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Led Zep: Thieving Magpies!


elctmist

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Originally posted by elctmist



Okay so we understand that you feel it's fine for LZ to take "inspiration" (including lyrics and musical structure) from old bluesmen, without credit.


How do you feel about Jimmy Page appropriating large chunks of the tune "Dazed & Confused", which was written by Jack Holmes in NYC in '66. Is that also fine?

 

 

To clarify my position, I think LZ was caught up in the moment and went forward with their creative process--it's not like they held a band meeting and voted to steal someone else's music. Which brings up another good question--did they, or could they have known they were violating the law by using lyrics from old blues recordings? Had there been legal precedents set on the matter? I doubt it.

 

Memphis Minnie recorded When The Levee Breaks in 1929--over 40 years before Led Zepplin recorded it. If I'm not mistaken, her copyright--if she ever had one--expired within 25 years. The laws changed in the mid-70's to extend copyright periods to the life of the writer plus 50 years.

 

As for Jake Holmes and Dazed and Confused, I've never heard his version, have you? I read the lyrics to Holmes' version and the only similarity is the phrase I'm Dazed and Confused. The rest of the lyrcs are different. Holmes can't copyright a popular phrase like dazed and confused anymore than I can copyright the phrase I love you-- it's too generic.

 

Reports from people having heard Holmes' version claim he also had the descending bass lines, but those notes have been played in countless pieces of music. So much for your theory on LZ stealing large chunks of Holmes' song. What LZ borrowed was an idea for a song, which is no more copyrightable than an idea for an invention is patentable.

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Originally posted by GuitslingerTim


Memphis Minnie recorded
When The Levee Breaks
in 1929--over 60 years before Led Zepplin recorded it. If I'm not mistaken, her copyright--if she ever had one--expired within 25 years. The laws changed in the mid-70's to extend copyright periods to the life of the writer plus 50 years.

 

 

I don't know if I go for this argument. I believe that Holst's planet suite is way out of copyright. So if I decided to do a version of "Mars" could I credit it to myself rather than Holst?

 

And they didn't just take the lyrics from when the Levee breaks, they took the melody and structure.

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Not to take sides in either direction with this post. But since people keep bringing up copyright law and whether you can steal from blues musicians, here is a very famous case from 1917, involving the first sound recording of a jazz band, and an ex-clarinetist that had the copyright on the tune before his old band recorded it:
http://www.geocities.com/BourbonStreet/5135/NuChi.html

Not the most scholarly article ever written, but a fun read.

Note, by the way -- even though this case set no precedence, it had a big impact on tradition. Not too many people traditionally try to sue over a tune that follows a 12-bar blues form. BUT -- that's just for the 12-bar blues. Blues musicians use all kinds of other structures and things, and there's no reason they can't be given ownership of them if they came up with them first. Notice in the article that Nunez (the plaintiff) stopped writing 12-bar structures, but continued to call his stuff the Blues. And since is this at a time when that music was probably only about ten years old or younger, that matters quite a bit.

EDIT: quick post-script: after the lawsuit, OJDB avoided further trouble by calling the tune in question "Barnyard Blues" to distinguish it from the previously composed "Livery Stable Blues" over which Nunez sued. And that's the only thing they did. These guys were pretty freaking scummy themselves.

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ELP used to put snippets of classical music in their songs all the time without necessarily crediting them. They got in trouble on their first album because the composer(Bartok, I think) still had copyright on the music they did.

Not Mars, though. The ELP(owell) version of that is one of the greatest things I've ever heard.



Originally posted by elctmist



I don't know if I go for this argument. I believe that Holst's planet suite is way out of copyright. So if I decided to do a version of "Mars" could I credit it to myself rather than Holst?


And they didn't just take the lyrics from when the Levee breaks, they took the melody and structure.

 

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I found this interesting.
From;
http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7687812/pearljam?pageid=rs.NewsArchive&pageregion=mainRegion
"With a stellar set already behind them, Pearl Jam's second encore made the ticket price seem like a bargain. The band began it with the Yield song "Given to Fly" -- a track both the Seattle rockers and Led Zeppelin have acknowledged owes a debt to the Seventies veterans' "Going to California." Vedder went so far as to dedicate the song to Plant and, as it tapered off, the Strange Sensation supplanted Pearl Jam, with Plant, who'd performed a seven-song opening set, appearing at stage left to transform the song into the tune that inspired it. Vedder, bassist Jeff Ament and guitarist Mike McCready stood back and were regaled by the Tall Cool One."


I remember when the song came out, and right away thinking it did sound like Going to Cali

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Originally posted by hoerni

If they were already public domain, then while it's still wrong for Zep to take credit, it's not like the original authors would have received anything anyway.

 

 

 

Just because something is public domain doesn't mean the original author doesn't get credit. That's like taking the works of Bierce (who i presume is no longer under copyright), using the same words, and slapping your name on it. Lots of things were "borrowed" but Zep seems to have purposefully made an effort to disregard that fact.

 

 

also: i think cosby has an Ed.

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Originally posted by Jakeowen

I remember when the song came out, and right away thinking it did sound like Going to Cali



On a somewhat related note, I hope that Zep never had the balls to sue any rapper for using their drum loops, given their history. After learning about all of their little "borrowings", I'd almost be tempted to call them the original kings of organic sampling. :D

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Originally posted by Vere




Just because something is public domain doesn't mean the original author doesn't get credit. That's like taking the works of Bierce (who i presume is no longer under copyright), using the same words, and slapping your name on it. Lots of things were "borrowed" but Zep seems to have purposefully made an effort to disregard that fact.



also: i think cosby has an Ed.

 

 

 

I think we are in agreement on the fact that what Zeppelin did was morally wrong. They stole credit for something claimed it as their own. This not only was dishonest, but also increased the cost of the album as the mechanical (I think that's the right one) royalties were shared by the new "authors" If it was out of copyright, then there wouldn't have been any royalities (and that's the only point I'm making).

 

When you buy a copy of a Beethoven piece, the performance is copyrighted, but the work is not. So there are less royalities to be paid, and that's why classical CDs typically cost less. (Now I'm sure someone will come along to shot down that theory, CD prices are very inflated anyway, so I'd believe there was another explanation)

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Originally posted by hoerni



When you buy a copy of a Beethoven piece, the performance is copyrighted, but the work is not. So there are less royalities to be paid, and that's why classical CDs typically cost less. (Now I'm sure someone will come along to shot down that theory, CD prices are very inflated anyway, so I'd believe there was another explanation)

 

 

Yeah... I'll go ahead and be that guy.

 

Classical CDs don't typically cost less. The good ones were the cutting edge of overpricing when the prices started to get out of hand in the first place. Budget labels do it by using young musicians or Central European Orchestras who can work for less money. And a well-recorded classical performance is two expensive microphones well-placed in a nice sounding room, so there is money to be saved there, too.

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Originally posted by hoerni

When you buy a copy of a Beethoven piece, the performance is copyrighted, but the work is not. So there are less royalities to be paid, and that's why classical CDs typically cost less. (Now I'm sure someone will come along to shot down that theory, CD prices are very inflated anyway, so I'd believe there was another explanation)

 

 

That's almost a whole other thread. I'm not sure new classical recordings *are* cheaper than pop/rock stuff. It's just that they have/had a backlog of previously recorded stuff to remaster and get out on disk.

 

I'm pretty sure that it's hugely expensive to do a decent acoustic recording of a full orchestra if you think of the logistics and the size of studio you'd need.

 

But I don't *know* for sure.

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Originally posted by ginnboonmiller



Yeah... I'll go ahead and be that guy.


Classical CDs don't typically cost less. The good ones were the cutting edge of overpricing when the prices started to get out of hand in the first place. Budget labels do it by using young musicians or Central European Orchestras who can work for less money. And a well-recorded classical performance is two expensive microphones well-placed in a nice sounding room, so there is money to be saved there, too.

 

 

 

Well at least I was shot down by one of the best. I always bought my classical CDs for the Tower outlet on 4th street. They used to be in the $4-$5 range while popular ones were above $10. Some were really bad quality though, so it could be I was scraping the bottom of the barrel.

 

So what percentage of a CD is dure to the royalties then?

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Originally posted by hoerni



Which Sabbath tune is the friends theme based on? I can't think of it (although I don't own all the albums)

 

 

"After Forever", second song on Master of Reality. Just that opening riff, but I remember hearing that song for the first time and going 'man, what the {censored}?'

 

Da na na na nanna na, na na na...they might've 'Vanilla Iced' it - on little bar taken away or added.

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