jbow
Also, has everyone forgotted Led Zeppelin... they flat out stole a lot of stuff and I don't remember any lawsuits or even any bad publicity.
 

Funny you mention Zeppelin because this case reminded me of a story about them, which, in turns, made me consider this story in a different light. 
 
When Led Zeppelin wrote and recorded Boogie with Stu (Physical Graffiti), a song that was heavily inspired by Ritchie Valens Oh My Head, they gave Valens' mom 1/6th of the credits. 
 
According to Page: "What we tried to do was give Ritchie's mother credit, because we heard she never received any royalties from any of her son's hits, and Robert did lean on that lyric a bit. So what happens? They tried to sue us for all of the song!"
 
I still think that this was the correct thing to do - and that in an ideal world, they should have given credits every time they "borrowed" stuff.
 
I'm glad that Zeppelin borrowed from Valens (and imho, improved on his ideas) if that lead them to record that one track. I've always dug Boogie w/ Stu. OTOH, I don't really care much for Oh My Head. As a matter of fact, if you ask me, they've improved on pretty much everything they ever borrowed and integrated it into something much more substantial. 
 
It's pretty easy to start working on a song and realize halfway in that it sounds a bit like something else. And the more music you know, the more frequently you can make this type of observation. And then you'll have a friend listen to it and they'll pick up on an entirely different facet of it and tell you that your song reminds them of another song, which you hadn't really thought of. To an extent, everything sounds like something else - it's just a matter of finding what... But when it's that obvious, credit should be given.
 
I also know from experience that you can write a song that is surprisingly similar to something else w/o actually knowing that other song.
 
From there on it's a matter of personal ethics, whether you think that the song should be finished and published. Reading the biographies of a few prolific songwriters, I'd say that if artists refrained from publishing their songs when they're inspired by something else, a lot of our favorite songs wouldn't exist. It's actually surprising to find out how often hose songs were created by trying to emulate a very specific song by another artist.
 
Personally, if I realize that something I write sounds a bit like something else (which happens all the time) I ask myself if it has a redeeming factor. If the familiar part becomes a pretext for my own creativity, it can work out. If I realize that I'm just re-arranging other folks ideas, I trash it. Obviously, that's all very subjective.