About the copy-paste culture in pop music today and copyright stuff
Published June 9th 2016
Is pop music getting too restricting?
I know a lot of people look at creative professions, with some skepticism. How can you count on creativity, right? We’ve all heard of writers who get a writer’s block or performers developing stage fright.
To Some People Creativity Is A Fluke
When I tell people I write songs, and song lyrics in particular, they are quick to point out copyright lawsuits. “How could someone come up with something new, when so many songs have already been written?”
Ed Sheeran “Photograph”
Ed Sheeran is the latest artist to get slapped with a massive lawsuit. A whopping $20 million is demanded from him, because 39 notes in “Photograph” are identical to the song “Amazing”, written by songwriters Martin Harrington and Thomas Leonard, released by X Factor star Matt Cardle. The whole chorus sounds very familiar indeed.
Justin Bieber “Sorry”
Skrillex posted a video showing how the pitched vocal on Justin Bieber’s “Sorry” was created, just to prove it comes from an original recording and he created the effect in the first place. All because an independent artist, White Hinterland (aka Casey Dienel), had filed a suit against him and Justin Bieber for stealing her idea. One she’ll probably get a royal out-of-court settlement for, according to music lawyers.
Robin Thicke “Blurred Lines”
With the Blurred Lines lawsuit, the music business was really worried it would cripple the creativity of songwriters. It challenged to which extend a songwriter is allowed to get ‘inspired’ by a song from another artist.
Where Do You Get Your Inspiration From?
It has laid bare the fact that we do turn to other music and songs looking for ideas, sounds and inspiration.
It’s also laid bare the fact that more writers and producers are copying these ideas and sounds, making very little changes.
And more importantly, it’s laid bare the fact that pop music, nowadays, is restricting itself, causing all creatives to maneuver within the same chords and notes.
Radio Formats
You could blame radio formats for this.
Radio formats describe which content (in this case music) is played on a radio station. It’s a great way to attract a certain group of people, and therefore attract a certain type of advertiser, but in order to get played, every artist is looking to get the sound of their desired radio format.
With everybody looking for the sound of the greatest hits, it contributes to create an environment, where copying gets tempting.
The Music Business
You could blame the current state of the music business.
All the changes and instability have led to a higher pace of music production. Music pays out less now, so more music has to be made to make the same money music has made in the past. We also live in a fast paced world.
A single doesn’t last a minimum of three months anymore and new music is required more frequently. Cutting corners leads to more productivity, so that, too, becomes tempting to keep the hit factory going.
Why Copy Though?
There are roughly over 2300 guitar chords and 8400 for piano. And there are millions of people worldwide looking for a new sound. Knowing that, there’s not really an excuse not to be original, right? So, why are we so stuck in a (musical) pattern?
Scientific studies have shown, last year, that today’s pop music is restricting itself by using only 4 chords, while just a few decades ago, pop music used 7 chords – taking much more inspiration from jazz and blues.
Taking that into account, yes, it’s hard to come up with something new.
Something Borrowed, Something New?
However, what if you’re creating something new from something old?
De La Soul once said they were responsible for a whole new legal category, when they started using samples in their music – and got in trouble for it. No rapper had been so successful with samples songs before them.
In sampling, it turns out, that artistic freedom could be a legitimate legal argument to justify the copying, or even reusing other people’s music.
While back in 2008, Kraftwerk managed to get the judge on their side, when saying that even the tiniest amount of notes copied from existing work, is copyright infringement. But this year, they lost a case based on the same thought.
The supreme court in their case against an artist, who sampled their music, thought the “artistic freedom” from the other artist weight in heavier than the impact of the copyright infringement Kraftwerk suffered.
The court went on the disagree that permission to use the sample, upfront, had to be asked, and even stated that removing the sample from the song would take away it’s character. Ouch.
Many musicians in Germany have interpreted this as “it’s ok to create something completely new using a sample, as long as nothing of the original character of the sampled song remains”.
The case is now back at a federal court to make a final decision about it, but this could very well impact things, if they also choose to adapt this theory.
New Copyright Rules
Over the whole of Europe, the discussion about new copyright rules has been ongoing for many years and it’s taking place on all levels of copyright laws, from the users to the creators of art.
All sides are clearly showing signs of a longing for change. For instance to allow more freedom to share. But that change should, logically, require some sort of phase out of the rules in place, while transitioning into the new situation – whatever that may be. It means a lot of people would get hurt in the process. Hurt in their livelihood; financially.
Back in the day, a songwriter who’s built up a catalog of copyrighted work, during a lifetime career, would get to a point – usually around retirement – that the copyright laws work in their favor.
That catalog, combined with the current copyright laws – in the circumstances we’ve not seen in music for a while though – should generate money for them, without them working for it. In most cases, this is the legacy, most artists work a lifetime for, so I’m not talking about the biggest artists on the planet, but the average struggling musician. This has always been their pension plan.
This makes it a tough discussion, because at the other end are writers like me, struggling in a time where music has lost the value it once had (not counting the emotional value).
Safe Harbour
It is interesting to see that music has been devalued for musicians, but music as content does hold a lot of value to other parties.
The Safe Harbour rule, for instance, is a rule that has protected many online sharing platforms from paying out to PROs (Publishing Rights Organizations). This means socalled “user generated content”-platforms, like YouTube and SoundCloud, don’t have to pay out to the owner of copyrights. The platforms could simply claim that the content is not really theirs. But they do attract advertisers or other ways of revenue based on the content uploaded.
Luckily, most of these platforms have wised up over the years and struck some sort of deal with PROs, but there are some still using this rule to avoid this payout and support the artist.
The Safe Harbour rule was initially put in place to protect ISPs from being held responsible for copyrighted content their users were uploading to their servers, but it’s definitely benefited other types of platforms as well, which has been unfair to artists.
Fair Use?
The Fair Use Policy that was introduced by Internet companies for their services in the 90s, has also managed to get some distortion on the line within entertainment laws. So has the idea that anything on the Internet is free of laws and public property, which was definitely the thought when Internet became popular.
In copyright, there is no fair use policy. There is no tolerance to use 30 seconds of a song without it being a copyright breach, which is why the Kraftwerk case in Germany is so interesting. It challenges this under certain conditions.
But in copyright laws, your cover, your parody, you using a song as background music to your kids birthday party video on YouTube, is not allowed without permission and without compensation for the writer(s) and copyright owners. The reason why it’s (somewhat) possible to upload cover videos, parody tracks etc, is because everyone recognizes something needs to change.
