They are the paradoxes of the present. Perhaps these years, due to the hegemony of the technological giants, are not the best time for artists to aspire to achieve adequate compensation for their efforts. However, it does turn out to be a splendid juncture for copyright lawyers, with their cohorts of musicologists specializing in detecting (or denying) similarities. We are seeing a wave of plagiarism lawsuits, with seemingly contradictory results: the heirs of the soulman Marvin Gaye won $5.3 million by getting it considered blurred linesby Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, was considered a derivation of Got to give it up, a theme by the late Gaye. However, they have crashed in their claim to force Ed Sheeran to acknowledge the debt of his Thinking out loud with one of Marvin’s biggest hits, the lubricious Let’s get it on.
We are facing a new era of plagiarism litigation. The current ubiquity of sites like YouTube or Spotify makes it easy to jump the first hurdle: proving that the accused could have known about the copied song. In reality, we do not have exact data on the hostilities on this front: a large part of the conflicts do not reach the courts. Remember the history of the Oasis group, whose main composer, Noel Gallagher, had no objection to admitting their looting: there are more than thirty “loans” located in the discography of the Manchester group, which in the most obvious cases were resolved with out-of-court agreements ( and the addition in credits of the name of the plagiarist to that of Gallagher).
What has multiplied are the precautions of the artists who, due to their high visibility, can be prosecuted and end up in the pillory before there is a sentence. Let’s say that now the Paul McCartney Model prevails over the George Harrison Model. When McCartney outlined the melodic framework of what would be the ballad yesterday, which supposedly came to him in a dream back in 1964, he spent the next few weeks asking music business veterans if it sounded like any pre-existing songs. George Harrison was one of the colleagues who complained about the turra that Paul gave with what was then called Scrambled Eggs (Scrambled eggsto recognize morning inspiration).
Harrison did not learn his lesson. When he recorded his sublime My Sweet Lordin 1970, did not observe the similarities with He’s so fine, by The Chiffons, a female group from the Bronx that reached No. 1 in the United States in 1963. It is surprising that neither the co-producer, Phil Spector, nor the American musicians present warned him. It seems that no one dared to deflate the ego of a beatles; there were critics who commented All things must pass, the album that contained the song, and they did point out the resemblance. But Harrison made no move. He edited the topic as single and, apart from being subjected to a prolonged procedural ordeal, he paid dearly for it. The only consolation was that the New York judge who sentenced him suggested that the plagiarism may have been subconscious. With typical cruelty of his, John Lennon would scoff at that excuse: “George maybe thought God would get him out of the jam.”
Conscious or unconscious, appropriations are part of any composer’s toolbox (and that includes classical authors). Issues? He publishing The song business used to be a gentlemen’s business—there weren’t many women, sorry—where disputes were settled amicably, since lawsuits were expensive and brought bad publicity to both parties. All that has changed with the age of clickbait, where the word “plagiarism” works like a magnet. In addition, after insistent campaigns of lobbythe concept of intellectual property is expanding in time and, attention, in territory.
![Puerto Rican reggaeton singer Daddy Yankee in a concert at WiZink in 2019.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/eqibNuicE5MkD3vHEWt3vNlBBFc=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/MIHUBFIPVXKLQLYF2TDUJONGKE.jpg)
The next big battle has nothing to do with the creations of Ed Sheeran or similar stars. Now it is a matter of vindicating the rhythmic patterns, previously unprotected. By specifying, the recognition of the rhythm of Fish Market, an instrumental that appeared around 1990 on the B-side of a vinyl by Steely & Clevie, Jamaican producers. It was popularized with the vocal contribution of Shabba Ranks as dem bowa theme later covered by the Panamanian artist El General.
Until then, that was another phenomenon of the dance hall Jamaican, digital music with somewhat impenetrable lyrics (Shabba Ranks was banned internationally after it was learned that it recommended the murder of homosexuals). but the rhythm dembow became universal as a fundamental stone of reggaeton. Now, Steely & Clevie Productions are denouncing the misuse of their find in more than 50 songs, including Gasoline (Daddy Yankee) and Slowly (Luis Fonsi). If it were finally determined that it was a robbery, the compensation would be stratospheric.
If it goes ahead, the plaintiffs will demand that the matter be decided by a jury. They may very well play the race card: Jamaican creators tend to be very black and their Puerto Rican disciples are white or mixed-race. This is not by chance, the issue goes beyond identity: Jamaican artists and producers are certainly poor compared to the reggaeton figures, with their millionaire income from royalties, tours and sponsorships.
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