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Originally Posted by vintage spideyfan
John Fogerty, lead singer and songwriter of Creedence Clearwater Revival,
was sued for sounding too much like John Fogerty of CCR.
Originally Posted by fallensaviour
Yes,that was totally stupid.If I'm not mistaken the judge finally told the
record company they were idiots and through it out of court.
John Fogerty, lead singer and songwriter of Creedence Clearwater Revival,
was sued for sounding too much like John Fogerty of CCR.
Originally Posted by fallensaviour
Yes,that was totally stupid.If I'm not mistaken the judge finally told the
record company they were idiots and through it out of court.
precedent---as I've always thought that courts were too hard on rock song
writers copyright violations.
Those two Fogerty songs sound alot alike at first listen and Fogerty
owned the "new" one, and he didn't own the original. Other artists
have been charged for "copying" songs that sound LESS alike than the
two Fogerty compositions...and just because Fogerty wrote both
of the songs in this case wasn't enough to excuse him from the same
scrutiny from a greedy record company---but in the end, this unique
scenario rendered a satisfying result due to Fogerty's composure on the
stand.
See, what I liked about the case is that Fogerty's "music lesson" given
to the judge/jury in court diagramed how small tweaks
in songwriting approach can constitute a new song.
Yes, I think the courts are too rough on what they call "stealing"
when writing rock songs---in most cases it's not fair--- as the simillarities
tweaked make for a new approach on a "dead" composition
rather than a ripoff to bring up charges against IMO.
In the end there's only so many chord patterns crossed with melodies
in pop music and artists should feel free to explore them in their
compositions without the fear of being brought up on charges because
of a hard to define simillarity to another composition.
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