The creators of South Park had foreseen this...

Someone tell the Gaye family to use the Chewbacca Defense...

Man that's messed up...

Hi,
 
I think that we're going to see more and more of this, as a way for the "music business" to intimidate new musicians and steal the gold that they feel they should be getting.
 
I'm all for everyone's cup of java and sugar and all that ... but somewhere along the way, there is some serious lack of talent, that is simply re-hasing the same thing over and over again, and the things that you liked, and appreciated, WILL filter in many of the things you do, and eventually you will lose because of it.
 
This is why it is so important to get tuned in, and stop doing what everyone else is doing ... you have to look inside and develop/touch your inner music, and no one ... NO ONE ... will ever confuse you with anyone else.
 
If you need a lesson, you really need to go spend some time listening to Peter Hammill's 30 solo albums, or Roy Harper's 25 solo albums!
 
You can not say, that there is no creativity and that nothing new can be done! But you continue to do what has been done before ... I wanna do metal ... I wanna do bah bah ... I wanna do blues ... and in the end, all you are saying is ... I don't have the ability or talent to say what I want to say and do!
 
And you know what? ... you do! But you don't believe in it!

I feel lucky.
 
I live in a small town that embraces the idea of passing along the concept of culture to it's youth.
 
I have become very accustomed to learning from the younger generation of artists because, on the whole, we enjoy a culture that encourages our youth to leave us behind as they blossom and evolve.
 
best regards,
mike
 
 

My first reaction was WhoTF is Robin Thicke, and what a greedy ashole he must be!
 
Come to find out he's really not the villain in this story. Rather, it's Marvin Gaye's descendants who feel they have a right to a perpetual income from their forebear's labors and have been demanding payment. The purpose of RT's suit is to get a judge to declare that the two songs are not the same, thereby preempting any potential legal action by the Gaye family.
 
I downloaded the show and listened to snippits of the songs in question. There's no doubt that RT owes a debt of gratitude to Marvin Gaye - along with Smokey Robinson, Jackie Wilson, Berry Gordy, James Jamerson and the rest of the Funk Brothers. Don't we all?
 

LMAO
 
Best craigb post EVAH!!!

never heard of robin thicke before this..
 
 
not impressed at all.
 
seems to be looking for some (not so free) press
 
 

This just in:
 
The writer and producer of "Lars and The Real Girl" are not suing Lars Ulrich, Metallica or any Real Girls (who may or may not have gone wild) as they just realized that almost no one saw the movie or will care.
 

bitflipper
My first reaction was WhoTF is Robin Thicke, and what a greedy ashole he must be!
 
Come to find out he's really not the villain in this story. Rather, it's Marvin Gaye's descendants who feel they have a right to a perpetual income from their forebear's labors and have been demanding payment. The purpose of RT's suit is to get a judge to declare that the two songs are not the same, thereby preempting any potential legal action by the Gaye family.
 
I downloaded the show and listened to snippits of the songs in question. There's no doubt that RT owes a debt of gratitude to Marvin Gaye - along with Smokey Robinson, Jackie Wilson, Berry Gordy, James Jamerson and the rest of the Funk Brothers. Don't we all?
 

There is probably more to this strategy than meets the eye, and it probably has to do with the exorbitant cost of legal action. The Gaye heirs begin by warning Thicke that he has infringed their intellectual property. It does not cost much money to write a letter, and if Thicke offers a reasonably inexpensive settlement, they can sign off on what may or may not be provable true infringement and get some real money for a small investment. But if Gaye family decide to go to court, it may well cost them more than they can afford, or at least more than they can justify investing on an uncertain outcome. The legal costs of just the discovery process can break most people, and unless the case is a slam dunk, finding an attorney to take the case (let alone front expert witness fees etc.) on a contingency fee is a long shot.
 
But if you have an active career, a hot selling hit and a record company legal department behind you, legal costs may not matter all that much. Once you have filed in court, the other party has to come up with some real money in order to keep from being run over. Presumably you cannot add claims of malicious prosecution or abuse of process against the other party if you initiate the suit, but there may be some theory under which you can make their initial claim to rights actionable. In any case, you have forced them to spend more than they can afford, and can offer to let them to withdraw, settle on your terms, or forfeit; in effect either proving or forcing them to admit that your work is original. The public relations value of that outcome is probably worth the risk and the money, and it will go a long way toward making your fan base see the work as a tribute rather than a rip-off.
 
In theory legal cases are decided on the merits, but, in reality, it is very often the guy with the most money going into the fight who comes out ahead. So the story does not really have a hero. Is the bad guy the family who are trying to extort payment via frivolous threats of legal action, or the legal colossus that can grind them under foot without breaking a sweat? In this case there may well be a more even match, but if it were an unknown composer trying to assert this claim, the advantage is clearly not with him. An aggressive legal stance on the part of the well-heeled alleged infringer may well be the wave of the future.
 
 

This just in:
 
Capitalizing on the latest trend, Legal Systems in various countries are now suing themselves for copyright infringement.  The complaints state that current legal arguments imitate the style and form of previous arguments.  In addition, these arguments blatantly reuse previous arguments.  Physicists were caught by surprise.  Verner Von Veldmud, a noted physicist, said, "We've been looking for this breakthrough for centuries.  We never thought that perpetual motion would be discovered by lawyers!  You know, instead of colliding sub-atomic particles at CERN, perhaps we should have smashed lawyers!"  There was an awkward silence as a group of lab coat wearing scientists gave each other meaningful looks.  Suddenly, they ran back inside their bunker.
 
We'll continue to follow this story as it develops.

Every now and then even the best artists produce a pile of bollox,  even I in the past have penned more than 1 "masterpiece" that luckily never saw the light of day.
 
In fact,  most successful artists will have a virtual cutting room floor of all the ideas that should never have been dragged kicking and screaming into our universe.  And these piles of dross will continue to be created and discarded by the rich and famous.
 
 
Thus I intend filing a suit against a certain Mr. P. McCartney.  ref: one of the many failures I have written in the past V's 'Un-specified, as yet to be written and discarded idea' by the said Mr. McCartney.
He's rich, he writes all the time, there is a chance (however small) that one of his worst ideas may sound something similar (to a blind horse) to one of my past failures.
 
Just PAY UP NOW Mr. McCartney.    Stop living off the backs of all us failed musicians and GIVE ME THE MONEY.  You know it's best for both of us.

soens
Next apples will be suing oranges cauz they're a fruit.

Watermelons will be suing for slander because they are not called berrys and blackberries will sue because they are called berries. A watermeon is a berry and a blackberry is a multi podded fruit. It is Fruitist I tells ya. Fruitism is getting to be a real problem.
 

jbow
... I mean how many different ways can you play three chords? People need to lighten up. If the words are different and the music isn't sampled, it is a different song. I'm not saying that anyone should get away with producing a song named Today to the tune of Yesterday...  
J

Well...  you can't copyright 3 chords, or any backing, or rythm.
You can copyright the words and the melody.
 
So you can record your own version of "Yesterday" complete with guitar and strings sounding exactly the same as the orriginal, just as long as you change the words and the melody.  You could even call it "Yesterday" as the title can't be copyrighted either..

After Creedence Clearwater Revival broke up, wasn't john Fogerty sued by their record company because his first solo release sounded like CCR?