Plagiarism - what constitutes? - GuitarTalk Community

Plagiarism - what constitutes?

lindsmuse

I heard somewhere that using the first 5 notes of an existing piece of music as YOUR first 5 notes constitutes plagiarism? I'm sure I heard an ad just now with at least the first 6 notes of a Moody Blues song ... And there's a couple other songs -that guy who sings Leeuloop - there's a couple of suspicious notes in the chorus in one of his songs - I thought when I heard it that they sounded like something from Jesus Christ Superstar! Whatever -I spose the creative process is all about using other ideas as springboards. In art I think you can't copy something exactly - have to change it by 30% I think ...

Bob-Dubery

lindsmuse wrote: I heard somewhere that using the first 5 notes of an existing piece of music as YOUR first 5 notes constitutes plagiarism? I'm sure I heard an ad just now with at least the first 6 notes of a Moody Blues song ...

I don't know about 5 notes. I don't think the legal requirement is that specific. Besides it would give plagiarists license to write the first 5 notes of a piece - or modify the first 5 - and then use 1000 of somebody else's.

Standard Bank were recently running and advert that sounded a whole lot like The Kinks "Sunny Afternoon".

DonovanB

its funny, what constitues stealing work, or being inspired by something?

Carmen

As far as I know with music and writing quotes, I've heard that as long quote who was the original musician or writer of the qoutes, you should be ok. But I can't be totally sure about that... :-\

ed

That depends...If you take somebody elses work and use it and claim it as yours then it is plagarism. Understand that if you use someone elses work without reference then you are claiming it as yours, since your name or companies name is on it. Well thats how it is in engineering..

Squonk

Metallica's "Nothing else matters" sounds like Nights in white Satin to me.... ???

chris77

I was kinda struggling with the issue as well. I have an bollywoodish ditty that I often play around with, and thought about entering the weekly comp. with it. Problem is I know I play it because Ive heard it (or something very similar) before somewhere - but for the life of me I dont know where exactly. Funny how the mind works sometimes...

Jack-Flash-Jr

On the flip side, Verve's Bittersweet Symphony supposedly ripped a small passage from Stone's Ruby Tuesday (only on one of their live versions no less) and the owner of the music, ex-Manager Allen Klein I think it was, took them to the cleaners, result in the collapse of the band and loss of all royalties on the track. Bittersweet Symphony indeed. And they did NOT deserve it.
No one seems to be bothered with the Lust for Life intro ripping from an earlier track, being ripped later on by Jet and a hundred others though... go figure.

lindsmuse

If someone were to nick an idea of mine and not give me the credit I'd be aggrieved. But what if they take the idea / music whatever and it starts a revolution in music and thinking - and I never thought of presenting the idea THAT way! Then it becomes their property surely and your bit of input is just a part of the process. Like sampling I guess - gets presented differently - YOUR tune - but new effort - new creativity. You can't really sue someone for their creativity I guess.

Bob-Dubery

lindsmuse wrote: If someone were to nick an idea of mine and not give me the credit I'd be aggrieved. But what if they take the idea / music whatever and it starts a revolution in music and thinking - and I never thought of presenting the idea THAT way! Then it becomes their property surely and your bit of input is just a part of the process.

If they use something that you create without giving you credit then it's plagiary.

Paul Simon cribbed Martin Carthy's arrangement of "Scarborough Fair". That Simon was having big hits whilst Carthy wasn't doesn't mean that it wasn't plagiary. Eventually Carthy wrung a payment out of Simon.

majestikc

As far as I know, using even the first 5 notes or 5 seconds or whatever would still be infringement, otherwise you could almost ripoff the entire Smoke on the Water riff (although I'm not sure why you'd want to) and get away with it etc etc etc

Bob-Dubery

X-rated Bob wrote:
lindsmuse wrote: If someone were to nick an idea of mine and not give me the credit I'd be aggrieved. But what if they take the idea / music whatever and it starts a revolution in music and thinking - and I never thought of presenting the idea THAT way! Then it becomes their property surely and your bit of input is just a part of the process.
If they use something that you create without giving you credit then it's plagiary.

Paul Simon cribbed Martin Carthy's arrangement of "Scarborough Fair". That Simon was having big hits whilst Carthy wasn't doesn't mean that it wasn't plagiary. Eventually Carthy wrung a payment out of Simon.

Led Zeppelin plagiarised more than one old blues man who wasn't nearly as famous as them. You can argue that Led Zep were inventing something new in the process, but the fact is that they tried to prosper from the sweat of somebody else's brow.

majestikc

But you have to remember what Picasso said: "Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal"

DonovanB

lindsmuse wrote: Like sampling I guess - gets presented differently - YOUR tune - but new effort - new creativity. You can't really sue someone for their creativity I guess.

Sampling should be a crime on it's own. They are really getting ridiculous lately. Hip hop (ptui)

Bob-Dubery

majestikc wrote: But you have to remember what Picasso said: "Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal"

You also have to remember what X-Rated Bob says: "Great artists do not necessarily make good moral models, and you should question whatever they say."

[deleted]

But you have to remember what Picasso said: "Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal"

Picasso is one of those very special people that I dislike more than others. He made a mockery of art and knew it and was laughing all the way to the bank and paved the way for other phonies to take the piss out of scociety.

A phony not only doesn't come up with his own ideas, but insults the listner or viewer by assuming they don't know better.

A musician has the ability to honour another musician's work by giving it carefull consideration and then understanding it's intention. That realy is an honour to give, but you have to be willing to be a pupil of that musician, not just take their stuff. Once you've followed in another artists footsteps and learned what there is to learn, your creative potential kicks in and you're up, up and away making your own music.

This sounds like a lecture, but I know no one here would plagiarise.

Byron

I think its flippen hard to create an original metal riff nowadays. Ive been wondering about this same issue but in terms of metal music.

[deleted]

Perhaps it's time to experiment outside the metal box. One reason I think there seems to be so much obscure "plagiary" going on is because the hyperthetical gene pool of popular music has become quite small.

majestikc

It's always easier to imitate rather than innovate, monkey see, monkey do.

To me, even playing like Blow Satriani or Steve Nai is kind of plagiarism, that's there "style". So technically John Pagoochi should be locked up for that.

Bob-Dubery

majestikc wrote: It's always easier to imitate rather than innovate, monkey see, monkey do.

To me, even playing like Blow Satriani or Steve Nai is kind of plagiarism, that's there "style". So technically John Pagoochi should be locked up for that.

There's degrees. There's paying homage, there's imitation, there's downright stealing.

Clapton, in his playing, has sometimes explicitly acknowledged and paid homage to some of the players that have influenced his own playing - examples I can think of are Robert Johnson and Albert King.