Ecstatic Beats
New member
If I remake a beat that I heard, and use a different instrument than them but the melody sounds similar, can they sue me if I'm not making any profit off of it?
Lawsuit issues.
- Thread starter Ecstatic Beats
- Start date
Cayden Carrell
Active member
They can sure. But will they? Doubt it.
If your song went viral and got millions of spotify/youtube/itunes spins I am sure they would.
You can google cases where such lawsuits has happened. Some won - some lost.
If your song went viral and got millions of spotify/youtube/itunes spins I am sure they would.
You can google cases where such lawsuits has happened. Some won - some lost.
bandcoach
Zukatoku - Mod Scientist
the similarity test is not based on the sounds but on the actual musical notes - so if the same notes or even the same notes transposed (see below) are used then, yes, you may be pursued to do one of three things,
sign over the rights to the song to them
cease distributing the song
pay punitive damages for infringing on their original creative production
note that most legal action is not about whether you are making money but about ownership of the original musical idea. In most instances, it hardly ever proceeds to trial as one or the other parties settles before it gets there. there are notable exceptions such as the My Sweet Lord/He's So Fine case, but these are few and far between (the only other one I can think of off-the-top of my head is the I Want a New Drug/Ghostbusters/Pop Music Riff fiasco)
transposed melody the following two note sequences are identical
C-E-F-D-G-E-D-B-C
G-B-C-A-D-B-A-F#-G
Why? because when we compare the melodies, we use the following method
1-3-4-2-5-3-2-7-1
Now let's come back to the scale of both versions of this melody:
using this we can determine that both melodies match the same pattern. Of course the idea of melodic direction has been eliminated in the above example, but it can quickly be added
C / E / F / D \ G \ E / D \ B / C
G / B / C / A \ D \ B \ A \ F# / G
in this version the notes are the same but the octave placement is disjunct in one places
in C major
E went up a 7th to D and then fell to B and rose C
in G major
B went down a 2nd to A then fell to F# then rose G
However, imo, the melodic profile is not interrupted by this obvious trick to avoid it being the exact same notes - remove the octave jump and it is still the same melody....
however just because the two melodies have the same notes in the same sequence, this is not sufficient to claim the same melody for both, in addition the rhythmic ideas need to be the same. From an analytical point this is very similar to the melodic notes sequence explore above, although issues to do with meter (Simple (dividing the beat and smaller units into two equal parts ) vs Compound (dividing the beat into 3 equal parts then dividing all smaller components into 2 equal parts)) may complicate the issue for the uninformed/uneducated.
sign over the rights to the song to them
cease distributing the song
pay punitive damages for infringing on their original creative production
note that most legal action is not about whether you are making money but about ownership of the original musical idea. In most instances, it hardly ever proceeds to trial as one or the other parties settles before it gets there. there are notable exceptions such as the My Sweet Lord/He's So Fine case, but these are few and far between (the only other one I can think of off-the-top of my head is the I Want a New Drug/Ghostbusters/Pop Music Riff fiasco)
transposed melody the following two note sequences are identical
C-E-F-D-G-E-D-B-C
G-B-C-A-D-B-A-F#-G
Why? because when we compare the melodies, we use the following method
1-3-4-2-5-3-2-7-1
Now let's come back to the scale of both versions of this melody:
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 (1) |
| C | D | E | F | G | A | B | C |
| G | A | B | C | D | E | F# | G |
using this we can determine that both melodies match the same pattern. Of course the idea of melodic direction has been eliminated in the above example, but it can quickly be added
C / E / F / D \ G \ E / D \ B / C
G / B / C / A \ D \ B \ A \ F# / G
in this version the notes are the same but the octave placement is disjunct in one places
in C major
E went up a 7th to D and then fell to B and rose C
in G major
B went down a 2nd to A then fell to F# then rose G
However, imo, the melodic profile is not interrupted by this obvious trick to avoid it being the exact same notes - remove the octave jump and it is still the same melody....
however just because the two melodies have the same notes in the same sequence, this is not sufficient to claim the same melody for both, in addition the rhythmic ideas need to be the same. From an analytical point this is very similar to the melodic notes sequence explore above, although issues to do with meter (Simple (dividing the beat and smaller units into two equal parts ) vs Compound (dividing the beat into 3 equal parts then dividing all smaller components into 2 equal parts)) may complicate the issue for the uninformed/uneducated.
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