dubdisciple
I agree that pop music is simple, but should we be rewarding people for pretty much doing the same thing?  The fact that it is such a simple musical phrase means petty himself gave into the urge to use simple pop cliches too. If anything, one should hold the rights to things so unique that odds of someone making something similar are astronimical. The purpose of intellectual property rights are to protect the unique and not necessarily to give ownership to basic things based on who's lawyer figured a way to own it first. 

I get that, and I'm actually ambivalent about the situation. It's all pretty arbitrary. But if Petty makes the claim and gets away with it, even if it's just based on the fact that he used that simple motif before, that's that. 

Some people might have gotten away with murder in the past but not so much nowadays. And that's just how it is.  

For what it's worth, I do find them strikingly similar and I have a tough time believing that no one in the entire process of writing, recording, mixing, mastering and promoting saw the resemblance.
 
I admit that the fact that they stuck to those 3 chords for the entire song and built the whole thing on it doesn't make me too favorable to them. At that point, why not just record a cover of the original and re-arrange it however you want?
 
Are they really so stuck on being credited for writing it? Is it that important that we acknowledge them as original songwriters? At that rate, at least Petty at least included a few variations to that theme...
 
Monetary consideration aside, there's a lot to be said about artists working "on a theme by"... 
 
 
 
 
 

It's not only possible it's quite likely to find millenials who wouldn't know Tom Petty from adam's off ox. And quite likely that the similarity was unintentional. The verses of the Smith song are nothing at all like Pettys. Tom has a much stronger leg to stand on with the Chili Pepper rip.

I think problem with comparing it to something like murder is that we are comparing a contrived crime with one that is universally seen as wrong  ( even if we make exceptions). Murder has always been seen as wrong. The idea that one can not only own lyrics  and melody  but anything re,otely similar is fairly new.  Cocepts of how far copyright can has drastically changed. If you have access to any old documentaries that have not been re-edited to fit modern litigation standards, it was very common to hear whatever sounds and see whatever images were present. Now if you interview someone, you had better turn that tv or radio off. We talk about such things today as if it is a given, but no one would have thought twice of the radio being on in the background and accused someone of copyright infringement. I guess my fear is the slippery slope reasoning that ends up targeting  those who simply are not creative  or advanced enough to make a tune that has zero elements of anything ever made. Are beginners not allowed to perform in public until they are capable of a 100% original song? Should a well meaning but limited musically teen be treated the same way as a blatant thief? I think not. I know it may seem like exaggeration, but legal precedent has an ugly habit of creating lots of unintended victims and the genie rarely goes back into the bottle.  I woukd have never imagined as a child that 8 and 9 year olds would be recieving cease and desist letters from the likes of George Lucas and JK Rowling due to user created fan pages, but these things happen often as lawyers have expanded the bounds of protection by taking advantage of shifts in laws aimed at actual thieves.

I spoke of getting away with murder because it's also a figure of speech, though technically, it's also true that science has made it less and less possible in a more literal sense.
 
I think that there are indeed some incredibly wicked things when it comes to copyright laws - lawyers being what they are. I do recognize that this part of the problem is anything but perfect.
 
But I think that the tendency to lower the bar is a much greater plague, still.
 
Why, for example, should a group of teenager expect to become star musicians and be regarded as songwriters without first learning the basics and earning those titles? Why do we value ignorance and lack of skills so much that they become a right and a stepping stone in the quest for notoriety instead of a potential and something which should be worked upon, with time and humility, out of the spotlight? Why does every one has to be a star, right away?
 
No one can forbid someone to write a song very similar to another. But once you throw it out there and claim it as yours and try to build a name and a credibility on it, you expose yourself, and take whichever responsibility comes with it. But we only ever hear of rights.
 
I mean, the guy will not be thrown in jail, or be put in a concentration camp - he still gets to sing whatever he wants, and earn a living and all. But he was asked to give credit, and he did amicably have I read.
 
Obviously, that's jut an opinion. It may seem harsh, but I obey the exact same of rules when it comes to creating. If I think I'm quoting or borrowing from someone, either I'll drop it altogether or acknowledge it or keep it to myself. The right to write a song that sounds like another is inalienable. What you do with it is subject to debate.

yorolpal
It's not only possible it's quite likely to find millenials who wouldn't know Tom Petty from adam's off ox. 

Well, they've just learned. And there's nothing wrong with a little history lesson in my book - I don't see ignorance as something which should be safeguarded. All the opposite.
 
The legal aspect of it is an entirely different story.

musicman100
Ill do you one better, last night on Austin City Limits I heard a singer by the name of Bryan Adams
I first thought Tom Petty  and his band were  hiding behind the stage playing and singing.
this guys vocals AND music(chords, structure, tonality) are a direct ripoff of Tom Petty

Or some of Tom's is copped from him (his first album came out in 1980).

Why Sublime never got sued for What I got is strange to me. 
 
I don't about Music but for books I think it's 75 years and then copyright expires. Of course, record labels hold the rights for many classic 60s songs and thats why you have guys like lynne rerecording Mr Blue Sky and trying to hawk the new version.
 
A big team was generally behind each of those old bands. They weren't that great or anything but they had big studio expertise for production and marketing and songwriting help at their disposal. Look what they do when that support is pulled- they just dry up.
 
 

No one is talking about safeguarding ignorance...certainly not me. But, again, there are twelve tones with which to work and countless...literally...compositions to compare one's arrangement of said tones to. It is a statistical improbability of the highest order to not have scads of near and/or exact repetitions of melody in what is loosely termed, modern music. Especially given the rules governing non-dissonant melodic and harmonic content. And these facts should, at the very least, be taken into account when adjudicating these cases. It is not hyperbolic to say that almost any modern melody, when reduced to a finite set of notes, can be found to be a replicant of many, many previous works by many and varied artists stretching back as far as history allows.

This is...and always will be...more an issue of monetary remuneration...than artistic sovereignty.

I was not advocating for ignorqnce but for rationality. To say mqke it some kind of requirement that kids be familiar with Tom Petty or any indivindividual artist's music on the off chance they, as beginners, might stumble across a similar simple phrase is absurd. The fact that the wongs used the same simple structure speaks more to the fact that with twelve notes the law of averages dictates repition more than Petty's genius. I doubt the writers of the song in question are tryi my to pass themselves as brilliant songwriters but rather as people  who understand the simple formula it takes to sell records. Whether anyone "deserves" a hit is highly subjective. Complexity does not autonatically mean better or even brilliant. If someone can take the exact same phrase and make a song that reaches a much wider audience than Petty ever did, it certainly had nothing to do with his variation of it. It is said that almost every major movie is a variation of a Shakespeare plot. Some are simply better embraced. You are right that nobody is going to jail and it is probably  easier and cheaper to settle than have a prolonged court battle.

FWIW, and I felt I needed to mention that I genuinely appreciate the fact that you guys keep the conversation on a very civilized level. Sometimes I'm afraid my wording sounds harsher than I'd really like and I don't necessarily manage to put every nuance across the way I should. 
 
So, thank you folks for being such gentlemen. :)
 
Now back to our regular program...