See You In Court
Elsewhere in this issue we touched upon several cases where artists have got caught up in song sampling legal battles. It will probably come as no surprise that in-fighting, fallings out, and downright deception are so regular in the music industry that the sound of the court room gavel has pretty much developed a beat of its own. There are far too many instances to cover here in any great detail, but we’ve curated a playlist, if you will, of some of the juicier ones.
Musicians can’t just take the work of another artist. They must seek permission and pay for that privilege. This didn’t become a legal precedent until 1971 when Chuck Berry took umbrage with his then friend John Lennon. Berry claimed that Lennon had taken the chorus of ‘You Can’t Catch Me’ and repurposed it for ‘Come Together’ and he wanted both payment and recognition. Lennon’s response was that, although similar, lyrically they were different.
Lennon lost and was forced to pay undisclosed damages, making the dispute a landmark case. Going forward, songwriters were now offered protection from other artists using their work.
Naturally, that didn’t stop it from happening again, and it’s almost ludicrous just how often claims are made. Although, sometimes, it can take a while.
Australian band Men At Work will always be associated with their breakout hit ‘Down Under’ which dominated the charts around the world between December 1981 and February 1983. The song follows a globetrotting Australian, partly inspired by singer Colin Hay’s own foreign travels. The song’s hook is largely thanks to the band’s multi-instrumentalist Greg Ham who deftly weaves a segment of the traditional song ‘Kookaburra’ – as in “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree” – on the flute.
The song is so uniquely Australian that it remains beloved in its home country and is regularly featured at sporting events and in all-time favourite song charts.
Which makes it a crushing shame that all that success has been soured by a very nasty copyright lawsuit. The nature of the legal problem comes down to the perception that ‘Kookaburra’ was a traditional song and in the public domain. It most certainly wasn’t.
It didn’t all go wrong straight away, mind you. In fact, it took until 2007. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation was running a quiz show called ‘Spicks and Specks’ that featured the following question: “What children’s song is contained in the song ‘Down Under’?”
The answer prompted a flurry of contact with Larrikin Music who, it transpired, held the song’s copyright. ‘Kookaburra’ had been written in 1932 by Marion Sinclair, but upon her death the rights were passed to Larrikin (although, in a further complication, in the US the rights are held by another company).
Two decades may have passed already but Larrikin were in no hurry to flex their legal muscles, waiting until June of 2009 to claim copyright infringement. The band lost the court battle and Larrikin chased damages of up to 60% of royalties – what promised to be a significant blow for Men At Work. The judge, though, took pity on them, possibly due to the immensity of elapsed time. Larrikin were awarded just 5%, and only from 2002. Regardless, the toll on the band members was significant and Colin Hay has claimed the stress of the lawsuit contributed to Greg Ham’s death in 2012.
A year after ‘Down Under’ sat in the UK charts came the release of blockbuster movie ‘Ghostbusters’. The hit song that accompanies the film was written by Ray Parker Jr and so great was its success, in its own right, that it’s thought to have inflated the box-office gross by $20 million.
The producers of ‘Ghostbusters’ required Parker Jr to deliver the theme song in just a handful of days, and they included the caveat that the finished song must feature the movie’s title in the lyrics. Parker Jr found inspiration from a late night TV commercial that reminded him of the film’s own cheaply made ad, so the finished song became a call and response over a thumping melody.
The song was catchy and instantly memorable, but the person whose ears pricked up the most was Huey Lewis of Huey Lewis And The News. ’Ghostbusters’ sounded incredibly familiar. In 1983, Huey Lewis And The News had recorded ‘I Want A New Drug’ and the similarities were striking. Who you gonna call? The lawyers.
Lewis sued Parker Jr and it looked as if the whole sorry tale would be aired in public. It wasn’t to be, with an out-of-court settlement being reached in 1985 with a confidentiality agreement attached to prevent the nature of the financial settlement being discussed. Parker Jr would claim it was one of many lawsuits, shrugging off the interest as an inevitability of having such an enormous hit record.
That might have been the end of the matter, but a VH1 show ‘Behind The Music’ interviewed Lewis and he repeated the claim of theft. Parker Jr pointed straight to the confidentiality agreement and sued Lewis, forcing him to cough up $30,000 in compensation.
On the basis of the above you’d be forgiven for thinking that Lewis was a greedy chancer and Parker Jr an innocent victim of coincidence. If so, and if you’re able to, give ‘I Want A New Drug’ a play.
It doesn’t require any intense scrutiny to understand Lewis’s point of view, which, I might add, was a point of view fully backed by the ‘Ghostbusters’ filmmakers in 2004 during an interview in Premiere magazine. They confessed to using ‘I Want A New Drug’ as placeholder music throughout the film, even offering the opportunity to record the main theme to Huey Lewis And The News, which they’d clearly turned down. Parker Jr had been given the rough cut with the band’s song in place when he’d taken up the gig, which suggests rather strongly that Lewis was 100% right.
Sometimes, though, the lawsuit is a little more unusual. Kanye West created a music video for his 2006 song ‘Touch The Sky’ that saw him mimicking stunt-daredevil Evel Knievel (West became Evel Kanyevel). Knievel sued claiming West was using his image to ‘catapult himself on the public’. In a charm offensive, West paid Knievel a visit at his home in Florida and managed to get him to drop the case.
Or there’s the time that Bill Wyman sued Bill Wyman. Not himself, I hasten to add. The Rolling Stones bassist took exception with a music journalist of the same name who wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Musician Wyman got his lawyers to issue a cease and desist letter to Journalist Wyman. At the very least, Musician Wyman wanted some sort of disclaimer on Journalist Wyman’s byline, presumably along the lines of “By Bill Wyman (no, not that one)”. The irony here, of course, is that Bill Wyman is not Musician Wyman’s real name. It’s William George Perks. Journalist Wyman, quite rightly, ignored the letter.
Then there’s the time that John Fogerty was sued for sounding like himself. His former band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, had been signed to Fantasy Records
and said label decided to sue Fogerty for copyright infringement because his new single sounded like Creedence Clearwater Revival – specifically the song ‘Run Through The Jungle’.
Considering Fogerty had been the vocalist and songwriter on both records, that’s hardly surprising. Fogerty ended up playing both songs to the jury and they ruled in his favour, ending what has been described as a lawsuit of self-plagiarism.
In 2001, garbageman DeAngelo Bailey sued Eminem for $1 million claiming the rapper had ruined his reputation. Eminem’s album, ‘The Slim Shady LP’ contained the song ‘Brain Damage’ with the following lyrics: “I was harassed daily by this fat kid named DeAngelo Bailey/He banged my head against the urinal till he broke my nose, soaked my clothes in blood, grabbed me and choked my throat.”
But this wasn’t a case of the garbageman inadvertently sharing a similar name. Eminem absolutely meant him specifically. He was deliberately targeting his childhood bully, back when he was simply Marshall Mathers, a fact supported by a lawsuit filed against the school by his mother. Although this original lawsuit didn’t go anywhere, it did document the abuse, so not only did the judge find in Eminem’s favour, she issued her decision by rapping it.
Sometimes, though, the lawsuit comes out of nowhere. Hall & Oates had a multitude of hits during the 70s and 80s, with Daryl Hall and John Oates writing and performing the bulk of their output. Their success has allowed them to continue writing and recording, and they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, spent the next few years touring, and announced that they were working on a new album at the beginning of 2020. Initially, it seemed like Covid had put paid to that, but when regular keyboardist Eliot Lewis departed in 2023 it hinted that not all was well.
In November of that year Hall was stunned to learn that Oates was trying to flog his half of their joint music partnership without talking to Hall about it. Blindsided, Hall issued a temporary restraining order, using the courts to block the sale.
It quickly transpired that they’d been hiding serious creative differences for over two decades, with Hall telling Billboard Magazine that Oates had decided a long time ago that he ‘didn’t want to do it anymore’ but didn’t make a parting of the ways easy or possible. Consequently, they’d rock up on stage, perform to an unknowing crowd, then depart with barely a word said between them. For years.
The legal move was simply the final straw, bringing the whole sorry situation into the open. At least they don’t have to pretend any longer.
One of the biggest feuding bands in music history, though, is Pink Floyd. In 1984 the fractious band met for dinner to discuss their future.
When the meal was over Nick Mason and Dave Gilmour went home on the understanding that Pink Floyd would continue together once Roger Waters had completed his solo project. Somehow, though, Roger Waters left the restaurant thinking that the band was over. This interaction probably tells you all you need to know about their ability to get along and communicate.
Matters could only get worse. Waters made it publicly known that he thought the band were finished and, seeing it as a done deal, he contacted the band’s manager, Steve O’Rourke, to work out future royalties.
This wasn’t something O’Rourke felt he could discuss without Mason and Gilmour’s input, so he contacted them. Waters was furious that he should do such a thing and wanted him terminated as manager, but had to settle with just terminating his own management contract and appointment himself a new manager.
His next step was to let the record label know he was done. His plan, it later transpired, was to stop Pink Floyd from making new albums, thus breaching their contract and suspending royalty payments.
Determined to stop them from using the band name, Waters went to the High Court to dissolve the band.
This failed as it was never a formal partnership, so he tried again in an attempt to stop the remaining band members from calling themselves Pink Floyd. Without him, as he saw it, they weren’t and couldn’t be Pink Floyd. Gilmour and Mason disagreed and – as you’ve probably noticed – carried on, probably with some relief that their ex-bandmate had so comprehensively self-severed himself.
More recent court cases, such as Marvin Gaye’s estate versus...
To read the full article, you’ll need to have a physical copy of the magazine which you can sign up for here for 6 issues delivered to your door from just £16!
https://store.promobile.online/products/pro-mobile-magazine-6-issue-1-year-subscription
You’ll also get full access to this article and the last year of articles, reviews and play lists via the Pro DJ App
Musicians can’t just take the work of another artist. They must seek permission and pay for that privilege. This didn’t become a legal precedent until 1971 when Chuck Berry took umbrage with his then friend John Lennon. Berry claimed that Lennon had taken the chorus of ‘You Can’t Catch Me’ and repurposed it for ‘Come Together’ and he wanted both payment and recognition. Lennon’s response was that, although similar, lyrically they were different.
Lennon lost and was forced to pay undisclosed damages, making the dispute a landmark case. Going forward, songwriters were now offered protection from other artists using their work.
Naturally, that didn’t stop it from happening again, and it’s almost ludicrous just how often claims are made. Although, sometimes, it can take a while.
Australian band Men At Work will always be associated with their breakout hit ‘Down Under’ which dominated the charts around the world between December 1981 and February 1983. The song follows a globetrotting Australian, partly inspired by singer Colin Hay’s own foreign travels. The song’s hook is largely thanks to the band’s multi-instrumentalist Greg Ham who deftly weaves a segment of the traditional song ‘Kookaburra’ – as in “Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree” – on the flute.
The song is so uniquely Australian that it remains beloved in its home country and is regularly featured at sporting events and in all-time favourite song charts.
Which makes it a crushing shame that all that success has been soured by a very nasty copyright lawsuit. The nature of the legal problem comes down to the perception that ‘Kookaburra’ was a traditional song and in the public domain. It most certainly wasn’t.
It didn’t all go wrong straight away, mind you. In fact, it took until 2007. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation was running a quiz show called ‘Spicks and Specks’ that featured the following question: “What children’s song is contained in the song ‘Down Under’?”
The answer prompted a flurry of contact with Larrikin Music who, it transpired, held the song’s copyright. ‘Kookaburra’ had been written in 1932 by Marion Sinclair, but upon her death the rights were passed to Larrikin (although, in a further complication, in the US the rights are held by another company).
Two decades may have passed already but Larrikin were in no hurry to flex their legal muscles, waiting until June of 2009 to claim copyright infringement. The band lost the court battle and Larrikin chased damages of up to 60% of royalties – what promised to be a significant blow for Men At Work. The judge, though, took pity on them, possibly due to the immensity of elapsed time. Larrikin were awarded just 5%, and only from 2002. Regardless, the toll on the band members was significant and Colin Hay has claimed the stress of the lawsuit contributed to Greg Ham’s death in 2012.
A year after ‘Down Under’ sat in the UK charts came the release of blockbuster movie ‘Ghostbusters’. The hit song that accompanies the film was written by Ray Parker Jr and so great was its success, in its own right, that it’s thought to have inflated the box-office gross by $20 million.
The producers of ‘Ghostbusters’ required Parker Jr to deliver the theme song in just a handful of days, and they included the caveat that the finished song must feature the movie’s title in the lyrics. Parker Jr found inspiration from a late night TV commercial that reminded him of the film’s own cheaply made ad, so the finished song became a call and response over a thumping melody.
The song was catchy and instantly memorable, but the person whose ears pricked up the most was Huey Lewis of Huey Lewis And The News. ’Ghostbusters’ sounded incredibly familiar. In 1983, Huey Lewis And The News had recorded ‘I Want A New Drug’ and the similarities were striking. Who you gonna call? The lawyers.
Lewis sued Parker Jr and it looked as if the whole sorry tale would be aired in public. It wasn’t to be, with an out-of-court settlement being reached in 1985 with a confidentiality agreement attached to prevent the nature of the financial settlement being discussed. Parker Jr would claim it was one of many lawsuits, shrugging off the interest as an inevitability of having such an enormous hit record.
That might have been the end of the matter, but a VH1 show ‘Behind The Music’ interviewed Lewis and he repeated the claim of theft. Parker Jr pointed straight to the confidentiality agreement and sued Lewis, forcing him to cough up $30,000 in compensation.
On the basis of the above you’d be forgiven for thinking that Lewis was a greedy chancer and Parker Jr an innocent victim of coincidence. If so, and if you’re able to, give ‘I Want A New Drug’ a play.
It doesn’t require any intense scrutiny to understand Lewis’s point of view, which, I might add, was a point of view fully backed by the ‘Ghostbusters’ filmmakers in 2004 during an interview in Premiere magazine. They confessed to using ‘I Want A New Drug’ as placeholder music throughout the film, even offering the opportunity to record the main theme to Huey Lewis And The News, which they’d clearly turned down. Parker Jr had been given the rough cut with the band’s song in place when he’d taken up the gig, which suggests rather strongly that Lewis was 100% right.
Sometimes, though, the lawsuit is a little more unusual. Kanye West created a music video for his 2006 song ‘Touch The Sky’ that saw him mimicking stunt-daredevil Evel Knievel (West became Evel Kanyevel). Knievel sued claiming West was using his image to ‘catapult himself on the public’. In a charm offensive, West paid Knievel a visit at his home in Florida and managed to get him to drop the case.
Or there’s the time that Bill Wyman sued Bill Wyman. Not himself, I hasten to add. The Rolling Stones bassist took exception with a music journalist of the same name who wrote for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Musician Wyman got his lawyers to issue a cease and desist letter to Journalist Wyman. At the very least, Musician Wyman wanted some sort of disclaimer on Journalist Wyman’s byline, presumably along the lines of “By Bill Wyman (no, not that one)”. The irony here, of course, is that Bill Wyman is not Musician Wyman’s real name. It’s William George Perks. Journalist Wyman, quite rightly, ignored the letter.
Then there’s the time that John Fogerty was sued for sounding like himself. His former band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, had been signed to Fantasy Records
and said label decided to sue Fogerty for copyright infringement because his new single sounded like Creedence Clearwater Revival – specifically the song ‘Run Through The Jungle’.
Considering Fogerty had been the vocalist and songwriter on both records, that’s hardly surprising. Fogerty ended up playing both songs to the jury and they ruled in his favour, ending what has been described as a lawsuit of self-plagiarism.
In 2001, garbageman DeAngelo Bailey sued Eminem for $1 million claiming the rapper had ruined his reputation. Eminem’s album, ‘The Slim Shady LP’ contained the song ‘Brain Damage’ with the following lyrics: “I was harassed daily by this fat kid named DeAngelo Bailey/He banged my head against the urinal till he broke my nose, soaked my clothes in blood, grabbed me and choked my throat.”
But this wasn’t a case of the garbageman inadvertently sharing a similar name. Eminem absolutely meant him specifically. He was deliberately targeting his childhood bully, back when he was simply Marshall Mathers, a fact supported by a lawsuit filed against the school by his mother. Although this original lawsuit didn’t go anywhere, it did document the abuse, so not only did the judge find in Eminem’s favour, she issued her decision by rapping it.
Sometimes, though, the lawsuit comes out of nowhere. Hall & Oates had a multitude of hits during the 70s and 80s, with Daryl Hall and John Oates writing and performing the bulk of their output. Their success has allowed them to continue writing and recording, and they were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, spent the next few years touring, and announced that they were working on a new album at the beginning of 2020. Initially, it seemed like Covid had put paid to that, but when regular keyboardist Eliot Lewis departed in 2023 it hinted that not all was well.
In November of that year Hall was stunned to learn that Oates was trying to flog his half of their joint music partnership without talking to Hall about it. Blindsided, Hall issued a temporary restraining order, using the courts to block the sale.
It quickly transpired that they’d been hiding serious creative differences for over two decades, with Hall telling Billboard Magazine that Oates had decided a long time ago that he ‘didn’t want to do it anymore’ but didn’t make a parting of the ways easy or possible. Consequently, they’d rock up on stage, perform to an unknowing crowd, then depart with barely a word said between them. For years.
The legal move was simply the final straw, bringing the whole sorry situation into the open. At least they don’t have to pretend any longer.
One of the biggest feuding bands in music history, though, is Pink Floyd. In 1984 the fractious band met for dinner to discuss their future.
When the meal was over Nick Mason and Dave Gilmour went home on the understanding that Pink Floyd would continue together once Roger Waters had completed his solo project. Somehow, though, Roger Waters left the restaurant thinking that the band was over. This interaction probably tells you all you need to know about their ability to get along and communicate.
Matters could only get worse. Waters made it publicly known that he thought the band were finished and, seeing it as a done deal, he contacted the band’s manager, Steve O’Rourke, to work out future royalties.
This wasn’t something O’Rourke felt he could discuss without Mason and Gilmour’s input, so he contacted them. Waters was furious that he should do such a thing and wanted him terminated as manager, but had to settle with just terminating his own management contract and appointment himself a new manager.
His next step was to let the record label know he was done. His plan, it later transpired, was to stop Pink Floyd from making new albums, thus breaching their contract and suspending royalty payments.
Determined to stop them from using the band name, Waters went to the High Court to dissolve the band.
This failed as it was never a formal partnership, so he tried again in an attempt to stop the remaining band members from calling themselves Pink Floyd. Without him, as he saw it, they weren’t and couldn’t be Pink Floyd. Gilmour and Mason disagreed and – as you’ve probably noticed – carried on, probably with some relief that their ex-bandmate had so comprehensively self-severed himself.
More recent court cases, such as Marvin Gaye’s estate versus...
To read the full article, you’ll need to have a physical copy of the magazine which you can sign up for here for 6 issues delivered to your door from just £16!
https://store.promobile.online/products/pro-mobile-magazine-6-issue-1-year-subscription
You’ll also get full access to this article and the last year of articles, reviews and play lists via the Pro DJ App
