"GAME ON" lawsuit against Carrie Underwood

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
Check it out---then you might understand more about---my post "LOW DOWN DIRTY TRUTH ABOUT SONG WRITING" I sure hope the plaintive wins.:Beer::Beer::Beer:
 

Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
So... this is interesting to me...

I found this page:
https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/...inger-stole-sunday-night-football-theme-song/

Which has both versions of the song, Carrie Underwood's and the plaintiff's...

Other than the groove, I don't see the similarity. And the groove is a pretty standard thing and not something you should be able to copyright.

The melody is different in both the verses and the hook, and the words are, in many cases, quite a bit different. The chord progression is basically one chord... and even it's different in the "original" version.

Was one inspired by the other? Hard to say, and I guess it'll come out in court whether or not Carrie ever heard the plaintiff's version. But from what I hear they are substantially different.

However, I'm listening from the perspective of a musically trained ear. The groove, like I said, is very similar - and that's what most people's ear will latch on to right away. Should be interesting to hear how this shakes out - though I suspect it'll never got to court, someone will just get paid to go away :(
 

Crossroads

Thump the Bottom
I think above and beyond similarity intent has to be involved to actually copy the artist's material. When I look at some of the Led Zeppelin stuff it's hard to say that's not outright plagiarism.

Conversely when I heard Griff's new Bourbon and a Pistol, right away I heard Sonny Landreth's Congo Square. From the groove to the meter of the lyrics to the staccato guitar fills that's what I hear, but that is certainly subjective. Do I think for a minute that Griff would intentionally try to copy that song, not a chance.

So I think that above and beyond whether things sound alike, and that certainly is subjective
or not there needs to be an intent on the artist to purposely copy someone else's material.

And by the way @Griff very nicely done. Maybe trade some slide agajnst those horns live?
 
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jackderby52

Prehistoric blues knob (not newbie)
At some point it seems like everything could get stepped on with all the millions of songs out there... It doesn't help we live in a lawsuit happy society.. In my book, It's a shame we have to be worried about such things...
 

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
JMOP--No I do not think Carrie Underwood stole the song her self---But I do think Carrie (who is way to busy counting her $$$$$ to sit down and write songs) did hear a RE-WRITTEN VERSION of the song that did pass through one of her STAFFS HANDS---(the MOLE)---Carrie liked it and did it unknowing that the song had been originally done by someone else---The news article Griff posted is NOT the same one I read on YAHOO that prompted this post.
The CBS one does not go into any depth about the meetings between her (The original) and one of Carries employees----(Names).
Hopefully Carrie will jump up to the plate and give the other lady a chance just like American Idol did her...JMOP .:thumbdown:
 

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
I just read the Led Zepplin lawsuit on "Whole Lotta love--vs. Muddy Waters "You need love" that was written by Willie Dixon....if I remember right Willie Dixon won the suit.....and I think it was $4,000,000???----At the end of the movie "Cadillac Records" (pretty much the story of Chess Records) they tell how much it was----If any of you have not watched it you should. It is a great movie and can still be bought off E-BAY----at least it was 5-7 years ago.
After reading the above article it looks as though Zepp helped them selves to a "Whole lotta" of other peoples songs.
 

Terry B

Humble student of the blues
Lots of folks helped themselves to other peoples songs. Few more so than Willie Dixon if you believe Buddy Guy in his book, When I Left Home.

According to Buddy, Willie was well positioned when bluesmen arrived from Mississippi with a guitar and a song to offer them a couple hundred bucks for the rights to their song. Most signed on the line, knowing they would never see any royalties anyway, and needing the money to eat.
 

Iheartbacon

Blues Junior
Those two songs are not even close. They are both up beat country style and both contain the hardly uncommon words “game on” but that’s about it. If that is enough for copyright infringement, then we might as well declare every possible song has already been written and every “new” composition is a rip-off.
 

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
Lots of folks helped themselves to other peoples songs. Few more so than Willie Dixon if you believe Buddy Guy in his book, When I Left Home.

According to Buddy, Willie was well positioned when bluesmen arrived from Mississippi with a guitar and a song to offer them a couple hundred bucks for the rights to their song. Most signed on the line, knowing they would never see any royalties anyway, and needing the money to eat.
Back in them days $200 bucks was BIG BUCKS-50s early 60s I made $1.25 an hour making caskets---bring home check was $44.60--rent was $85 a month. So they made just a little less than I made in 5 months. None of them old blues players made much. Even Elvis only made .08 cents a record....when he started out with SUN. You got to sell a lot of records to make any money at them rates---(he did).
 

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
I don't know who's in trouble the most----Blues Musicians or The Rappers--(every one of there's sounds the same to me).
 
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CaptainMoto

Blues Voyager
I don't know who's in trouble the most----Blues Musicians or The Rappers--(every one of there's sounds the same to me).
Yeah!
Good thing is............I don't need to worry about law suits, they only go after the big money.
That Katy Perry song had 2.6 BILLION views on Youtube.
If they made 1/2 penny on each view, that's $13 million:whistle:

Maybe I need to focus on lawsuits instead of music.
 

blackcoffeeblues

Student Of The Blues
That Katy Perry song had 2.6 BILLION views on Youtube.
If they made 1/2 penny on each view, that's $13 million:whistle:
she's probably glad she lost>

Kind of reminds of "Harley-Davidson" trying to secure a "Patent Sound" trademark" back in 2000.---Honda and Yamaha---were trying to recreate the Harley sound---it didn't float, they finally gave up.
 

Jalapeno

Student Of The Blues
The issue from my point of view:

1. monetizing music means least common denominator as the public likes what they already know (don't forget we are musicians here in this forum and listen to music differently than non-musicians)
2. decade after decade the least common denominator gets smaller
3. the acceptable (to the public) chord progressions are very few now
4. with fewer acceptable chord progressions the possible melodies are greatly reduced
5. with 12 notes and rhythmic subdivisions of 16 the possible melodies should be 12^16 or 8,916,100,448,256 different combinations per bar. Now if your phrasing is 8 bars raise that number to the 8th power. But the public likes only a tiny, tiny fraction of those melodies.
6. math makes my head hurt, but so does Katy Perry.
 

Griff

Vice Assistant General Manager
Staff member
Yeah!
Good thing is............I don't need to worry about law suits, they only go after the big money.
That Katy Perry song had 2.6 BILLION views on Youtube.
If they made 1/2 penny on each view, that's $13 million:whistle:

Maybe I need to focus on lawsuits instead of music.
That's not the way YouTube works, sadly. She probably saw $13, not $13 million.

There's an interesting trend going on - not to hijack this thread but I think it's relevant...

Many blues artists don't even really bother to write songs anymore (much like many pop artists...) Why do you suppose that is?

Well, I'll give you an example, Peter Frampton said on Twitter that for 55 MILLION streams of "Baby I Love Your Way" on Spotify, he got $1700... not enough to make a living in any market, really.

The public has devalued new music to the point where it is no longer lucrative for many artists to write new music. If there's no benefit to writing a new song, why bother?

Now, obviously, some artists live for that craft - but many don't. They used to take the time and energy to write a song (which is an unproven commodity in the music business) because the rewards could be great if it was a hit.

Now, though, it's much better to take a proven commodity (song) and re-record it and pay the miniscule royalty to the writer and make your money on the tour and with merchandise.

Shoot, half the songs on most of my favorite blues albums now are remakes of classic blues tunes (the new Peter Frampton record comes to mind, as does the last couple of Clapton albums.)

If I were to put out an album full of songs I didn't write, it would cost me a few percent of the tiny amount of money I make from the recording. But, since those songs are proven, it might reach a much larger audience than my songs would (since the public has, by and large, proven that they are not interested in unproven songs) and therefore concert attendance would be bigger and my ticket sales and merchandise sales and potential amp/guitar/whatever endorsements would be bigger.

The monetization of the music industry has shifted dramatically. Joe Bonamassa rode this wave better than anyone. I don't think he wrote more than one song per album on the first several he did. Now he does because he's big enough that people will listen because of his name.

But notice he also did these "tribute" tours where he pulled from the back catalog of the 3 Kings, Howlin' Wolf, etc. Not to mention the British Blues tour he did. Notice that he didn't even bother putting out an album for those, just booked the tour and recorded the show.

If the lawsuits put the final nail in the coffin, you won't see a lot of new material coming from anyone, and that's what will be the real shame.

** end rant **
 

CaptainMoto

Blues Voyager
That's not the way YouTube works, sadly. She probably saw $13, not $13 million.

There's an interesting trend going on - not to hijack this thread but I think it's relevant...

Many blues artists don't even really bother to write songs anymore (much like many pop artists...) Why do you suppose that is?

Well, I'll give you an example, Peter Frampton said on Twitter that for 55 MILLION streams of "Baby I Love Your Way" on Spotify, he got $1700... not enough to make a living in any market, really.

The public has devalued new music to the point where it is no longer lucrative for many artists to write new music. If there's no benefit to writing a new song, why bother?

Now, obviously, some artists live for that craft - but many don't. They used to take the time and energy to write a song (which is an unproven commodity in the music business) because the rewards could be great if it was a hit.

Now, though, it's much better to take a proven commodity (song) and re-record it and pay the miniscule royalty to the writer and make your money on the tour and with merchandise.

Shoot, half the songs on most of my favorite blues albums now are remakes of classic blues tunes (the new Peter Frampton record comes to mind, as does the last couple of Clapton albums.)

If I were to put out an album full of songs I didn't write, it would cost me a few percent of the tiny amount of money I make from the recording. But, since those songs are proven, it might reach a much larger audience than my songs would (since the public has, by and large, proven that they are not interested in unproven songs) and therefore concert attendance would be bigger and my ticket sales and merchandise sales and potential amp/guitar/whatever endorsements would be bigger.

The monetization of the music industry has shifted dramatically. Joe Bonamassa rode this wave better than anyone. I don't think he wrote more than one song per album on the first several he did. Now he does because he's big enough that people will listen because of his name.

But notice he also did these "tribute" tours where he pulled from the back catalog of the 3 Kings, Howlin' Wolf, etc. Not to mention the British Blues tour he did. Notice that he didn't even bother putting out an album for those, just booked the tour and recorded the show.

If the lawsuits put the final nail in the coffin, you won't see a lot of new material coming from anyone, and that's what will be the real shame.

** end rant **
Rant On Brother!
I'm just sticking my toe into monetizing music and it's a mind boggling nest of complexity, thieves and an audience who doesn't pay for music.
I shouldn't complain though, today I received royalties of $0.21 from Distrokid for the 5 albums I have out there (y)
 
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