# Is this a case of copyright infingement of Jeremy Soule's work?



## Thomas A Booker (Feb 26, 2018)

I somehow ended up on the Soundcloud for a particular video game composer:
https://soundcloud.com/mimi-page

I was struck by one track, called Nightfall, which to me immediately sounded heavily inspired by the track Secunda from the Skyrim soundtrack (especially the first ~45s):

Nightfall:


Secunda:


Nightfall is listed under a playlist on the composer's page called "Original Songs".

My questions are:
(a) Would this constitute a copyright infringement, and could the artist potentially be sued? 
(b) What are your opinions on this with regards to artistic integrity: if intentional, is this kind of thing considered OK?


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## rottoy (Feb 26, 2018)

I do wonder if this might be a case of hearing this very melody, then weeks, months if not years later the melody comes up in your head while composing, and you think it's an original idea.
It's structured quite closely to the Skyrim track.


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## Thomas A Booker (Feb 26, 2018)

rottoy said:


> I do wonder if this might be a case of hearing this very melody, then weeks, months if not years later the melody comes up in your head while composing, and you think it's an original idea.
> It's structured quite closely to the Skyrim track.



My best melodies have all been written that way... 

After a bit more research, the artist has already released a Secunda cover, which Nightfall seems to be based on. So probably (hopefully) she sought permission for Nigthfall, as it's for sale on her Bandcamp.

I still wonder, had that not been the case, would people still consider it OK? For me, it'd clearly be over the line, but some can be much more forgiving about this kind of stuff than others, so I'd be interested in any opinions..


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## Polkasound (Feb 26, 2018)

This genre of music is not in my wheelhouse, but in my opinion, Nightfall is nowhere close to being an original song. It's obviously a derivation of the Skyrim soundtrack, and should be licensed, categorized, and distributed as such. For her to call it an original means she's assuming credit for the whole thing. I don't think that's right. I hope she doesn't get sued, but if I were her, I'd pull the song off SoundCloud ASAP.


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## Thomas A Booker (Feb 26, 2018)

Polkasound said:


> It's obviously a derivation of the Skyrim soundtrack, and should be licensed, categorized, and distributed as such. .



We have to be a bit careful as there's not enough info to conclude that it's not being licensed properly. I assumed she wasn't that well-known as I found her via a kickstarter for an indie game where she's the composer. I've since realised she's quite a well-known composer and apparently Nightfall was used on a Netflix series, so it could well be completely above-board.

Otherwise, I would totally agree with everything you said.

Either way, listing it under a playlist called "Original Songs" is maybe not so transparent ...


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## Greg (Feb 26, 2018)

Go to her spotify page... The top 2 tracks are 1 (Nightfall) and 2 (Secunda Cover.) They sound identical and are right there next to each other. How she has the nerve to do that boggles my mind.


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## CT (Feb 26, 2018)

Yikes, yeah that's pretty glaring. And I thought *I* walked too closely to Soule's music at times!


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## Thomas A Booker (Feb 26, 2018)

Greg said:


> Go to her spotify page... The top 2 tracks are 1 (Nightfall) and 2 (Secunda Cover.) They sound identical and are right there next to each other. How she has the nerve to do that boggles my mind.



Giving the benefit of the doubt, maybe Nightfall is a re-licensed version of the cover that's been slightly remixed and re-titled for the Netflix series? That's the only thing I can think of. 
It's clearly a derivatve of the cover, but is there any way of knowing whether there were any licensing deals that went on behind the scenes to give permission to do this?

I'm unsure about the whole situation now..


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Feb 26, 2018)

Yeah that's pretty blatant. There is no way that that was unintentional


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## J-M (Feb 27, 2018)

The songs are so similar that I laughed out loud.


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## Polkasound (Feb 27, 2018)

Thomas A Booker said:


> It's clearly a derivatve of the cover, but is there any way of knowing whether there were any licensing deals that went on behind the scenes to give permission to do this?



My experience isn't in soundtracks, but in music, you can cover parts of other songs in your original song, as long as you license each part. But in Ms. Page's case, her entire song is a derivation of Secunda. Even if she licensed it properly, I can't think of any scenario that would allow her to claim it as an original.

EDIT: As a professional courtesy, I contacted Mimi and alerted her to this discussion. Hopefully she'll be willing to provide some insight.


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## MA-Simon (Feb 27, 2018)

~


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## Thomas A Booker (Feb 27, 2018)

Polkasound said:


> Even if she licensed it properly, I can't think of any scenario that would allow her to claim it as an original.



Yeah, it shouldn't be in a playlist called original songs. Not sure if she's claiming it as original aside from that instance. 



Polkasound said:


> EDIT: As a professional courtesy, I contacted Mimi and alerted her to this discussion. Hopefully she'll be willing to provide some insight.



Thanks, let us know if you hear back!


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## Neifion (Feb 27, 2018)

Kind of related, but when I clicked on this topic I thought it was going to be about this:

Skryim (2011):


Final Fantasy XV (2016):


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## Thomas A Booker (Feb 28, 2018)

Neifion said:


> Kind of related, but when I clicked on this topic I thought it was going to be about this:
> 
> Skryim (2011):
> 
> ...




How to make the most epic song ever:

Step 1: Take the theme from The Elder Scrolls and change two notes
Thinking of a new melody wastes precious time and resources, so why bother?

Step 2: Remove any dynamic range
If the entire piece is not at ff (at least), no one will realise how epic it is.

Step 3: Add ff choral staccatos everywhere
Each of these adds 100 epicness points. Also, if listeners go more than five seconds without hearing one, they will forget how epic the song is. Make sure that never happens.


Sorry, I'm going off-topic. But yeah, the inspiration for that track is pretty obvious, to put it mildly.


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## Christof (Mar 5, 2018)

Maybe I am wrong but this is a strange thread.
Finding a copycat on SoundCloud and pointing at her in a forum where everyone recognizes within seconds that she really is a shameless copycat.
We've all done things like that (more or less), and I think it is her own responsibility to deal with what she has done.She doesn't need a VI control police investigation in my opinion 
By the way, I don't know her at all.


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## FriFlo (Mar 5, 2018)

The finger pointing is the one thing that disturbs me. The second is the ignorance about stealing original ideas. It is simply a fact that the more music you know the more you realize that not a single piece of music is written today that does not borrow musical ideas from the past or present. Yes! This piece has some similarities and it looks like you are right that it probably was the inspiration. If that has any legal consequences is for others to decide. But the fact that you jump on someone stealing some easy chord arrpegiations as if this was the only blatant case of stealing original ideas only tells me that you know some OSTs very well while missing out on a huge amount of other music.  Total originality in tonal music today is a naive idea. You need to understand that the combinations are limited and have been exhausted for a very long time. What makes music original and individual is in most cases much more subtle than that. In this case, most of what actually makes the piece was not used in the SoundCloud example!


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## Polkasound (Mar 5, 2018)

Christof said:


> Maybe I am wrong but this is a strange thread.



You're right, this is kind of a strange thread, but I also think that if Mimi were to have responded, it could have provided some valuable information in regard to licensing.



Christof said:


> We've all done things like that (more or less), and I think it is her own responsibility to deal with what she has done.She doesn't need a VI control police investigation in my opinion



This is ultimately true. Nothing against the OP, but I believe it probably would have been best handled through private correspondence. But, even though it did become like a public VI-Control police investigation, I think it could still help Mimi out in the long run.

This is my personal opinion on the subject:

Nightfall is far too close to Secunda to be considered just a borrowed idea. It's the equivalent of forging Vincent van Gogh's _Starry Night_, moving a couple stars an inch to the left, and calling it _Nightfall_. Since both tracks are posted simultaneously on her SoundCloud account, she can't plead ignorance. The best case scenario is that she somehow did some creative licensing that we're not familiar with, and simply chooses not to share her methods. The next best scenario is that she learns something from this thread and changes her approach to composing before it's too late. The worst case scenario is that she learns the hard way.

She is a relatively young composer, and young people are more prone to making mistakes. My guess is is that she may be young enough to still be living in false a sense of security, and doesn't yet understand the ramifications of plagiarism.

In polka music, I hear borrowed ideas all the time. I borrow ideas as well. But when anyone runs a new composition past me for my opinion, and I hear an unintentional copy of another song, I will stop them in their tracks (no pun intended) as a courtesy, even though it's not my responsibility. Granted, Mimi didn't ask any of us for our opinions, but I still think there is an opportunity here for musicians to help musicians. Whether we can help Mimi or she can help us, however, has not yet been determined.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 5, 2018)

FriFlo said:


> The finger pointing is the one thing that disturbs me. The second is the ignorance about stealing original ideas. It is simply a fact that the more music you know the more you realize that not a single piece of music is written today that does not borrow musical ideas from the past or present.



You nailed it. What if....Soule stole the idea from the composer being accused? I bet dollars to donuts that we could listen to the OP's original music and find striking similarities from other works. Let's face it, everything has been written already, millions of times over. As composers, we are simply (and mostly unconsciously) writing based on our influences and music we have inadvertently melded into our own creations. Unless it's note for note, and exactly the same, there's no such thing as "stealing" musical ideas.


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## Christof (Mar 5, 2018)

I just think it's just sad and arrogant to point at other peoples mistakes.
I mean come on, John Williams "stealed" so much in Star Wars and other scores.I don't care.
Music is music.


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## Polkasound (Mar 5, 2018)

Wolfie2112 said:


> Unless it's note for note, and exactly the same, there's no such thing as "stealing" musical ideas.



I respect your opinion, but I look at this subject a little differently. It's one thing to admire Monet, learn his technique, and become an Impressionist painter. But it's another thing to admire his Water Lilies painting, repaint it with a couple lilies moved around, and call it your own, because the latter literally requires no creativity. It just requires the ability to copy.

Before I say anything else, I should note that my background is not in soundtracks, but in traditional music, and that's where my opinions are coming from. If there is generally more "creative borrowing leeway" granted to composers in the orchestral or soundtrack genres which makes, for example, Ms. Page's "Nightfall" completely acceptable by OST standards, then I humbly apologize to her and to everyone here for my ignorance.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 5, 2018)

Polkasound said:


> I respect your opinion, but I look at this subject a little differently. It's one thing to admire Monet, learn his technique, and become an Impressionist painter. But it's another thing to admire his Water Lilies painting, repaint it with a couple lilies moved around, and call it your own, because the latter literally requires no creativity. It just requires the ability to copy.
> 
> Before I say anything else, I should note that my background is not in soundtracks, but in traditional music, and that's where my opinions are coming from. If there is generally more "creative borrowing leeway" granted to composers in the orchestral or soundtrack genres which makes, for example, Ms. Page's "Nightfall" completely acceptable by OST standards, then I humbly apologize to her and to everyone here for my ignorance.



I see what you're saying, but IMO there's nothing original anymore in the music industry as a whole. It's all recycled. I mean really, can you point out a film composer with a completely original sound...different from anything you've ever heard before? In the case of Monet, even he was heavily influenced if you look at his role models (ie; Manet). Even Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven is claimed to have been stolen from Taurus. Is it close? Darn right it is...but it's not exact, and you can tell where the idea came from.


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## Polkasound (Mar 5, 2018)

Wolfie2112 said:


> It's all recycled.



I think that's true for the most part (and especially true for polka music) but how a composer uses and adapts what he is recycling requires various levels of creativity. Influence in creative arts is a wonderful and even a necessary thing. I don't mean to pick on Ms. Page, but just to use Nightfall as an example, I don't hear influence. I hear 97% copying and 3% creativity. That falls far short of what I'd personally deem an original composition. I think it's great that she is moved by the music of Jeremy Soule and any other number of composers out there, but at the end of the day, a Mimi Page composition still needs to sound like Mimi Page. I hold all composers to that basic standard, _especially_ when one of their songs sounds close to another.


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## STec (Mar 6, 2018)

Kind of related, Jeremy Soule tweeting about a universal message:


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## Thomas A Booker (Mar 7, 2018)

FriFlo said:


> The finger pointing is the one thing that disturbs me. The second is the ignorance about stealing original ideas. It is simply a fact that the more music you know the more you realize that not a single piece of music is written today that does not borrow musical ideas from the past or present. Yes! This piece has some similarities and it looks like you are right that it probably was the inspiration. If that has any legal consequences is for others to decide. But the fact that you jump on someone stealing some easy chord arrpegiations as if this was the only blatant case of stealing original ideas only tells me that you know some OSTs very well while missing out on a huge amount of other music.  Total originality in tonal music today is a naive idea. You need to understand that the combinations are limited and have been exhausted for a very long time. What makes music original and individual is in most cases much more subtle than that. In this case, most of what actually makes the piece was not used in the SoundCloud example!



You're right that I'm ignorant about what constitutes stealing original ideas - that was exactly the purpose of me starting this discussion: I asked for other people's opinions on whether they'd consider it OK or not in order to give myself a broader perspective. I thought it was entirely possible that someone would make an excellent point I hadn't thought of. When that happens, I find it very valuable. I was also genuinely (academically) curious about how far legal tolerance stretches with similar-sounding pieces.

I'm sorry if it came across as finger-pointing or "jumping on her for stealing". That wasn't my intention (and I never used the word "stealing"). I'm aware there are many other examples like this, but that doesn't mean this particular example couldn't have served as a good starting point for the kind of discussion I was seeking.

I did acknowledge several times that she could have been given full permission for all of the above and said that we needed to be careful about jumping to any conclusions. Yes, I said that (hypothetically) had permission not been sought, I would personally think it was crossing a line, but that doesn't mean I was actually making any accusations. (I do still think it shouldn't be in a playlist called "original songs" given the identical-sounding Secunda cover, but that's a relatively minor issue of labelling on Soundcloud.)

I hope that's clarified my position and intentions. And yes, as there are more hours of amazing music than would span a human lifetime, I will certainly be missing out on a huge amount of it - if you have any particular gems you'd like to suggest (OST or otherwise), I'm all ears


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## SimonCharlesHanna (Mar 7, 2018)

Are you guys actually serious? She's stolen someone else's hard work and claimed it as her own. It's IP theft.

Saying "it's all recycled, no one is original" is such a cop out. She wasn't inspired by Jeremy Soule to create her own story, she copied his notes and said that she wrote it.


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## fixxer49 (Mar 7, 2018)

SimonCharlesHanna said:


> Are you guys actually serious? She's stolen someone else's hard work and claimed it as her own. It's IP theft.
> 
> Saying "it's all recycled, no one is original" is such a cop out. She wasn't inspired by Jeremy Soule to create her own story, she copied his notes and said that she wrote it.


i hope someone hasn't already posted this. If not, enjoy this fantabulous defense of unadulterated plagiarism:


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## Polkasound (Mar 7, 2018)

SimonCharlesHanna said:


> Are you guys actually serious? She's stolen someone else's hard work and claimed it as her own. It's IP theft.



That's certainly what it looks like from our perspective, but Thomas Booker has a point about not making accusations. We can't know if she worked out some highly unorthodox licensing deal allowing her to release a derivation of Secunda as an original for a Netflix series. I've never heard of such a license, but if she _didn't_ do that, it could be putting both her and Netflix in a very dangerous situation.

It's also worth noting that if you are plagiarizing someone else's material, the LAST thing you'd ever want to do is publish it on the internet on the same page as the plagiarized material. That would be the equivalent of having a flashing billboard erected that says "PLEASE CATCH AND SUE ME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE."

Although it's my opinion that Nightfall is clearly a derivation of Secunda, how she claims it as an original work, whether legally or illegally, is strictly her business. As a fellow musician and composer, all I can say is that I hope for the sake of everyone involved, she is somehow doing everything on the level. And if she is doing everything on the level, I'm sure we'd all appreciate her sharing her expertise with us.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 8, 2018)

SimonCharlesHanna said:


> Are you guys actually serious? She's stolen someone else's hard work and claimed it as her own. It's IP theft.
> 
> Saying "it's all recycled, no one is original" is such a cop out. She wasn't inspired by Jeremy Soule to create her own story, she copied his notes and said that she wrote it.



I agree it's an obvious image of the Soule composition, but as mentioned by others, we don't know the nitty gritty details. Maybe she herself is the original author?? Who knows, but it's not up to us to decide and point fingers.

Regarding legal action for plagiarism, a colleague once discovered a piece he wrote surface on a Chinese TV show. After consulting a lawyer on what could be done, the process was very tedious and expensive. It is what it is :(


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## dannthr (Mar 10, 2018)




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## Replicant (Mar 10, 2018)

Lol that's nothing


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## Dr Belasco (Mar 11, 2018)

Thomas A Booker said:


> My questions are:
> (a) Would this constitute a copyright infringement, and could the artist potentially be sued?
> (b) What are your opinions on this with regards to artistic integrity: if intentional, is this kind of thing considered OK?



Regardless of any posts, to answer you direct questions.

(a) Yes. Definitely in this case and potentially yes to the second part. The only way around any of that would be to have stated that the piece was directly from the 'original' that you put up and was not for making any monetary profit without permissions. I believe that the pieces are also in the same key by the sound of it.

(b) If it's intentional and the original writer is alluded to, thanked him or her and all those kind of things, then I can't see a problem unless the perpetrator is attempting to make money without permission. If it's just a ripoff for money, then it makes no difference to what anyone else considers other than the originator.


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## AdamAlake (Mar 11, 2018)

Whoa, call the FBI.


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## ghandizilla (Mar 12, 2018)

Is there something _so _original that is has its own origin?

"Yes, my work. My work is entirely original. It has its own origin."

Which implies: "It came _ex nihilo_ directly from the mind of God. So I can not allow anyone to borrow some patterns from it to get a bit of vocabulary, and then painly, slowly try to articulate their own phrases with these bits of vocabulary. They can't borrow to me, because such godly works are sacred."

At the end of that logic is a kind of anti-baroque: "No one shall learn. I shall be the only one authorized to make music."

Come on! Stop that beethovenian crap. We're not God. We're just guys. We constantly borrow. What should it be next? Should we copyright notes? Chords? Scales? Instruments? Cadenzas? Where is the frontier?

If a given line has been varied ten times, does it mean no one of those times can be borrowed? Does it still count with different chords? One different note? Two different notes? Where would be a "fair" barrier in such nonsense case? At the end of a "hard" copyright logic lies a simple conclusion: no one has the legal permission to write music anymore (more precisely: no one has the legal permission to write _effective_ music anymore).

John Cage even invented "chance operations" as a desperate try to avoid replicating something he remembers or something he likes, because he kept doing it without even noticing. Even when he forced himself not to replicate something he likes or remembers, he failed! Hence the invention of "chance operations". So you've got the choice :
- connect with your audience and nod to the fact that whatever you're writing, it's probably unconsciously borrowing stuff your audience will recognize and associate with different moods, emotions, situations, or actions ; it's a bit like borrowing words to phrase your own thing, but don't you think that to yell at "copyright infringement" when a person is merely learning to speak is a murder to future possibilities?
- or do some random bullshit, so random you can not even say "it's _my_ idea, it's _my_ thing" (philosophical problem of attribution with random stuff: a random stuff is no one's work)

I'm a really gifted composer regarding crappy random things nobody can connect to. So I may have a future in a hard copyright legal framework. So I would be really happy if you kept doing these kind of denunciations. At last! Some guys finally open the way for random bullshit composers like me! :-D


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## Replicant (Mar 12, 2018)

ghandizilla said:


> Is there something _so _original that is has its own origin?
> 
> "Yes, my work. My work is entirely original. It has its own origin."
> 
> ...



Man, a lot of people seem to have hang ups about this.

Everyone knows that very similar and occasionally the same lines are bound to show up in music, especially where "genre" is concerned.

But here we have a woman whose track that is accused of copying because her track is remarkably similar to one _she actually did a formal cover of!
_
What is there to debate, exactly?

This kind of thing isn't like using chromatic mediants for that "space theme" vibe, emulating the style of the wind triplets in Flight To Never Land, or using orchestration techniques common to John Williams so that people go "Hey, this reminds me of John Williams!" stylistically.

This is literally: Person heard song, covered song, and then used what she reverse engineered from that cover to create a variation of that piece that's just different enough that maybe no one will notice.

I don't think we need to call the feds on her or something, but let's just NOT try to find excuses.

By the way, probably the best one:





I suppose that's a coincidence too?


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## Polkasound (Mar 13, 2018)

ghandizilla said:


> Does it still count with different chords? One different note? Two different notes? Where would be a "fair" barrier in such nonsense case?



I think people's perceptions of how closely one song can sound to another, and still be considered an original, will vary quite a bit. But for me personally, and maybe for some others, here's where that barrier lies:

I fully understand songs, within and across all genres of music, sharing closely-matching patterns in spots, OR closely-matching chord progressions in spots, OR closely-matching instrumentation, OR closely-matching song structure, OR closely matching lyrics in spots, and there may even be a few spots where a couple of those things combine. Sometimes the matches are intentional, sometimes they're not. But, when several of those things match simultaneously throughout a song, the barrier has been crossed, and the song must be labeled and licensed as a cover or derivative work. Anyone who labels such a song as an original composition compromises their integrity as an artist, because they're basically saying they're OK with IP theft.


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## ghandizilla (Mar 13, 2018)

Polkasound said:


> I fully understand songs, within and across all genres of music, sharing closely-matching patterns in spots, OR closely-matching chord progressions in spots, OR closely-matching instrumentation, OR closely-matching song structure, OR closely matching lyrics in spots, and there may even be a few spots where a couple of those things combine. Sometimes the matches are intentional, sometimes they're not. But, when several of those things match simultaneously throughout a song, the barrier has been crossed, and the song must be labeled and licensed as a cover or derivative work. Anyone who labels such a song as an original composition compromises their integrity as an artist, because they're apparently OK with IP theft.



The question I raised was: "where can we place a barrier" to avoid abuse on those serious issues. I find here some first elements of answer, which is good  Ok, so here's the difficulty: can we really separate instruments-choice from pattern or chords related recognition?

I agree with the "so much coincidence it has to be intentional" thing, but would not consider instruments choice as a separate thing to consider, because it's so much intricated with how we associate music elements with styles, moods or places.

Also, at which point can we say "though x notes differ from the original pattern, it's still taken from that". I would put a kind of recognition criterium on that, like: "if we can immediately recognize the work it is derivated from", rather than a static quantitative barrier.

So an acceptable barrier would be like: "if patterns, structure, and chords from the original work are immediately recognizable, even if they have been varied a bit, then it's undeniable it has been copied from this source rather than inspired by it". Something like that.

P. S. : A big fan of the late 90s Stratovarius, pretty happy to listen to this again. Infinity was a tremendous album.


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## Polkasound (Mar 13, 2018)

I don't think placing a universal barrier is possible. Every instance of alleged copyright infringement still needs to be handled individually. In the court of public opinion, there will almost never be a unanimous verdict.


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## ghandizilla (Mar 13, 2018)

I had an article in mind, which led me to raise the question in the first place. This Ryan Leach's one on how to knock-off Game of Thrones theme.

I wondered myself: "with all that temp-tracks sh*t going on and the rising demand for "how to knock-off a track", you have to be really clear about where the limit is".

But as Nietzsche said, our grandchildren will remember the pioneers, not the epigones.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 14, 2018)

ghandizilla said:


> P. S. : A big fan of the late 90s Stratovarius, pretty happy to listen to this again. Infinity was a tremendous album.



Not to sidetrack, but I was the drummer for a Canadian power metal band called Destiny Calling, and we opened for Stratovarius and Sonata Arctica on their Canadian tours years ago. Amazing musicians!!! Jens Johansson is a party animal! 

Regarding plagiarism, remember the time John Fogerty was sued for plagiarising himself?? This is how stupid the whole thing can be.


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## ghandizilla (Mar 14, 2018)

Or even this.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Mar 14, 2018)

ghandizilla said:


> Or even this.



LOL! I'm surprised Gene Simmons hasn't claimed rights to silence yet!


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