Frivolous lawsuits

New topic: Most frivolous/groundless lawsuit against a musician for copyright issues or perceived/alleged plagiarism.

I would nominate the suit by Fantasy Records, Creedence Clearwater Revival's label, against John Fogerty for basically copying the Creedence sound on his solo album *Centerfield*, particularly on the single "The Old Man Down the Road." It went to trial, and Fogerty won. The judge ruled that the label couldn't really sue Fogerty for using the same songwriting style and sound that he'd used back in his CCR days. (CCR's publisher, in affiliation with Fantasy, had filed a similar suit against Fogerty a decade earlier, when he released his first solo album.)

Kind of a stupid lawsuit, since the success of Fogerty's solo career certainly would generate interest in those old CCR records.

(Thanks to Syd Layne, for the post on the Jam/Cadillac thread, which inspired this post.)

I liked when Geffen sued Neil Young for recording so much bizarre crap in the 80s.

The Verve getting sued by the Rolling Stones despite the fact that "Bittersweet Symphony" sounded absolutely NOTHING like the "The Last Time" - The Verve remade a part of Andrew Loog Oldham's orchestral remake of "The Last Time" which had nothing to do with the Stone's melody. What did that accomplish?

They sampled a segment without acknowledgement to the copyright holder of the piece. If they'd cleared the sample in advance, they might still be a band today (I'm in agreement with you - it accomplished nothing but rearranging profit flow to a different coffer). I kinda figured that Ashcroft and co. were simply young, naive and/or had terrible management/producers/overseers on that one.

Similarly, it bugs me when people dog Plant/Page for "ripping off" blues legends. It's trendy to posit that at the suburban stoner party, but, in the world before the internet, in the world of 1969, only select individuals understood the implications. Those guys (P/P) were in their early 20s at the time and just wanted to emulate what they grew up with and loved dearly.

The Rutles

if Viacom were around back in the day, the rutles and the monkees would be under billion dollar lawsuits. In fact, "parody" as we know it, would cease to exist. Don't even get me started on satire. Viacom would have had their 18th century attorneys all over jonathan swift.

If you look at new pressings of Led Zep cds the songs are credited to Page Plant and every blues guy they ripped off and paid off.

How come Lou Reed never had to pay for stealing the riff from "Hitchhike" for "There She Goes Again"?

i disagree completely about Led Zep. while they may have been paying tribute when they decided what material to record, it was rank arrogance and unadulterated greed that led them to lie about the composition of the songs that were making them rich. Listen to "You Need Loving," a Willie Dixon tune the Small Faces correctly credited when they cut it, and explain why Page and Plant (or perhaps it was the malevolent Peter Grant) opted to claim authorship -- what, for changing the title?

In fairness to Led Zeppelin (which is probably more than they deserve) most of the blues albums I own seem to credit each song to the recording artist in question, e.g., "Stagger Lee" was credited to Mississippi John Hurt when he recorded it, but to Rev. Gary Davis when he recorded it.

So while they probably should have known better, they weren't really doing anything more than adapting their idols' business practices along with their music.

I have to agree with Ira here: What if Elvis had claimed authorship over the blues stuff that he rearranged (in terms of tempo, style, etc)? He never claimed to have written "That's Alright, Mama" and "Mystery Train"--but essentially that's what Zep is doing. With "You Need Loving" Plant sounds at times like he's not even ripping the original source, but Marriot down to every nuance in the vocals. Yeah, Probably Peter Grant--but JPJ and Page were already pretty savvy by that time as well.

I would add the George Harrison/Chiffons "My Sweet Lord" lawsuit to the list.

If you have the old (zep) vinyl, the authors were not credited. The jackets were changed post-lawsuit.

As a teen, we made a mix tape of all the blues songs page/plant "borrowed" from. It's pretty blatant. At the time, the only shared writing credit was Ritchie Valens for "Oh My Head" (covered as Boogie with Stu). I credit zep with introducing me to blues history in this way.

My issue comes with the suggestion that they "couldn't write so they just took songs and renamed them". In suggesting this, many kids are unaware that, in late 60s London, all rock bands were closer to their blues roots and sets contained originals mixed with blues standards (weren't even the nuances aped by dozens of London bands?). The lawsuit was actually ARC Music suing Zeppelin for the intro to "Bring it on Home". Oddly (or maybe typically) this lawsuit did not send royalties to Dixon (he later sued for Whole Lotta Love). It would seem that someone in the Zep camp certainly should have foreseen this and given credit in these instances*. Less certain is stuff like "Custard Pie" aka Bukka White's "Shake em on Down", which strikes me as homage.

If you read Plant's lyrics, they have little substance beyond vocalizations and phrases lifted directly from blues stds. Page's riffs are expansions and rephrasing from the stds. Fr'instance, if you play out the first few bars of The Rover: you can convert it to a standard blues phrasing; convert it back again and there's the genius of what Page did (see Black Crowes for comparison). I.E., they didn't rip off the blues, they rephrased it and that was the whole point of Led Zeppelin and the genre. Kinda like bashing grape Kool-Aid for ripping off Grape Juice. Anyhoo, it's not the legal-writing-credit thing that bugs me, it's the suggestion that no talent was applied musically. You find common ground amongst bandmates via your influences, the songs you grew up with/love dearly.

Course all heavy rock came from the blues - there's no shortage of examples and bands who didn't get sued - and it's a fine line (homage/theft) but isn't the chief problem in this topic simply Plant using too many phrases intact ("Killing Floor")? That said, I certainly don't disagree with the outcome of the lawsuits.

*they gave credit to Dixon on the first LP; no one in publishing was aware that Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You was not pub domain; legal problem occured on Zep 2.



Post Edited (04-03-07 17:21)