Did Donald Glover plagiarize "This is America"?

[The Connoisseurs]

America steals rob cheats and re-writes history
He’s just living up to it’s name

Get your money ....

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Bad precedent? Not first person to be sued for stealing, Vanilla Ice ring a bell?. @random jurors. That's how the legal system worksy. The supposed to comprise a jury from 12 music experts

You're the one who said that "a court of law" determined it like it was some experts. You were trying to use an argument from authority and it was a bullshyt argument.

All of us know juries make dumb decisions all the time, pointing out that a jury decided it doesn't "prove" anything. At least back when jury law was established in this country, the cases they had to decide were just common sense shyt for all people. A music case like this clearly hinged on issues that the average juror knew nothing about and had no basis with which to judge.

And yes, it's a bad precedent, don't play dumb about it. Many legal experts have talked about the new precedent the case set regarding what could be considered "copying".

'Blurred Lines' copyright ruling is a 'devastating blow' and sets dangerous precedent for musicians, judge warns

'Blurred Lines' verdict is wrong: What the “Blurred Lines” team copied is either not original or not relevant.

Why the 'Blurred Lines' verdict should be thrown out

Why the 'Blurred Lines' verdict could be bad for music

Here's why the 'Blurred Lines' copyright decision is wrong

Why the 'Blurred Lines' verdict was a mistake

'Blurred Lines' copyright verdict creates a bad law for musicians

Blurred lines indeed: did the jury get it wrong? - Lexology

The 1709 Blog: What’s Wrong With the ‘Blurred Lines’ Copyright Ruling?

In order to find infringement, the jury had to find that there was a substantial similarity between the stripped-down version of “Got To Give It Up” and “Blurred Lines.” Many musicians and experts have pointed out that stripped of the performance flair, “Got To Give It Up” shares little in common with “Blurred Lines.” Yet the jury still found that “Blurred Lines” infringed.

Legal experts speculate that the jury was confused about the elements of proving copyright infringement, which isn’t a surprise because the area of copyright law is so complex, particularly in music. At trial, Williams admitted that he was inspired by Gaye’s music and wanted to recreate that FEELING, but that he did not copy Gaye’s song. Perhaps the jury didn’t understand that being inspired by, or paying homage to predecessors, alone isn’t copyright infringement.

Are you saying that 12 jurors who knew nothing about music, Marvin Gaye, or Pharrell Williams are a better authority on plagiarism than the people I just quoted here?

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Not long after I learned about “Frozen,” I went to see a friend of mine who works in the music industry. We sat in his living room on the Upper East Side, facing each other in easy chairs, as he worked his way through a mountain of CDs. He played “Angel,” by the reggae singer Shaggy, and then “The Joker,” by the Steve Miller Band, and told me to listen very carefully to the similarity in bass lines. He played Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and then Muddy Waters’s “You Need Love,” to show the extent to which Led Zeppelin had mined the blues for inspiration. He played “Twice My Age,” by Shabba Ranks and Krystal, and then the saccharine seventies pop standard “Seasons in the Sun,” until I could hear the echoes of the second song in the first. He played “Last Christmas,” by Wham!, followed by Barry Manilow’s “Can’t Smile Without You” to explain why Manilow might have been startled when he first heard that song, and then “Joanna,” by Kool and the Gang, because, in a different way, “Last Christmas” was an homage to Kool and the Gang as well. “That sound you hear in Nirvana,” my friend said at one point, “that soft and then loud, kind of exploding thing, a lot of that was inspired by the Pixies. Yet Kurt Cobain”—Nirvana’s lead singer and songwriter—“was such a genius that he managed to make it his own. And ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’?”—here he was referring to perhaps the best-known Nirvana song. “That’s Boston’s ‘More Than a Feeling.’ ” He began to hum the riff of the Boston hit, and said, “The first time I heard ‘Teen Spirit,’ I said, ‘That guitar lick is from “More Than a Feeling.” ’ But it was different—it was urgent and brilliant and new.”

He played another CD. It was Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy,” a huge hit from the nineteen-seventies. The chorus has a distinctive, catchy hook—the kind of tune that millions of Americans probably hummed in the shower the year it came out. Then he put on “Taj Mahal,” by the Brazilian artist Jorge Ben Jor, which was recorded several years before the Rod Stewart song. In his twenties, my friend was a d.j. at various downtown clubs, and at some point he’d become interested in world music. “I caught it back then,” he said. A small, sly smile spread across his face. The opening bars of “Taj Mahal” were very South American, a world away from what we had just listened to. And then I heard it. It was so obvious and unambiguous that I laughed out loud; virtually note for note, it was the hook from “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy.” It was possible that Rod Stewart had independently come up with that riff, because resemblance is not proof of influence. It was also possible that he’d been in Brazil, listened to some local music, and liked what he heard.

My friend had hundreds of these examples. We could have sat in his living room playing at musical genealogy for hours. Did the examples upset him? Of course not, because he knew enough about music to know that these patterns of influence—cribbing, tweaking, transforming—were at the very heart of the creative process. True, copying could go too far. There were times when one artist was simply replicating the work of another, and to let that pass inhibited true creativity. But it was equally dangerous to be overly vigilant in policing creative expression, because if Led Zeppelin hadn’t been free to mine the blues for inspiration we wouldn’t have got “Whole Lotta Love,” and if Kurt Cobain couldn’t listen to “More Than a Feeling” and pick out and transform the part he really liked we wouldn’t have “Smells Like Teen Spirit”—and, in the evolution of rock, “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was a real step forward from “More Than a Feeling.” A successful music executive has to understand the distinction between borrowing that is transformative and borrowing that is merely derivative, and that distinction, I realized, was what was missing from the discussion of Bryony Lavery’s borrowings. Yes, she had copied my work. But no one was asking why she had copied it, or what she had copied, or whether her copying served some larger purpose.

Something Borrowed

 

[TillWeDie]

I'm not defending the jack move but his directing ideas made the video godly

 

[Sauce Dab]

He's handling it the right way. This obsession some of ya'all have with making money and lawsuits instead of making good music all makes it harder to actually hear good music. This is why it took me so long to get a hold of a copy of the Grey Album.

People need money to live. He's losing good money by not being in the credits of a song that went #1 on the charts. He should get what's owed to him

 

[Mowgli]

i dont know. I was so disturbed by his fruity posturing i want to forget this song and video ever happened.

 

[CHICAGO]

THEY PAID THE OG OFF
BUT DIDNT WANT TO GIVE ANY CREDIT FOR IT.

SO NOW HE HAS TO ACT DIPLOMATIC ON SOCIAL MEDIA.

HES QUENTIN MILLER
BUT HE ACTUALLY RELEASED HIS shyt
BEFORE HE GAVE IT AWAY.



​

 

[dem bath salts]

You're the one who said that "a court of law" determined it like it was some experts. You were trying to use an argument from authority and it was a bullshyt argument.

All of us know juries make dumb decisions all the time, pointing out that a jury decided it doesn't "prove" anything. At least back when jury law was established in this country, the cases they had to decide were just common sense shyt for all people. A music case like this clearly hinged on issues that the average juror knew nothing about and had no basis with which to judge.

And yes, it's a bad precedent, don't play dumb about it. Many legal experts have talked about the new precedent the case set regarding what could be considered "copying".

'Blurred Lines' copyright ruling is a 'devastating blow' and sets dangerous precedent for musicians, judge warns

'Blurred Lines' verdict is wrong: What the “Blurred Lines” team copied is either not original or not relevant.

Why the 'Blurred Lines' verdict should be thrown out

Why the 'Blurred Lines' verdict could be bad for music

Here's why the 'Blurred Lines' copyright decision is wrong

Why the 'Blurred Lines' verdict was a mistake

'Blurred Lines' copyright verdict creates a bad law for musicians

Blurred lines indeed: did the jury get it wrong? - Lexology

The 1709 Blog: What’s Wrong With the ‘Blurred Lines’ Copyright Ruling?




Are you saying that 12 jurors who knew nothing about music, Marvin Gaye, or Pharrell Williams are a better authority on plagiarism than the people I just quoted here?

No. I was using reality. That song is undeniably similar to DG's and could be easily proven in a court of law.

So now we're arguing the validity of the institution of the jury

Man, whatever. That song can easily be broke down into segments and presented to a jury as infringement.

 

[Brosef]

Ay wtf this is a blatant knock off

 

[Cladyclad]

When I had rap dreams. I would take a obscure Jay Z song and flipped the words around. Niqqas thought I was nice af around the block

 

[Professor Emeritus]

People need money to live. He's losing good money by not being in the credits of a song that went #1 on the charts. He should get what's owed to him

if Donald Glover had never made his song at all, Jase wouldn't be a single penny richer. In fact, there's no doubt at all that Jase is going to make MORE money from this buzz then he would have if Donald Glover had never made a similar song to his. So how the hell is he "losing" money here?

This idea that someone "owes" you money solely because they made something that was inspired by something you made is a recent invention. Back in the day people used to jack each other's exact songs all the time and no one expected to get any money from it. You made your money on your own, you didn't make money by begging off of what other people were doing.

You ever hear Eric Burdon throw fire with this one?



They first heard the song from Johnny Handle performing it in a pub, but changed the song from a woman's point of view to a man's point of view and added a rock feel to it.

Bob Dylan liked to play "House of the Rising Sun" in concerts, but he had to stop after a while because fans were accusing him of plagarism...even though he had recorded the song three years earlier than Eric Burdon and the Animals had recorded it. But his version sounded similar to theirs....probably because they were both based off of the same version they had heard from Dave van Rock.





Not that van Rock was the first one to record it - blues singer Lead Belly (Huddie William Ledbetter) already had a version out in 1944.




Blues singer Josh White wrote a version in 1947:



But not off of Lead Belly, White had heard the song from a "white hillbilly", probably Clarence Ashley, way back in 1924.



That's the oldest known recording of the song. But Ashley didn't write it, he learned it from his grandfather. His grandfather didn't write it either, he learned it from someone else. No one knows who originally wrote it.

Is that a bad thing? Should the use of the song have stopped with Ashley, so we never get Josh White or Lead Belly's far superior versions? Should it never have been taken into rock, so we don't get The Animals and the face of music isn't changed? I don't see how that would help music be better.

No one should make money selling someone else's performance while that person is still alive, without a financial deal and signatures in place. But other than that? All this copyright stuff is on the verge of going completely out of control. Covers, samples, inspiration, adding your own flair - that's the whole history of music. It would be stupid to sideline that out of greed.

No. I was using reality. That song is undeniably similar to DG's and could be easily proven in a courr of law.

What the hell does "undeniably similar" have anything to do with anything though? Every damn drill song is "undeniably similar" to every other drill song - should massive lawsuits be enacted now?

The whole idea that we are "owed" something from work that someone else did is stupid. Did Pharrell Williams steal a recording off of Marvin Gaye and make money off of it that belonged to Gaye? Did Williams financially hurt Gaye's estate in any way? If he had, I see the case. But he didn't - he didn't do anything that hurt Gaye's estate by a single cent.

Ya'all don't even know that the current version of copyright law is pushed by investors and capitalists who buy up copyrights and patents and then sue anyone they can who "infringes" on them. It's not even about helping the artist, it's about a money-making avenue for greedy people who want royalties off the work of others. When you cape for them, you're just enabling that crap.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patent_troll

 

[Momentum]

Drake got whole verses that nikkas already done spit

TALK TO THESE NEGUS

 

[TheBoyDuddus]

This is like when lil wayne jacked "believe me" from some random youtube rapper

 

[dem bath salts]

No. I was using reality. That song is undeniably similar to DG's and could be easily proven in a courr of law.

if Donald Glover had never made his song at all, Jase wouldn't be a single penny richer. In fact, there's no doubt at all that Jase is going to make MORE money from this buzz then he would have if Donald Glover had never made a similar song to his. So how the hell is he "losing" money here?

This idea that someone "owes" you money solely because they made something that was inspired by something you made is a recent invention. Back in the day people used to jack each other's exact songs all the time and no one expected to get any money from it. You made your money on your own, you didn't make money by begging off of what other people were doing.

You ever hear Eric Burdon throw fire with this one?



They first heard the song from Johnny Handle performing it in a pub, but changed the song from a woman's point of view to a man's point of view and added a rock feel to it.

Bob Dylan liked to play "House of the Rising Sun" in concerts, but he had to stop after a while because fans were accusing him of plagarism...even though he had recorded the song three years earlier than Eric Burdon and the Animals had recorded it. But his version sounded similar to theirs....probably because they were both based off of the same version they had heard from Dave van Rock.





Not that van Rock was the first one to record it - blues singer Lead Belly (Huddie William Ledbetter) already had a version out in 1944.




Blues singer Josh White wrote a version in 1947:



But not off of Lead Belly, White had heard the song from a "white hillbilly", probably Clarence Ashley, way back in 1924.



That's the oldest known recording of the song. But Ashley didn't write it, he learned it from his grandfather. His grandfather didn't write it either, he learned it from someone else. No one knows who originally wrote it.

Is that a bad thing? Should the use of the song have stopped with Ashley, so we never get Josh White or Lead Belly's far superior versions? Should it never have been taken into rock, so we don't get The Animals and the face of music isn't changed? I don't see how that would help music be better.

No one should make money selling someone else's performance while that person is still alive, without a financial deal and signatures in place. But other than that? All this copyright stuff is on the verge of going completely out of control. Covers, samples, inspiration, adding your own flair - that's the whole history of music. It would be stupid to sideline that out of greed.




What the hell does "undeniably similar" have anything to do with anything though? Every damn drill song is "undeniably similar" to every other drill song - should massive lawsuits be enacted now?

The whole idea that we are "owed" something from work that someone else did is stupid. Did Pharrell Williams steal a recording off of Marvin Gaye and make money off of it that belonged to Gaye? Did Williams financially hurt Gaye's estate in any way? If he had, I see the case. But he didn't - he didn't do anything that hurt Gaye's estate by a single cent.

Ya'all don't even know that the current version of copyright law is pushed by investors and capitalists who buy up copyrights and patents and then sue anyone they can who "infringes" on them. It's not even about helping the artist, it's about a money-making avenue for greedy people who want royalties off the work of others. When you cape for them, you're just enabling that crap.

Patent troll - Wikipedia

Laws evolve everyday, b Reality is this shyt can be proven in the court of law.

I hope I'm on the jury if this shyt goes to court

 

[Big Boss]

Some of you don't understand what stealing a song is. Nobody is going to exactly copy a song but if its too similar, like this song is, DG can be sued.

Robin Thicke's Blurred Lines wasn't an Exact copy of Marvin Gaye's song but a court of law decided that you clearly used the melody without permission.

Facts