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Authored by: albert on Tuesday, May 21 2013 @ 07:35 PM EDT |
I'm not defending the Men At Work case ruling. It certainly might have been
unfair. Wikipedia has a long entry on the George Harrison/"My Sweet
Lord" case, which was a nightmare for everyone involved. Still, even
non-musicians recognized the similarity between "My Sweet Lord" and
"He's So Fine".
If I independently created a melody, there is a slim chance that it might copy
an existing copyrighted one. It's unintentional infringement. It's so difficult
to prove independent creation anyway. As with patents, so with music. The
Beatles, and Men At Work, are huge targets. The royalty system for music
specifies 'per disk' and 'per performance' rates for songwriters, so there are
limits for settlements. Giving up your royalties sucks, but the law has no
provisions for unintentional infringement. You copy, you pay.
The system would have no teeth if it allowed exceptions.
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