These songs have had a curious copyright history

Music is very much like the wheel: you can’t reinvent it. Certain sequences of tones and harmonies occur again and again, especially within a particular genre. It is therefore not easy to recognize plagiarism as such. Where does inspiration end and copying begin?

The Duden defines plagiarism as follows: “misappropriation of thoughts, ideas, or the like. another in the artistic or scientific field and its publication; intellectual property theft »

In American legal practice, two criteria are often at the forefront: a layman and a connoisseur must be able to recognize the similarity of the two works, and the person accused of plagiarism must have known the song before writing it himself.

A similar legal situation applies in Switzerland, as the expert Emanuel Meyer of the “Swiss Federal Institute for Intellectual Property” explains when asked: “According to a 1999 federal court decision, free use is allowed under copyright law if the parts of a pre-existing work that has been taken over is so modest that it fades into the background in relation to the uniqueness of the new work. However, the federal court did not require proof that the creator of the second work knew the first.”

Complicated right? These examples symbolize the plagiarism chaos common in the music industry:

To start with, a particularly brutal example of music theft: the not so good boy Bushido was sentenced in 2010 by the regional court of Hamburg to pay 63,000 euros in damages. The accuser was the French gothic band Dark Sanctuary, who recognized their own pieces in 16 tracks by the scandalous German rapper. The regional court ruled that Bushido copied 13 of the French band’s titles – without their consent.

The judge ruled that all eleven CDs on which the songs can be found may no longer be sold and that already sold records must be recalled and destroyed. These include the songs “Sex in the City”, “Bloodsport”, “Goldrapper”, and “Janine”.

When the Gallagher brothers released their song “Shakermaker” in 1994, it didn’t take long for early listeners to think, “I know that from somewhere.” And they were right: Oasis copied the chorus from The New Seekers’ hit “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing.” She was originally supposed to have even taken the first line of the song one-to-one – but due to the copyright of the song’s lyrics, she let it be and instead sang, “I’d like to be somebody else, and not know where I have ended”.

The song became known in 1971 – originally in the form of a jingle for a “Coca Cola” radio commercial. With the radio stations getting so many requests to play the whole jingle, The New Seekers were hired to produce a song with the same melody and slightly different lyrics.

Nearly two decades later, the “Coca Cola” group heard the song from Oasis and therefore sued for 500,000 Australian dollars – the equivalent of more than 323,000 Swiss francs – in court and won.

Former Oasis guitarist Paul Arthurs later said: “We copied it so they had every right to sue us. Thanks to me. People steal from other bands and change the lyrics. We did the same thing but kept some of the lyrics in. We’re drinking Pepsi now.”

Led Zeppelin is a notorious plagiarism. The British rock band has been accused of stealing songs in at least five cases – the lawsuit went to court twice. Rolling Stone magazine even lists ten songs that Led Zeppelin allegedly copied. However, the most famous (and most absurd) case is the following:

In 2014, the band Spirit filed a lawsuit against Led Zeppelin. The accusation: Ironically, the world-famous intro to “Stairway to Heaven” was allegedly copied from “Taurus,” a 1970 song. Spirit claimed that Robert Plant, lead singer of Led Zeppelin, heard the song at a concert in Birmingham that same year. Plant said no, pointing out that he had been in a car accident on the way home – and that he couldn’t remember many things because of it. The jury did not believe him, but concluded that the two works were not sufficiently similar.

In 2018, the case was reopened by a grand jury after the judge erred in claiming that three-tone sequences were not copyrightable. What’s especially surprising is that the original Spirit was never played in front of the judges.

However, two years later, judges in San Francisco rejected this. It was correct that no sound recordings were shown, as before 1976 only sheet music but no original recordings were copyrighted – a tricky business.

The best thing to do is to compare the two pieces yourself (then shake your head in amazement at the American interpretation of the law).

John Fogerty was the songwriter genius behind the hit band Creedence Clearwater Revival, who released hit after hit in Woodstock’s year. The band was signed to the music label “Fantasy Records” – the owner of which was none other than Saul Zaentz, who received three Oscars. With a gag contract, he secured the rights to all of the band’s songs. From that moment on, he pocketed the millions she brought in himself.

Eventually the band fell apart and John Fogerty made a name for himself as a solo artist. Fogerty’s creativity had found a new muse: in songs like “Mr. Greed,” he arranged with his old boss. In it he sings:

The offended manager accused Fogerty of defamation but the matter was settled out of court. But that wasn’t enough: Zaentz saw plagiarism in a new song by Fogerty and accused him of it. The song “The Old Man Down the Road” should therefore be a copy of the song “Run Through The Jungle”. So Zaentz claimed that Fogerty plagiarized himself.

One scene in the process will probably remain in the memory of many rock fans forever: John Fogerty sits there with his guitar on his lap and tries to explain what is actually already clear: the two songs of course sound the same if they were written by the same person and were executed. Still, the songwriter believes that these are two independent works – and the jury agreed with him.

In 2004, the label “Concord” took over “Fantasy Records” – but Fogerty did not regain the rights to his music. He recently approached the label with an offer for an undisclosed sum and was successful. Half a century later, John Fogerty finally owns the majority of the rights to his songs. He shared his friends with fans on Twitter.

The Kraftwerk vs. Pelham example is special for two reasons: first, because it’s been going on since 1999 and never seems to end, and second, because it involves sampling – the disputed plagiarism is just a mere two-second sequence of the number. “Metal on metal”. “Samling” is a method especially common in hip-hop of using short sequences of a song for a new work. You take the beat, rhythm, melody or lyrics of a song and then manipulate them to creatively incorporate them into your own music, for example as a loop (infinite loop).

But let’s start at the beginning: Kraftwerk was a German music group that was the first electronic music band to hit the charts. In 1977, the band from Düsseldorf released a song called “Metall auf Metall”. In 1997 – twenty years later – music producer Moses Pelham sampled it and reused it for the track “Nur Mir” featuring rapper Sabrina Setlur.

Pelham’s failure to seek permission for this should prove to be a fatal mistake – a legal battle ensues that spans more than two decades to clarify the question of whether the sampling of the two-second sequence was legal. The difficulty here is that the relevant legal situation has changed several times in the meantime. Ten rulings have been made since 1999, but the decision is not final. Even the Court of Justice of the European Union and the Federal Constitutional Court have heard the case – as a result, German copyright law has been revised several times. In April 2022, the Hamburg Higher Regional Court ruled in favor of Pelham, but left the ruling open for review by the Federal Court of Justice. It is theoretically possible that the case will be reopened.

Pelham claimed during the lawsuits that he got the sample from an audio archive without knowing where it came from. He emphasizes the importance of sampling: «Hip-hop cannot do without sampling. There is no art in a vacuum, it is always about interacting with other art.”