I remember a few years ago finishing up a new song and feeling
\nquite proud of myself for writing something very different than
\nmy usual fare, only a day or two later to discover that I had
\ncompletely ripped off a melody and chord progression of a song I
\nhad been listening to previously. It was disheartening and
\nfrustrating, but of course I had to ditch the song! Plagiarism
\nseems to be a great fear in most of us…not just copying someone
\nelse’s song, but having our own song plagiarized.<\/p>\n
I wonder how many times this honestly happens, not just to those
\nof us who are relatively anonymous, but also to big name
\nsongwriters? And when it happens and they realize it, do they do
\nthe same thing and just ditch the song? You would hope so! Then
\nagain, what if they don’t realize that a song they’ve written has
\n“been done” before but the song has already had a major release?<\/p>\n
This is what happened when The Rolling Stones were about to
\nrelease the CD Bridges to Babylon in 1997 with a song called
\n“Anybody Seen My Baby” that had a very similar hook to KD Lang’s
\nsong “Constant Craving”, released in 1992. Instead of waiting
\nfor a lawsuit, however, clever Mick simply offered Lang writing
\ncredits and shared profits from the song.<\/p>\n
I am guessing that this is also what happened to Coldplay’s lead
\nsinger and songwriter Chris Martin when he wrote Viva La Vida.
\nAs it turns out, the melody and chord progression in parts of the
\nsong are strikingly similar to another song released in 2005 by
\nJoe Satriani called “If I Could Fly”. But Satriani believes that
\nMartin knowingly stole his melody and progression and so he is
\nsuing Coldplay as a result. There have been a lot of arguments
\nbetween fans of both artists as to who stole what, but on a
\nYouTube video you can watch a two-part video from an objective
\nviewpoint, examining each song from a theoretical perspective.
\nNow the theory might be over your head, but it also might teach
\nyou a lot about what might be viewed as plagiarism:<\/p>\n
http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YJWLfpOecyE<\/a><\/p>\n If you are interested in other examples of similar-sounding Not all of these songs involved lawsuits, but there are some Interestingly enough, another obscure band called Creaky Boards
\nsongs, on the Prolific Magazine blog, Joshua Kraus compares what
\nhe calls “The 8 Most Blatantly Plagiarized Songs”:
\nhttp:\/\/theprolific.com\/2008\/09\/the-8-most-blatantly-plagiarized-s
\nongs\/<\/a> .<\/p>\n
\ninteresting comparisons, and all are worth digging around in your
\nCD collection to have a listen to.<\/p>\n
\nhas also claimed that Coldplay’s Viva La Vida is a rip-off of
\ntheir song “The Songs I Didn’t Write” (isn’t that title a strange
\ncoincidence!). Jared Morris of WGMD does a comparison of these
\ntwo songs on YouTube:<\/p>\n