![]() Combining an unlikely mix of more than 200 artists (my favorites involve the combining of Hans Zimmer, R. Yesterday, an amicus brief was filed in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in support of Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke’s appeal of the Blurred Lines verdict. ![]() The fact that juries continue to render bad verdicts in favor of plagiarism (like the latest Blurred Lines verdict) only proves my point. It occurred to me then that if these future professionals cannot make a good determination of plagiarism in music, no jury should ever be trusted to do so. And yet at least 20 of them are badly tone deaf. None. Many of these bright students are now judges, prosecutors, partners, and professors. I looked around for ironic smiles betraying some kind of joke. More than half the class raised their hands. ![]() Asking for a show of hands, he then asked how many students would find these two recordings to be substantially similar enough to support a finding of plagiarism. ![]() He asked students to consider the respective similarities in the songs’ top-line melody (there were none), its chord structure (again no relation), and other shared instrumental features (clarinet versus tambourine/vocals). He then played a folk recording of Hava Nagila (that one Jewish song that you know). ![]() The professor played a recording of Sweet Georgia Brown by Bernie and Pinkard (the “Harlem Globetrotters song,” if that helps). I recall as a first year law student attending a lecture on music copyright by Clyde Spillenger. ![]()
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