lindsmuse wrote
John Lennon said that he didn't think that George Harrison had deliberately plagiarised the The Chiffons, but that once the song was finished he should have realised what had happened.
What song was that? The Chiffons?
The Chiffons had a hit in the early 60s (IIRC) with "He's So Fine". The song is strikingly similar to Harrison's later "My Sweet Lord". There was a court case and it was ruled that Harrison had plagiarised the earlier song and he had to pay substantial compensation.
Its tricky this thing about using other people's music ... Perhaps if Men at Work had not used those few notes - this song would not have existed - and its a good song (for what it is) Its unforgettable ...Surely there's an argument to be made for music that "takes a sad song, and make it better' . If it becomes iconic and part of a culture then the guys must pay of course - but there shouldn't be a thing where its viewed as theft and something negative.
I think it's not always deliberate. There was never anything to suggest that Harrison had deliberately plagiarised "He's So Fine", but as John Lennon pointed out the songs were so similar that Harrison should have seen what had happened and done something about it. It's not necessarily theft, not necessarily deliberate, but it is still plagiarism. I again refer to some comments by Richard Thompson that I posted here recently: He said that some artists he knows NEVER listen to demo tapes that are sent to them for fear of later plagiarising some unknown artist's work, whilst he knows others that listen to demo tapes so that they can look for ideas to pinch.
There are cases where it seems likely that, as Led Zeppelin did on several occasions, you know what you've done but you keep your head down and hope that noboby notices. In the round I'd rather that the element of theft is kept out of things and less there's good grounds for asserting that it was deliberate theft.
I mean in the art world we steal with our eyes THE WHOLE TIME. A combination of other peoples works and ideas melt together in your head - you put it thro your personal knowledge machine and try pop something out. If someone does something better with your creation then thats it -tough.
This is more of a synthesis than a plagiarism. Things melting together to make something good. But our national anthem was definitely clear cut theft and I would be VERY annoyed if I were Spiderman.
I don't think you'd be regarded as anything but a thief in the world of art if you deliberately tried to pass off somebody else's work as your own. I'm sure that artists are looking at each other's work all the time and trying to understand what the other guy is doing and how he did it. This goes on in music too - Jeff Beck has said that he thinks Jimmy Page stole his big idea, the idea that manifested itself as Led Zeppelin. Keith Richards went on the record about copying Ry Cooder's tunings and licks. These are not plagiarism in as much as an another composition being copied. Influence and embracing trends is one thing - copying a specific item of work is quite another.
It is virtually impossible these days for an artist to NOT have influences and for those influences to show.
