

[Velvet Elvis]

Keep in mind when you are talking copyrights that it also depends on what is copyrighted with the song.

An artist can copyright the musical recording alone, the lyrics and song progression alone or a combination of the two.

So... it IS possible to infringe on copyrights by re-recording someone else's music if they have copyrights on that portion of their 'creation'.

I just did a whole bunch of copyright work for an album that will be released nationally this summer... I contacted a personal property attorney to make sure I was covering the correct things.

If you look on the government's copyright website, you will see two forms for music/lyrics... form SR and form PA. PA covers the music and lyrics in ANY form, while SR covers the actual sound recording.

IE - If I wrote a song and wanted to retain copyright for what I wrote, I could file a PA form... anyone wanting to use the song for re-recording etc would have to do so with my permission.

If my band recorded the song, and we wanted to protect the RECORDED version from being used in commercials etc... we would file SR for our specific recorded version.

Royalties and performance permissions etc are obtained usually through the artists affiliation with ASCAP or BMI etc.

Another side note... registering copyright with the government is simply that... REGISTERING the copyright... the song is actually copyrighted at creation once it is in a written or recorded form.

Hope this helps.

Velvet Elvis

[sjjohnston]

Originally posted by bdbdbucksKID
... I think the only sound that has been contested lately was Harley Davidson vs. Honda for trying to duplicate the sound that the chopper makes ....

There have been a number of copyright cases, or at least public disputes, in recent years -- particularly involving sampling without permission. I would expect there have been at least 100 times that many situations in which people have received "cease and desist" letter and have done so (or reached a financial agreement) without it becoming public.

[Aaron Cheney]

Their are many reasons for mispellings and poor punctuation in posts. There supposed to be conversational and fluid. Their could also be cases where someone might not know there grammar. In my case, I prefer to regard posts as quick notes to a friend, rather than permanent works requiring proofreading. But that is neither hear nor they're.

So they're.

Aaron
http://www.voodoovibe.com

[coloradojay]

Originally posted by willejaculateexcessively AKA grammartroll
side note -

'their' - possession ('that is their song')

'there' - location ('they played that song over there')

'they're' - contraction ('they're ripping off the beatles')

your posts will sound more intelligent and people will respect what you have to say.

So I incorrectly used thier in the place of there. Well golly-gee, I can see why my thread doesn't sound intellegent and people don't respect what I have to say.

You must have missed the title of the thread. See this thread is about copyright, which sjjohnston so kindly pointed out is not "copywrite". I could care less if I have a couple of typos in my thread, all of the helpful and intellegent people who have posted here knew exactly what I meant, and were able to have an intellegent discussion about it without ego.

The english grammar forum is a few more down, keep trolling. Hopefully now that you've enlightened me, I will have the ability to sound intellegent, and have people respect what I have to say -you jackass. Thanks for all of your helpful input.

-J <(c;

P.S. I didn't spell or grammar check this flame, so you may feel compelled to give it a proof read.

"I wrote my english teacher a love note. She corrected it and gave it back!" Rodney Dangerfield

[dafduc]

Originally posted by Aaron Cheney
So they're.

[sjjohnston]

As Velvet Elvis notes, there are two distinct copyrighted works: the song, and the recording of the song.

For example, say Barry Manilow records "I Write the Songs," or the McDonalds jingle ("You Deserve a Break Today"). If you do your own cover version, you (possibly, at least if you don't pay a royalty) infringe the copyrights of the guys who originally wrote the songs: Bruce Johnston and Ron Dante, respectively. If you burn CD copies of the Barry Manilow recordings and sell them on the street corner, you infringe Barry Manilow's copyright, as well as Bruce Johnston's and Ron Dante's.

Another thing to note (going back to the original question) is that the question isn't really whether the work you're, um, "being inspired by," is copyrighted. It is. (Unless the copyright has expired, which is unlikely). The question is whether what you're doing constitutes infringement. That really depends on the "facts and circumstances," and is a pretty tough judgment to make in the abstract.

[sjjohnston]

And besides, isn't it "we shall overcome"?

[coloradojay]

Thanks everyone for your informative replies so far, especially sjjohnston and Velvet Elvis.

I should have thought of this to begin with... I put the clip the client gave us at nowhere radio. Please let me know if anyone recognizes it as being an original. I am not very well versed in Folk, so I really wouldn't know if it was a big hit, or written yesterday.

As another fun part of this excercise, I'll post the finished product up there once it's done, and we can see what people think about the similarity of the finished product (maybe I'll post with and without percussion to see how much difference that makes too).

[coloradojay]

Oops. Here's the link

http://www.nowhereradio.com/artists/...d=3030&alid=-1

[Velvet Elvis]

Jay,

I listened to the tune and I don't recognize it... of course that doesn't mean anything at all... but it seems to be a fairly straight forward guitar progression.

We'll have to see what others say... I'm not very versed in folk either.

Ahhh... the wonderful world of copyrights... between copyrights and performance rights/royalty issues, I've had my fill lately of the business side of music

Velvet Elvis