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How NOT To Write A Hit Song (Pt. 3/3), Ernő Rubik, Bob Dylan, Iannis Xenakis, Whitfield & Strong
Do you think the eleven (11) constructs/stipulations are good advice for a songwriter? For a composer? (What’s the difference between a songwriter and a composer? This is a question to be explored in future posts.)Could you write a a great piece of music following these eleven (11) points?If you wrote a song that followed these exact eleven (11) stipulations, would you be infringing copyright? That's an enormous question and one that could lead to debate, certainty, uncertainty, anxiety, anger or confusion. Of that, I am certain. If you'd like, please start off that discussion below. I promise I can add to whatever discussion begins. :-)I expect that an attorney in the future will ask me this specific question at a deposition. (Rather than answer this question now, I'll leave it in this post just to annoy an attorney or two. I have also inserted a few statements in previous posts to see if attorneys or their paralegals are paying attention. This includes a factual omission I'm almost certain they'll never catch - smile smile!)
Do The Macarena (On A Fishing Boat In The North Atlantic With An HP Printer)
While working on a project, I heard this HP Office Jet Pro commercial and looked up. What distracted me and attracted me to the commercial was the manner in which it referenced the way-too-big hit song from the mid 1990's, "Macarena." (When I just wrote, M-A-C-A-R-E-N-A, Wordpress thought perhaps I meant, "Macaroni," or "Macaroon." No, I meant M-A-C-A-R-E-N-A. It might take a few more years to convince the world of words that Macarena is Macarena, just as it took a long time to make "Beatles" not be "Beetles.""Macarena" features its hook at these eleven (11) places in Macarena:
Haiku 101, Intellectual Property Haiku (IP Haiku)
My haiku obsession - haiku career - began that way. I've gone through periods of writing hundreds in a few hours. Sometimes my haiku tell a story. Other times they are related to a theme, and still other times they are disconnected and without any purpose, like my life. (I do not have a purposeful life - I have a purpose-less life. An ambient free-form, drifting life. Enough of this theme.)I used to get reprimanded by poets and scholars who knew better than I (knew better than I about everything - just ask them). Even my Japanese girlfriend told me that haiku were supposed to be about nature, not vehicles for telling deranged and absurd stories that would be parodic and unauthorized episodes of - - - -The Dating GameLeave It To BeaverThe Brady Bunch orLove Boat
Did Taylor Swift Steal A Lyric From Matt Nathanson? Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Andy Williams & Tony Bennett
My first impression is that I would side with Taylor Swift as I think two (or more) authors could come up with those very similar words independently, i.e., without copying. And if one did not copy the other, it is not copyright infringement.These two short lyric excerpts from larger songs are of a style of lyric writing I have seen before, one in which a clever literary device is at play. Songs with these literary devices are fairly common in Nashville, country and pop. It reminds me of songs and song titles like these:
Unfair Competition, Election Night 2012, Swimming at 57 F / 41 F
An example of unfair competition would occur if an unknown musician, or any non-Beatle, released an album of 13 supposedly original songs, whose titles, in order, were:“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”“With A Little Help From My Friends”“Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds”“Getting Better”“Fixing A Hole”“She’s Leaving Home”“Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite”“Within You Without You”“When I’m Sixty-Four”“Lovely Rita”“Good Morning Good Morning”“Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)”“A Day In The Life”
Where I'm Going (By Dressing Up As A Dragon)
I’ve included some legal/law websites in this list as well some for the most obvious reasons and others because they are friends’ websites. For example, one should never get too serious about the creation and dissemination of music without thinking about----COPYRIGHT andTRADEMARKSo I included the U. S. Copyright Office and the U. S. Patent & Trademark Office.Now I am pondering a few more things with respect to the nature of my Resources:1. Should the Resources be more focussed and contain fewer non-music sites, or2. Should the Resources contain more sites that are not primarily music or entertainment industry, and if #2 holds, then3. Resources will be more a reflection of me as I love to connect things that some think are not so connected. For example, all of us intersect daily with law, business, technology and communication. That seems to give me the kind of carte blanche to just post away, and fun away!
John Lennon - "I Got Resources On My Fingers!"
Tonight I've added a new section to www.emichaelmusic.com - one called, "Resources." It will be a living document. I'll update it frequently and I look forward to adding readers' suggestions as well. I've been compiling resources like this for years and dividing them into categories. I've posted these in various places. The College Music Society has posted my resources for the past 5 or 6 years. I've also included some of these in some of my course syllabi at different universities. As of tonight, the first installment resides here at my site.The first of my Resources is a list of music and entertainment industry sites that I visit - almost all of which I value. Some might be included for good reasons - because I like or love the content at the sites, others because I feel that they should be there, and still others because they will irritate or irk people. And why not? Doesn't the Bible suggest that we should afflict the comfortable?
Did Big Happens Here Do Digable Planets?
I know that many traditional jazz players, especially in the early and mid-1980's, would not likely latch on to a short phrase, repeat it many times and make this small and almost "throw away" motif into something big. This tiny melodic gesture, in the hands of an outsider (with respect to a musical tradition), could become the most important part of the melody, or sometimes the only melody that matters to someone from outside of that tradition. This "how does a foreigner view our music" idea is one I will explore later. I'll include myself in this - how and why did I get into hip hop, or Senegalese, Malagasy, Brazilian or Cuban music.All of this to get back to that famous Digable Planets song that samples some jazz.
Igor Got Game: A Musical and Legal Comparison of The Beastie Boys and Igor Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” (1918) drew heavily upon music composed by Giovanni Pergolesi and others in the early 18th century. The Beastie Boys, an extremely popular rap/hip hop music group since the mid-1980’s, in their best-selling CD, Hello Nasty (1999) drew upon the music of Stravinsky by means of the digital sampling of Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” Both of these “borrowings” share important similarities and differences. Furthermore, these borrowings shed light on several seemingly unrelated disciplines and fields of study. These include music composition and the nature of creativity and originality, the intellectual property law of different times and societies created to protect authors from appropriations of their original works, the means by which borrowed music may be used and transmitted (sampling, digital streaming, MP3, etc.), and the business (financial, licensing, retail, broadcast, etc.) considerations involved in such borrowings.
University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, flamboyant red shoes, Harvard Law School
Late this afternoon I'll be speaking to students at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. The subject will be copyright and music - some real nuts & bolts stuff from my perspective. Because I've been in the middle of a lot of copyright issues, questions and disputes, I've been forced to think and make decisions. It's always amazing to think that federal law is used to evaluate and appraise someone's creative expression - that the law would say EXPRESSION X is of more value and worth more "protection" than EXPRESSION Y, and that I'm asked to do the evaluating of expression.
Angie Aparo v. Five For Fighting (Part 3 of 3)
PART 3 of 3We left off in this cliffhanger with the promise of an ending in this highly abbreviated fictionalized account of what could have been a copyright infringement action brought by Angie Aparo and affiliated parties against Five For Fighting and affiliated parties.Plaintiff: What country song features 1-2-3-5?Defendant: “Tomorrow Never Comes” by Ernest Tubb does. Conway Twitty’s “I’m Not Through Loving You Yet” also features 1-2-3-5.Plaintiff: What rock song features 1-2-3-5?Defendant: “I’ll Follow The Sun” by The Beatles.” The Beatles‘ “You Won’t See Me” also features 1-2-3-5
Does Five For Fighting's "Superman" Infringe Angie Aparo's "Seed? (Part 2 of 3)
Defendant’s expert states that the melody in common is not copyrighted because it can be found in many songs written before the Plaintiff’s song.Plaintiffs demand Defendants’ expert witness prove that the melody in question is not copyrighted.Defendant’s expert witness shows that the melody is found in the music of: Bach, Borodin, Brahms, Dvorak, Foster, Guonod, Haydn. Lear, Mendelssohn and Mozart.Plaintiff demands specificity.Defendant specifies....
Does Five For Fighting’s “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” Infringe Angie Aparo’s “Seed?”
We teach our children to STEAL other peoples' thoughts without asking permission. (I'm referring to what some teachers and professors do - make their students write "papers" that consist of their own thoughts mixed with the (better, older and more respected) thoughts of others. We FORCE THEM TO STEAL. All we ask is that our students have to correctly indicate (cite) their exact source(s). We would not allow them to even ask for permission.
Welcome!
Welcome to EMichaelMusic.com, a place for the exchange of ideas on a multitude of subjects. Because I am paying for this website and registered it, and you just discovered its existence, I’ll start...Is it OK for a songwriter or composer to copy music and/or lyrics from someone else?Do you have a favorite example of a songwriter/composer copying music and/or lyrics from someone else?Do you have a LEAST favorite (or hated) example of a songwriter/composer copying music and/or lyrics from someone else?