Re: [Harp-L] copyright issues and permission

[Chris Tognela <chris@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Re: the copyright of a groove.

In Australia recently, the flute groove in the iconic Men at Work tune  
'Down Under' was found to be a derivative of 'Kookaburra sits in the  
old gum tree'. Last I heard, there was a large amount of money  
involved and the lawyers were salivating...

Better check with a lawyer. :(

Chris Tognela

On 30/03/2010, at 15:43, Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> > How does that work if you use say the mojo working groove but have  
> > different lyrics. Is it groove based or lyric based or ..... we are  
> > planning a demo cd and this info would very useful to save a ton of  
> > anguish/$$.
>
> You can't copyright a groove.  I don't remember exactly how it  
> turned out, but Michael McDonald's people were said to be pretty  
> ticked off when the pop song Steal Away pretty much copped the  
> precise groove of What A Fool Believes.  But I doubt anyone had to  
> pay anything, even though that groove was fantastically original.
>
> Used to, you couldn't copyright an arrangement.
>
> Now you can, but copyrighting a groove doesn't sound likely.  A song  
> is what gets copyrighted - lyrics, a melody, changes, all together.   
> An arrangement can't be stolen the way they used to be stolen, but I  
> believe it has to be associated with a song.  It's mainly to prevent  
> 'sound-alike recordings, which mimicked hit songs quite precisely.
>
> I'm not a lawyer, so you have to take my advice with a giant grain  
> of salt, but though there have been many lawsuits for song theft, I  
> never heard of anyone copyrighting a groove or suing for such a  
> thing.  The Mojo groove is part of American music, even if someone  
> had to invent it to begin with.
>
> Now, if you also copped the melody, you might consider coming up  
> with a new one.
>
> Deifik's Sound-alike Story: Selling sound-alikes for cheap was a  
> real business back in the 70's.  Many of the eight track tapes sold  
> in truck stops were sound-alikes.  They sold for alot less than the  
> original hit, and most people probably couldn't tell the  
> difference.  I used to make part of my living playing on those  
> things.  I was hired to copy Charlie McCoy's parts, and so were some  
> other harp players.  Often the same guys that were on the original  
> recording just did it again for the sound-alike producer, who was a  
> beloved and legendary figure in Nashville, a world-famous musician  
> whose music had gone out of fashion, just trying to make a living.   
> I also came in when a hit recording had a non-professional playing  
> harp.  Grrr.   I played on the sound-alike of John Denver's Back  
> Home Again, which had some very non-professional sounding harp on  
> it.  It's hard to play like a newbie if you aren't a newbie.  It was  
> much easier to copy Charlie McCoy, though it wasn't a picnic.  Years  
> later I worked for a company in NY that bought this Nashville sound- 
> alike company, only I didn't know they owned the recordings I was  
> on.  Boxes of their recordings came in, and I pulled one out and  
> started playing it on my office turntable.  The first song was Back  
> Home Again.  It sounded ever so slightly off.  Then the harp player  
> came on and I said to myself "Gee, I don't recall that harp player  
> playing so clean.  I thought he was an amateur."  Then I recognized  
> myself.