Plagiarism and copyright infringement in the music industry.
Today we looked at the court case that occurred between George Harrison and The Chiffons.
Using this case as an example we looked at how it works when somebody takes another artist to court over a suspected case of plagiarism. Music plagiarism is the use or close imitation of another author's music while representing it as one's own original work. Plagiarism in music now occurs in two contexts—with a musical idea (that is, a melody or motif) or sampling (taking a portion of one sound recording and reusing it in a different song).
Something we learnt about was 'subconscious plagiarism'. This is where you can be guilty of copying a song and never even realising it! This is what George Harrsion was found guilty of in his court battle against the Chiffons in 1976, years after he had first been accused of plagerism.
George Harrison’s ‘My Sweet Lord’ was released January 15, 1971 and hit the charts on January 23, 1971 as George Harrison’s first solo single. It was released under the Apple label and enjoyed the number one spot originally for five weeks, then in 2002, again for one week. It remained on the charts for a total of twenty-seven weeks. All of this is the good news. The not so good news involves a song called “He’s So Fine” recorded by the Chiffons in 1962 and then moved under the Bright Tunes Music Corp label in 1971. The Chiffon’s song did well in the United States and received a luke warm reception in the UK. February 10th, 1971, Bright Tunes filed a suit against George Harrison inclusive of his English and American companies. The suite also included Apple Records, BMI and Hansen Publications. Though an out of court settlement was approached, including an offer of 148,000.00, but it never reached fruition before the court case proceeded, as the attorneys for Bright Tunes Music Corp. wanted seventy-five percent of the royalties and the surrendering of the copyright for My Sweet Lord. The case waited to be heard for five years, during which time George Harrison’s attorneys continued to try to settle out of court. The case was heard in court for the first time, in February of 1976, George Harrison’s attorneys tried to prove out the difference between the two songs, but with little success. The judge found that though he didn’t believe George Harrison purposefully plagiarized the song, the two songs were essentially the same, only displaying minor differences to note and chord. George Harrison was found guilty of ‘subconscious plagiarism’ and a judgment was filed against him in the amount of $587,000.00 of which the full amount was paid and the judgment dismissed in 1981
