Posted by admin on 21 Feb 2011 | Tagged as: news, plagiarism
Let’s be clear: I think the answer is no, for a number of reasons. The web is alive with claims about Britney Spears “ripping off” song lyrics for her latest release, “Hold it Against Me”. The writers of “If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body Would You Hold It Against Me” by the Bellamy [...]
Posted by admin on 08 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: news, plagiarism
Amazon.com WidgetsOne of popular music’s most remarkable songs, “Dans le port d’Amsterdam” made famous by Jacques Brel, has now been linked to an old Irish song called “Since Greybeards Inform Us That Youth Will Decay” by T. Toms. In 1814-16, Beethoven (no less) was asked to transcribe 20 Irish songs (lieders) for the Scottish publisher [...]
Posted by admin on 05 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: news, plagiarism
The unpredictable nature of plagiarism cases was proved again when it was ruled that Men at Work would have to pay out between 40-60% of earnings from their anthemic comedy song, “Down Under”. The case was brought by the music company Larrikin, which bought the rights to the Australian scout song “Kookaburra Sits in the [...]
Posted by admin on 29 Jan 2010 | Tagged as: plagiarism, politics
Yep, they’ve done it again. Every publishing contract that I have ever signed obliges the publisher to request my permission if the song is to be used in a political campaign. Yet very often, politicians skip over that detail and decide to use music they like or think appropriate. In a recent spat between The [...]
Posted by admin on 16 Jan 2008 | Tagged as: news, plagiarism
I mentioned some time back that Avril Lavigne’s “I Wanna be Your Girlfriend” was the subject of a lawsuit by eighties band The Rubinoos who felt it was too close to a song of theirs with almost the exact same chorus, “I Wanna be Your Boyfriend”. At the time, people were claiming she “ripped them [...]
Posted by admin on 10 Jul 2007 | Tagged as: news, plagiarism
You might have heard that Avril Lavigne and co-writer Luke Gottwald are being sued by Tommy Dunbar of The Rubinoos over her latest hit “Girlfriend”. The case hangs on the chorus and all I can say is, “Ouch”. That is some similarity. Lavigne is claiming that she has “never ripped anyone off”. Is this possible? [...]
Posted by admin on 18 Nov 2005 | Tagged as: plagiarism
It has just been announced that the Belgian composer Salvatore Acquaviva has won a long-standing fight claiming that Madonna’s 1998 hit "Frozen" from the "Ray of Light" album plagiarised one of his songs. The court in the Belgian town of Mons has ordered that the record company remove all copies of the song within 15 [...]