Blurred credit lines

I suppose that's going to have wiped the Happy off Pharrell Williams' face, as a US court rule he and Robin Thicke ripped off Marvin Gaye.

A jury decided that the music in rohyp-hop hit Blurred Lines was lifted from Gaye, and ordered a payment of nearly five million quid in damages to go to Gaye's estate.

Presumably, Gaye's family will spend most of this money on legal fees trying to get his name taken off the credits again.

Because that's not much of a victory, is it? Sure, you've got the proof that you were plagiarised, but now that crappy song is going to carry a credit that Marvin Gaye helped write it.

It's like you've broken into your the office your boss uses, and done a massive anonymous poo in the middle of their desk. But then discover that Molly from accounts is saying that she did it. You'd feel obligated to put everyone right, no matter how much you don't really want to be associated with the still-steaming turd. It might be an unpleasant pile of stinky old cack, but you'd be damned if someone else is going to pass it off as their work.

There's the potential for more problems for Thicke and Williams, as now the question of who wrote the music has been settled, they're at risk of being sued by the Friends Of Roman Polanski for lifting the lyrics from them.

Tom's not Petty over Sam Smith

Sam Smith's lets-call-it-an-unwitting-tribute to Tom Petty's I Won't Back Down, Stay With Me, has led to Petty making a generous statement on his website:

About the Sam Smith thing. Let me say I have never had any hard feelings toward Sam. All my years of songwriting have shown me these things can happen. Most times you catch it before it gets out the studio door but in this case it got by. Sam’s people were very understanding of our predicament and we easily came to an agreement. The word lawsuit was never even said and was never my intention. And no more was to be said about it. How it got out to the press is beyond Sam or myself. Sam did the right thing and I have thought no more about this. A musical accident no more no less. In these times we live in this is hardly news. I wish Sam all the best for his ongoing career. Peace and love to all.

The generosity of the statement almost certainly matched by the generosity of the private settlement.

But there's something ever so slightly tart about the phrase "Sam's people", gently conjuring the image of grown-ups in suits tidying up.

News site makes joke; composers call lawyers

Chilean news site Rata did a post suggesting that the Tame Impala song Feels Like We Can Only Go Backwards sounds like Pablo Ruiz's Oceano.

And it does a bit; just about enough to make it a good joke. Enough unalike to make it a good joke.

Rata are clear that they were only joking. Which would be funny, except Ruiz is now consulting lawyers.

Expensive gag.

Pete Townshend pats One Direction fans on the head

To save time with their new single, One Direction simply got some grown-ups to take an old Who song and pretended it was theirs.

When the world pointed out that Best Song Ever is pretty much just Baba O'Riley, One Direction fans reacted with the usual misplaced groupthink, and decided to launch a pre-emptive attack on The Who.

After every blue police phone box had been reduced to a smouldering wreckage, they suddenly realised The Who was a band, and so off they danced to Twitter to circle their wagons and wave their tiny little fists:

We crashed twitcam broke the record leaked a song are you really gonna mess with us?? #DontTouchBestSongEver http://t.co/mGDF0q2jG2

— PerezHiltonLife (@PerezHiltonLife) August 16, 2013

Not entirely clear how being able to "crash twitcam" is going to change the basics of copyright law but good luck with that. I'd love to see it in court:
"So, we have heard from the lawyers for The Who publishers, and their musical experts and precedent. What argument do you have for One Direction?"
"Well, your honour, I have only one very weak argument, but I shall call upon a couple of thousand teenagers to make the same weak argument over and over again in case that changes the facts."

Heartwarmingly, it even turned into a crossover between two sets of fandamentalists:

Into this teen-tinged tag-team Twitter takedown storm stepped Pete Townshend. His statement is masterful:

"No! I like the single. I like One Direction. The chords I used and the chords they used are the same three chords we've all been using in basic pop music since Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran and Chuck Berry made it clear that fancy chords don't mean great music – not always. I'm still writing songs that sound like Baba O'Riley – or I'm trying to!. It's a part of my life and a part of pop's lineage. One Direction are in my business, with a million fans, and I'm happy to think they may have been influenced a little bit by The Who. I'm just relieved they're all not wearing boiler suits and Doc Martens, or Union Jack jackets. The funniest thing is that in Canada this year I met with Randy Bachman once the leader of GUESS WHO who told me that he not only copied Baba O Riley for their hit You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet, but he even called his band after us. Why would I not be happy about this kind of tribute?"

Of course, bringing the Guess Who into the story will mean One Direction fans will be attacking Toys R Us to destroy that face guessing game, but there's always collateral damage.

You'll note that not only does Pete calm the fears that The Who are calling for the song to be banned, but he also does nothing that would prevent his publishers suing One Direction's publishers for a lovely large payday.

And that's the difference between experience and enthusiasm.

Neil McCormick files Observer piece for The Telegraph

Neil McCormick, friend of Bono, has given Telegraph readers a crash course in Kraftwerk.

Some readers got an uncanny sense of deja-vu. Didn't McCormick's piece, "Kraftwerk: the most influential group in pop history?" have more than a passing similarity to Jude Roger's "Why Kraftwerk are still the world's most influential band" that appeared a few days earlier in The Observer.

When challenged about this on Twitter by @theboylightning, McCormick invented a new irregular verb:

It's called sampling. It's the modern way. (I'll give you 2 sentences out of 1200 words on exactly the same story)

I sample, you lift, he/she plagiarises.

McCormick put his hands up to lifting a line from Rogers about a Melody Maker review. By this point, Jude had joined the conversation and pointed out that a big chunk of her research had turned up in his bit:

The huddling together of facts about Afrika Bambaataa, Uranium and The Model also rang a few bells. Ding dong.

McCormick claimed you can't write a Kraftwerk article without throwing those bits in. Which might be true, but it's the way they're folded in. Here's Jude in The Observer:

Afrika Bambaataa fused the melody of Trans-Europe Express and the rhythm of 1981's Numbers to create Planet Rock, one of hip-hop's pioneering tracks. Trailblazing electro group Cybotron used a loop from 1977's Hall of Mirrors; its founder, Juan Atkins, would create techno, and from there came modern dance culture.

Back in Britain, New Order would sample Uranium on Blue Monday, while synth-pop inspired by albums such as 1978's The Man-Machine would set the decade's pop mood. Kraftwerk would even get a No 1 single, The Model, in February 1982, four years after its first release. It was if the world was finally catching up with them.

And here's Neil's scamper through the history:

Afrika Bambaataa’s groundbreaking 1982 hip-hop dance smash Planet Rock was built around Kraftwerk’s Trans-Europe Express. The same year, Kraftwerk’s The Model hit No1 in Britain, four years after its first release. In 1983, New Order sampled Kraftwerk for their breakthrough dance rock hit Blue Monday. By the end of the Eighties, a whole new dance scene was emerging.

It could be coincidence, but it doesn't half read like a precis.

McCormick then offered an even more bizarre defence:

I figured, who actually reads both the Guardian & The Telegraph (apart from me obviously)

I'm sure Neil didn't mean to make that sound like "I didn't think I'd get caught", (and interesting that he doesn't appear to know what paper the article was originally in) but it does sound a bit like that. In much the same way his Telegraph piece sounds a bit like Jude Rogers in The Observer.

Talent borrows; genius steals; One Direction watch someone doing copy-paste

One Direction have 'fessed up that they've been attempting to rip off The Clash. I know, I know, it's like watching little kids dressing up as adults, but apparently Live While We're Young acknowledges a debt to Should I Stay Or Should I Go:

One Direction member Harry Styles, who seemingly admitted during an interview with BBC Newsbeat that the similarity between the two songs was intentional.

Speaking about the likeness between the tracks, he said: It was kind of on purpose though. It's a great riff, so…

Meanwhile, his bandmate Louis Tomlinson said that it was inevitable that songwriters would pen tracks which sounded similar to older efforts, claiming: "I assume it must be quite difficult to do a unique riff now because there have been so many songs - surely there's only so many riffs you can pull out?"

I love the trembling way that Tomlinson talks about songwriting - it's like when I find myself talking about football; I know the basic idea of what's going on but don't have very much direct experience. It's a case of gently easing yourself out of your field of expertise and hoping the structure doesn't collapse underneath you. "There's probably only a limited number of riffs... like, erm, four? more? four million? Some... some, anyway. And lyrics, right? They're saying we're running out of lyrics because Paul McCartney used up so many... I think..."

Kate Moss is not a great songwriter after all

Remember when Kate Moss was hanging out with Pete Doherty? Of course you do. What you might have forgotten was at the time Pete was more-or-less in a band called Babyshambles who put out an album. It's more than likely Pete doesn't remember. I suspect he doesn't remember very much about those days.

Kate Moss had a writer's credit on three of the tracks, including for Baddie's Boogie. Mysteriously, though, that credit has subsequently disappeared.

I say "mysteriously". There isn't actually a mystery; turned out a huge chunk of the lyric turns out to be virtually identical to a line from Nick Toczek's Stiff With A Quiff.

It's taken five years, but he's finally got a payment for the infringement from Doherty's team. Chrysalis Music describes this as being settled "amicably" - presumably it was so amicable they dragged it out for five years because they were just enjoying everyone's company so much.

[Thanks to Michael M]

Gordon in the morning: Coldplay under the influence

Coldplay held a press conference yesterday to launch their new album Fido Dido, and Gordon went along. That it was in Madrid might have added to the allure.

One of the big surprises was that Brian Eno tried hypnotising the band during the recording sessions:

Bass player Guy Berryman admitted yesterday that the band have reached a stage where they are open to outrageous ideas from the talented team around them to tap into new writing veins.

I'd have thought that was an admission they've more or less run out of steam, isn't it? "What can we do? How about if we dress up in wetsuits and stare at photos of kittens to see if that creates an idea?"

"Brian suggested we try playing together when we were hypnotised. One of his friends came down and we tried it out. Nothing came of it but at least we tried it."

I'm suprised none of the hypnosis tracks are on the record, because when I listen to it, I do find I feel sleepy, sleepy, very sleepy.

Meanwhile, Chris Martin was fuming at the idea that people think Coldplay little more than a reworking of other people's ideas:

He also hammered any suggestion that the band would ever copy other people's music.

He said: "It's fine not to like our band, but making up shit about us is not on. There's a difference between criticism and accusation. People who accuse us of stuff like that are *****, quite frankly."

I'm guessing that's going to be "cunts" - partly because it's clearly such a shocking word Gordon couldn't bring himself to even print the first letter, and partly because having been lazily homophobic and misusing disability language over the last couple of days, he's probably going for the clumsy sexist insult to get the treble.

Still, it's interesting that Chris gets so angry about people who accuse them of copying other bands. So much as to call them *****.

One of the biggest *****s would be, erm, Chris Martin who told Rolling Stone in 2005:

"We’re definitely good, but I don’t think you can say we’re that original,” he notes. “I regard us as being incredibly good plagiarists.”

He might also want to have a word with his bandmate Jonny Buckland, who admitted ripping off Kraftwerk:

"We've never so directly stolen off anyone before. We've never paid for our plagiarism."

What a *****.

Mind you, at the same time, Martin also chimed in with this:

"Fix You came directly from Elbow's Grace Under Pressure."

Hold up there, Chris: don't you know that there's a difference between admiration and plagiarism?

Run DMC picture gets Mr Brainwash in trouble

Mr Brainwash - Thierry Guetta - has been the lucky recipient of a lawsuit from Glen Friedman.

The LA Times reports:

He is accusing Guetta of improperly using [a] photograph of [Run DMC] in various works of art, some of which were featured in his 2008 exhibition titled "Life is Beautiful," which took place at an art space in L.A. In addition, the photographer alleges that Guetta profited from the artworks and that the image was distributed in acts of "widespread self-promotion" that involved posters and other advertising activity.

Mind you, Friedman doesn't actually own the faces of Run DMC, so it's not like he created everything in the photo in the first place.

Lady GaGa: Not actually saying it doesn't sound like Madonna

Lady GaGa seems a bit annoyed by everyone pointing out her new song Born Like Madonna is a bit like a Madonna song. She popped up on Leno to express herself:

She said, "There is really no one that is a more adoring and loving Madonna fan than me. I am the hugest fan personally and professionally.

"Well, the good news is that I got an email from her people and her, sending me their love and complete support on behalf of the single and if the queen says it shall be, then it shall be."

Naturally Madonna's business team will be wishing you success, GaGa, as it means the claim for damages down the line will be so much larger.

I'm a bit puzzled though. You love Madonna, Madonna wishes you luck... this doesn't actually say that you've not passed off an old Madonna song as your new one, does it? If I release a single called Bag Romance, would it be okay if I say I'm a professional fan?

Gordon in the morning: Vickers gets a smack

Even Gordon Smart can see that Diana Vickers has pretty much torpedoed any defence she might have had against claims she ripped off the Red Hot Chili Peppers:

The legal wrangle was pretty much inevitable.

Diana confessed in a recent interview she'd been listening to Under The Bridge the day before writing the chorus for her own song. She said "Sod it," when asked about the similarities.

She added: "Yeah, that happened without even knowing.

"We wrote the song in an hour. We had the song and it didn't have the My Wicked Heart bit in it and then we put the vocal in and we were like, 'Why does it sound so familiar?'

"Then we realised it was because we were listening to Under The Bridge the day before. We were saying, 'Should we change it? Should we not? What should we do? Sod it, no, we're just gonna keep it, it works'."

But this bit in Gordon's coverage just bemuses me:

Diana will be re-enacting her new video on tomorrow's X Factor, dressing as a circus ringmaster and a clown.

She might be feeling like that again when the lawyers' bills come in.

When the lawyers bills arrive, she'll feel like she's dressed as a ringmaster?

EMI suddenly decides 'stealing' isn't that bad

Here's a funny thing - Eddy Grant has accused Gorillaz of ripping off one of his tunes:

Grant says Gorillaz copied his 1977 song Time Warp on their new single.

"I am outraged that the Gorillaz have infringed the copyright of my song Time Warp, claiming their song Stylo to be an original composition," he said.

Breach of copyright, eh? Now, there's something the RIAA are always quick to have something to say about. You only have to try and remember what a song sounds like, and the BPI will hit you with a lawsuit for copying the music to your cerebal cortex without the correct licence. Clearly, Grant's publisher, EMI, will be fuming over one of its artists having his copyright abused, right?

[They] said it was "a private matter between Eddy Grant and Gorillaz".

Oh. Um... well, what about Gorillaz's publishers? They, surely, won't sit back and be accused of stealing copyright - that's like stealing hangbags, remember?

[They] said it was "a private matter between Eddy Grant and Gorillaz".

Oh, yes. It turns out that, at least, the publishing arm of EMI aren't actually that upset at the thought of copyright being abused at all. Indeed, it's nothing more than a "private matter". Perhaps they might like to have come to this conclusion before the BPI tried to write UK legislation in the Digital Economy Bill.

Hit with a writ better than none? Machine, Dance settle

After Gang Gang Dance asked Florence out of Florence Welch's Amazing Musical Machine how it was that Rabbit Heart sounded so much like their House Jam, the two parties have come to a legal settlement.

Liz Bougatsos sounds almost as if she doesn't quite believe Welch's claims that one song was a tribute to the other:

"If she [Welch] would have mentioned it in the beginning, in the press, which we never saw, that would have definitely made a difference," she told BBC 6 Music. "And if she was speaking of an homage at that point, that would have helped as well."

Still, everyone's happy now that royalties are being assigned and we've all suddenly remembered that, oh yes, it was a homage and not a lifting.

Men At Work weren't prepared for that

Bad news for Men At Work - an Australian court has just found them guilty of plagiarism.

And not just any old plagiarism. Oh, no - Men At Work have stolen from the Girl Guides:

The Australian band Men at Work are facing a big legal bill after a court ruled it had plagiarised a Girl Guides' song in its 1983 hit, Down Under.

Although, actually, the song doesn't belong to the Girl Guides at all; it's actually owned by Larrikin Music.

They're seeking between 40% and 60% of the earnings from the song.

The big question is why the company didn't come forward until over twenty years after the song was released. Perhaps its one of those where you go "this reminds me of something... ooh, what is it?" For a couple of decades.

The court decided that Down Under borrows a little too heavily from Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree.

Still, the sorry story does allow the BBC News website to explain the song as if it was part of the court report:

A number one in Australia, the US and the UK, the song tells the story of an Australian backpacker touring the world.

It pays tribute to "a land down under where beer does flow and men chunder".

The song also refers to the popular Australian food spread Vegemite.

"I said 'Do you speak my language?', he just smiled and gave me a Vegemite sandwich," says an Australian traveller in Brussels.

Now, in other news, upset following a cake being left out in the rain by persons unknown. The cake's owner is said to be struggling to come to terms with the event, a situation worsened as she is unlikely to have the recipe again.

Coldplay settle

The lawsuit which saw Joe Satriani claim to have written one of Coldplay's songs has ended. It looks like a deal has been done which leaves Coldplay admitting doing nothing wrong, but Satriani satisfied with the outcome. It's all a secret, though. So say nothing, right?

The occupied Empire

It's lovely to see Sneaky Sound System's Donnie Sloan get credits on the Empire Of The Sun stuff.

It's just a pity it appears to have taken the threat of lawyers for his involvement to be acknowledged:

Sloan, based in London, used a UK legal team to get writer, performer and producer credits. He says: "It did not quite get to the legal stage.

"But I had to threaten it in order for them to recognise my contribution. It has been a bittersweet experience. But I have worked hard to move on."

It turns out that Sloan hadn't actually been expecting EOTS to be using his music in the first place:

Sloan claims he gave the tracks to Nick Littlemore, of electro-pop duo Pnau, for remix consideration.

"I told Nick I didn't want him to use the tracks. I was hoping to save them for my own project," Sloan says.

Two years later, Littlemore formed EOTS with Luke Steele and Sloan's songs resurfaced.

Sloan said Steele, Littlemore, and his Pnau partner, producer Peter Mayes, planned to use the tracks for EOTS.

It's all a bit disappointing. Even the supposedly happy ending doesn't sound that happy, does it?

Gordon in the morning: What happens when everyone's off at Rebekah Wade's wedding

Keith Richards signs autographs for gondoliers. Not much of a story. Can you dress it up with a clever headline?

Just one cornet-Stone, Keef it to me

No. It turns out, no.

Don't even try and parse the headline. It only seems more painful the more you think about it.

If running the weak 'Ronaldo and Paris Hilton' story was a way of trying to atone for the awful 'camp' error of last week, it looks like The Sun still has some making up to do:

CRISTIANO RONALDO enjoyed a weekend on the lash in Las Vegas with a bevy of beauties.

The footballer sipped cocktails at the gambling mecca's top nightclubs - and had his pick of the mini-skirted babes.

Again, this piece by Pete Samson still neglects to include Gordon's tent-o-meter device.

While suing for peace with Ronaldo, Gordon claims to be bringing peace in the disagreement between Yusuf Islam and Coldplay:

YUSAF ISLAM, formerly known as CAT STEVENS, has asked Bizarre to help him make peace with the band over his claims that they ripped off his epic 1970s track Foreigner Suite.

He's asked Bizarre to do that, has he?

He said: “I want them to know that I don’t have any ill will towards them.

“I stand by what I said. They did copy my song but I don’t think they did it on purpose.

“I can understand why they got so upset because they probably don’t even realise they have done it. It happens all the time.
Slapping

“I have even copied myself without knowing I have done it.

“I’ll write down what I think is a new melody and then listen back to it and realise it’s the same as something I have already done.

“It’s just one of those things and I don’t want them to think I’m angry with them.”

He added: “I’d love to sit down and have a cup of tea with them and let them know it’s ok."

Oddly, the paragraph where Islam grips Smart's arm and begs for assistance seems to have not made the final cut of the piece.

Chris Martin and the law of unintended consequences

Oh, shit. All those complaints suggesting Coldplay ripped off Joey Satriani, Yusuf Islam, Mr Blobby and all are coming back to bite us in the ass. They're making them make more musics:

Yeah, some people are suing us at the moment and although it was initially a bit depressing, now it’s become really inspiring,” Martin said. “You think, ‘Right, if everyone’s trying to take away our best song, then we’d better write 25 better ones.’ And so just at the point where I was thinking about getting fat and becoming complacent, I’ve been finding more inspiration. Now we’ve got more to prove than ever before.”

Admittedly, writing songs better than the ones that Coldplay have already done isn't setting the bar for achievement all that high, but do we really need 25 new Coldplay songs? What have we done to deserve that?

Still, Martin is busily now working on writing some new songs. His first move has been to try and work out how Ride did that bell sound on Dreams Burn Down.

Champion denies plagiarism

With actual lawsuits pouring in now, Coldplay are backpedaling furiously from Chris Martin's original claims about being good at plagiarism. Latest part of the new stragegy is Will Champion telling Hampton Roads that they absolutely didn't steal Viva La Vida:

I don't know...in general, we're very...It's tough when people accuse you of stealing something when you know that you didn't. So, we accept that it's part of the territory and know it is only for some reason, God only knows why, the successful songs that seem to be the ones that are accused of being stolen. So you go figure it out.

Songs that people don't get to hear are seldom the focus of plagiarism cases? Songs where nobody is making money off the disputed version aren't worth the legal fees? Gosh, yes, Will, that is strange, isn't it?

To be fair, he has a point - it's hard to write a song that doesn't sound like something you've heard before. Especially when you're Coldplay, and all your songs sound like they've been around for a decade and half:

Yeah I mean I think if everyone...there are elements of our music that I've heard in other people's music but it's kind of...I don't know. It's interesting but a very difficult thing to define. How can you...there are only eight notes in an octave and no one owns them. And there are probably about 12,000 songs that feature the exact same chord progression. I think it lies on an intent to steal, which we certainly have never done and never would. So it's unfortunate but it's the way people are. That's that. We're confident we haven't done anything wrong.

Following those remarks, the writers of 12,000 songs announced plans to instruct solicitors.

Gordon in the morning has broken

Today, Gordon has news that Yusuf Islam has suggested that Coldplay have lifted the song they supposedly pinched from Joey Satriani:

Yusuf explained: “There’s been this argument about Coldplay stealing this melody from JOE SATRIANI, but, if you listen to it, it’s mine! It’s the Foreigner Suite, it is!”

Gordon, shocked that anyone might think Martin more than a talented hack, offers up an explanation:

Unconsciously stealing musical ideas has a name. My experts say it’s a condition called cryptomnesia.

Your experts? What experts would those be, Gordon? Your forensic psychologists department, or Wikipedia.

Still, good work on finding a defence. Even if...

I bet Chris regrets what he said to Rolling Stone mag in 2005: “We’re good, but I don’t think we’re that original. I regard us as being incredibly good plagiarists.

... you then destroy it.