Plenty of actors and actresses have strikingly similar fashion senses, mannerisms, catchphrases and acting styles. Athletes commonly wear the same kind of shoes, hairstyles and similar pregame rituals. Actors, athletes and other careers under the spotlight are almost never under attack for sharing like qualities with other people in their field. Musicians, however, receive constant criticism for creating a music piece that may sound remotely like another.
There are many aspects that go into producing a song and a dozen times that into an album. It’s virtually impossible to create an entirely new piece of music that doesn’t share similar themes, lyrics, rhythmic elements or harmonic progressions as the other millions of songs in existence. It’s obvious, however, that authors cannot be applied to this outlook. When plagiarism is committed, the intention of the author is oftentimes evidently malicious. A particular string of words is much easier to identify than a riff composed of a couple of notes.
To determine if a musical plagiarism lawsuit is justified, it should be placed on a scale. Creating a song entirely unique is next to impossible. After all, a song is just a long string of notes, and parts of that string are bound to be the same or similar to other songs that have been composed. At the same time, if the artist claims the notes of a song, that isn’t theirs, to be their own that is blatant plagiarism. If creating a one-of-a-kind song is incredibly difficult, but singing a string of notes can be considered plagiarism, what is the happy medium of uniqueness?
Most songs are inspired by other pieces of music the songwriter has heard before. Whether intended to or not, all songs in the past century were made with the inspiration of other music. If keeping a particular piece of music in mind when writing a song, the song is being written consciously, it is expected that the song is credited if released and claimed as one’s own. When a certain song is not kept in mind when composing, that piece of music hypothetically should be unique. However, if a songwriter is not blatantly plagiarizing, their subconscious is writing. This sounds innocent and uncontroversial until we recognize that all “creative” writing comes from our subconscious and when songwriters listen to music for enjoyment, as most people do, the songs they have listened to live in their subconscious. This means that all are subconsciously inspired by previous art the songwriter has heard.
Someone can be sued for copyright infringement when they have used copyrighted material if they are unauthorized to do so. In the music industry, artists taking one another to court for copyright infringement is not an uncommon occurrence. Popular musicians such as Olivia Rodrigo, Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran and Sam Smith have all been involved in copyright infringement cases because other musicians claim their songs resemble their’s too closely. Rodrigo and Smith’s situations ended in songwriting credits being granted. Perry and Sheeran, however, had to go to court to settle their lawsuits.
Katy Perry was sued in 2019 by Marcus Gray because her song “Dark Horse” resembled Gray’s “Joyful Noise.” The jury found Perry guilty in 2019, but in 2020, a judge overturned the order. Sheeran has been sued twice for his songs “Thinking Out Loud” and “Shape of You” but the jury ruled in his favor both times.
Just knowing that Perry’s case was overturned less than a year later demonstrates that the ruling is entirely up to interpretation. The entire lawsuit was based on similar eight-note patterns in both of the songs. After listening to both of them, I’ve concluded that the notes do sound similar, but are used completely differently throughout the song. I’m also certain that the string of eight notes that Gray copyrighted as his, was likely not original either.
Overall, the songs had two different meanings, choruses and entirely different styles and Gray should have had no ground to stand on when filing the infringement lawsuit. This case just represents one of many, but perfectly encapsulates how opinionated the conclusion is. If a lawsuit does not have any evidence to support it and entirely relies on opinion, it shouldn’t be the vessel for the loss of millions of dollars.
