it’s easier to clear an interpolation than a sample (master). all musicians (if they were given credit in the song to begin with) have to okay the sample clear versus interpolation (think sheet music)
At least we have a name for it now. Pre-2010 and we just called this Riff Farming.... ripping people off..... stealing riffs.... etc. Like this is anything new lololololol.
That's an amazing video but i think it applies more when it's about a sample. Or it's a good conversation starter to understand at what point you build on something instead of just replicating it.
Using a new performance like a cover but with different lyrics becomes a "parody" and is protected by USC 17 Sec 17. Therefore, modern music is a joke.
This prompts the question why would Page and Plant felt Ok about wholesale copying and pasting old blues songs and rebranding as their own on earlier Led Zeppelin songs? Would love Rick’s take on that whole thing. Plant even said one is either a beggar or a thief in this biz.
What's wild is that the INXS riff is one of the most famous, most recognizable guitar riffs in pop music history, so it's not like nobody's going to notice.
Listen to the whole song Prisoner. That is simply an original song. it has a simple melody. Sure if you go though 50 years of music, wil you find similar frases? 100%. I write songs myself. After I finish a song sometime people say, hey that's a bit similar to a bit of another song. That can't be avoided. If I write a song and I'm not intentionally copying thet it's fine. As a songwriter I don't have the obligation to know and research all of the millions of songs ever written. This discussion is getting very annoying only lawyers are happy with it.
Creativity still exists from musicians. But in order to cut through the slog of infinite musical options, professionals rely on the cheat code of re-using things that have already worked. if it worked once, then it has a higher chance of working again than starting from scratch.
99.9% of them don't make any meaningful money, neither are stealing a well known work Are you being dense on purpose, or do you really think it's the same?
I would argue that the stupidest thing about the music industry is that they are obsessed with chasing some broke teenager who downloaded their song for free and didn't give them an incremental dollar in sales, but then they let these kind of things go "unpunished". Solid logic!
A kid downloading a song for free means the label doesn't get paid. A "writer" ripping off someone else's song and that song becoming a hit means the label gets paid.
...yea, copyright laws are the most corrupt laws in the world, if you have million viewers you can rip off material from those who have 100k viewers. It is not protecting property, it only protects right to steal anything if big star does it.
Prince, when he wrote “Purple Rain” called Journey because it sounded like one of their progressions. They gave him permission and didn’t ask for credit. The proper thing to do.
Prince was a pure musician, he could hear when something sounded similar. Many "musicians" nowadays don't know enough about music to know if something sounds familiar like that, nor have the talent to create something original, nor care. Sad...
Great take on the issue. I immediately thought about the Ed Sheeran/Marvin Gaye lawsuit. Which thankfully ended with the "nobody actually owns chord progressions" statement. The similarity is key here, but chords aren't copyrightable. If something is straight up taken, tho, straight up stolen melodicaly, that's a problem! Just to clarify this further.
I love that it takes like 8 writers to steal a melody. No variation of pitches or note durations. No shuffling the phrases. No tempo difference. At the very least they could change the key center
@@docdelete Yeah, this was my point at least. Although having now listened to it, as suggested, it took 42 seconds to get to the first truly original part of the track, and the guitar hook from 'Need You Tonight' seems to be the main hook in 'Break My Heart'. So, while not the whole track, removing it would be like having a museum without any exhibits: You're just left with an empty building that takes a while to walk around.
Interesting that there is a subtle difference between authorship and copyright. Copyright is more like a patent, you do not have to be the actual author, you just have to file the patent. And authorship is more natural concept, if I would write a song with the same melody as 'Let it Be', but with a different lyrics and claim the melody as my own, this will look either immoral or crazy even without going to court.
If people could copyright arrangements more effectively and there was more money in arranging, these arrangers would be less incentivized to steal song writing credit.
A friend of mine had free time in a studio (owned by Daniel Lanois and run by his brother) and was throwing down some song ideas to work on at another time. When he went back to pick up the master tapes, they couldn't find them. They only had a copy on cassette. The engineer had moved to LA and took some masters with him for his portfolio. Fast forward 2 years, and my friend was driving and his girlfriend noticed the song on the radio and asked, isn't this your song? It was his song, without changing a thing. It was Christina Aguilera's Beautiful. My friend went to a lawyer with the cassette copy, and the lawyer said, yup, absolutely, that is your song. The problem is that the record companies have millions of dollars to drag it out in court forever till you go broke. Plus, he would have to prove that Linda Perry heard that master tape somewhere and that it wasn't just a coincidence.
Something similar happened to a friend of mine, back in the 90s. He'd sent some demos of his to an electronic music oriented record company, hoping they'd sign him. They didn't. Some months later, an already established group released a track that was clearly "inspired" by my friend's work. He was just a skint teenager creating, so there wasn't much he could do about it.
Oddly somewhat related, and completely bizarre so I have to share it; the brother of one of my old girlfriends used to play this nutty character at parties where he did a ridiculous dance to the Vengaboys "We Like to Party", he would go around and try and get people to join him in dancing, waving them over. He had a shaved head and wore thick black framed glasses, and one of the times he was recorded doing the routine while at a wedding, where he was wearing a tuxedo with a red bowtie (the version I was shown because my girlfriend thought it was so funny). A few years later, the creepy six flags guy appeared in commercials doing the exact same dance moves to the same song, dressed the same, bald cap, thick black glasses. I couldn't believe it! someone had stolen the whole identity of this character and used it as a marketing tool.
To be clear, interpolation DOES STILL REQUIRE an agreement made with the original songwriters. They absolutely still get a PUBLISHING ROYALTY on the new song. Though the original writers are not always listed as songwriters on the new song, as you saw with the first Dua Lipa example. It depends on the deal that's made. Sometimes quite a lot of the pub from the new song is given to the writers of the interpolated song depending on how it's used. Mind you this is ONLY from the publishing royalty. As opposed to sampling which requires you to give MASTER royalties to owners of the original recording. Interpolating allows the label or artist to retain full ownership of the master of the new song.
Not a comment on whether I think this is a good thing for the industry or not just wanted to clarify that original writers are getting paid and it's a bit misleading to say 'stealing' .
@@MooseCabooseMedia You appear to be assuming that as regards the instances where the original writer receiving no credit they were compensated in a way that crediting doesn't reveal. That's *quite* an assumption. In this video we see cases presented where they weren't credited, so we don't know where your extrapolation of a fact that so far isn't in evidence derives from.
Exactly. This is kind of a nothingburger; it's done all the time, and I kind of would've thought Rick knows this considering how long he's been in the industry. Dua Lipa and company aren't going to risk a slam-dunk lawsuit against them for such an obvious lift. The due diligence was done, or we would've heard otherwise by now.
@@everonlyallforthee I will tell YOU what the definition of a " nothing burger" is. Its the lazy no-talent B.S. people like Dua Lipa and Mily Cyrus. They could not come up with an original great song on their own if their life depended on it. It happens all the time "now a days" but it NEVER EVER happened in my day- EVER!! I do not care if these so called artist are getting paid or not- Rick is right -they rip offs-period.
In journalism, interpolation is when the writer or editor adds/removes part of a quotation. It's usually done to clarify an oddly spoken sentence, or to cut out a part of a sentence that's unnecessary or confusing. To indicate an interpolation, you put an ellipses (...) where you removed words, and you put added words [inside brackets]. In journalism ethics, it's perfectly acceptable to use interpolation when quoting someone, but you're supposed to ensure your interpolations don't change the meaning or intention of the speaker's original entire quote.
In science interpolation is to make a reasonable estimate of missing data based on existing data either side of the missing range. Kind of "joining the dots" or "filling the blanks. The related concept is extrapolation, where you estimate data outside of a range of existing data.
The use of the word appears to be kind of backwards here. The stolen sample isn't the interpolation, it's the source from which the rest of the song is interpolated (or extrapolated).
@@fourtyseven47572 No, the law completely differs. The right to quotation is not submitted to copyright laws, and there is no such thing as right to quotation in music.
Interpolation is a buzzword term I’ve seen thrown around in the last 10 years. Music fans defending a song that sounds similar. However, I and many people - thought that bands had to license or pay the original artist to interpolate. To find out that they don’t - and the entire process is designed to get out of paying or crediting IS INSANE. Legit I always thought these songs paid the original songwriters. And the interpolation was just to make it more modern and hip. Or put a spin on it. To find out it’s basically plagiarism is wild. It’s like a student copying a Nobel peace winners essay, but then thinking it’s okay because they re-wrote some of the words. How this is even legal in the music industry is beyond me. Awful
That may have been what you were told but it’s extrapolation. Extending in a similar fashion from what was before. It’s a mathematical term for extending a series or curve beyond the current or past data. Like in guessing the inflation rate in 12 months time. Interpolation is filling in gaps from sampled points - again a mathematical technique for smoothing curves from discrete samples.
It brings to my mind that quote from a music producer in the documentary Sound City. He said that technology has allowed people who have no business in the music industry to become stars. He was referring to people who have no real musical talent or creativity. But then it's not about talent or being talented for many. It's about being famous (not talented) and money.
Exactly. No one can look at me with a straight face and tell me Dua Lipa is talented. It's simply not true. It's all about showing skin on social media for Likes, the "music" is secondary.
I was about to say "three decades?! What are you talking about? It hasn't been three decades since the 80s?!" But then I remembered that it's not still the year 2000 😅
@@victortesla4198 I can name several but since you asked for _one,_ I’ll give you “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins in 1984 gets its chorus melody from the guitar riff of the 1970 Joe Walsh/James Gang song “Funk #49”
@@mdarrenu As a Christian I can tell you that I could easily replace the word “musician” in your comment with the word “pastor”. It’s rampant in our churches nowadays. Instead of pastors feeding the sheep, we have clowns entertaining goats. Charles Spurgeon.
The word “Interpolation” has been hijacked by the legal community. Historically interpolation could be viewed as a technical term where, for example, an processor might interpolate a bunch of numbers into something else - say like a sample rate converter going from 44.1kHz to 48kHz. Or a thermometer that switches back and forth between C and F. Back many years ago I worked for a guy right there in Atlanta who owned a “ sound alike” studio business. His business model was pretty clever. We would take 8 to 10 hit tunes a week and re-record them, mix them, and he would lease them to South American markets. I think back then (late 70s) a lot of this flew way under the radar. If this was today the studio owner would easily be covered under the “interpolation” rule. The sound alike business eventually dried up simply because, among other things, by the ‘80d, song production got denser and denser. Getting 8 quality sound alikes done a week was difficult. Anyway, today, it’s a matter of ethics, which increasingly seems to fly out the window.
Yeah, they were indeed naughty (like several other notable bands at the time). At least Led Zep didn't capitalise merely on stealing but filled the rest of their records with truly original work, but still, a bit of a blemish on their legacy. Alas.
You're on the right track, Rick. As an engineer and not a musician, what they call interpolation is not what I think of as interpolation. As other commenters suggest here, one for the lawyers.
Right. I'm an artist so I've been painting since I was a child. At this point I could probably do a direct Recreation of the Mona Lisa if I wanted to. But if I decided to do that instead of buying/renting the REAL Mona Lisa to hang in my gallery, that doesn't mean that that image is mine to display lol. That would indeed be stealing if I tried to pass off that painting as an original creation of MY mind.
In my sphere of the computer world, it's largely meant as a blend/morph. Either way highly sus and some modern pretzelspeak that juries and judges are falling for. Like so many other aspects of the 2020s.
@@trophyscene5015 The Mona Lisa is a bad example. It's long out of copyright, so you can do whatever you want with it, pretty much. If you passed off your copy as being painted by Da Vinci, that would be fraud, but mostly anything else goes, legally. To take your specific example, there'd be no legal problem with putting your copy of the Mona Lisa in a gallery, as long as you didn't claim it was Da Vinci's original. Thing is, nobody really cares about your copy of the Mona Lisa, regardless of how accurate it is. You could even claim it was your own original idea, except that obviously that would make you look like an idiot.
I’m going with Option B - “they just don’t care” (because they’re betting they’ll make more from the song than it will cost them to fight about in court)
This didn’t start yesterday. Since about 2018, many of the top 40 type pop artists have been either sampling older pop songs directly, or covertly copying their riffs and phrasing etc. We are in the age of music as a consumer product. Quick and easy wins the day.
Vanilla Ice was bashed publicly until he was effectively forced into buying the publishing rights to Under Pressure. stealing melodies has always been a thing, but it was us as the audience that made musicians avoid it. The courts didn't make Vanilla Ice buy Under Pressure because Ice Ice Baby used and almost identical intro, it was us calling him out.
An interesting case of this happened in film in the movie True Romance. The Hans Zimmer composed theme "You're So Cool" "interpolated" Gassenhauer By Carl Orff (and Gunild Keetman). The director wanted the original and couldn't get it, so he had Zimmer write a clone.
Reminds of the scene in Fight Club, when Edward Norton explains his job as a recall coordinator: "My job was to apply the formula... A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one." It wouldn't surprise me if companies estimate the song's profit, and release it if the expected legal challenge costs less than the profit.
That is exactly how all commercial cases work. I am an expert witness in commercial cases, not in the music industry. My job is to tell the truth of course and make sure the data and evidence is interpreted correctly. Then at some point the judge makes it clear to one or other side (s)he is minded to award costs to the other side if they wish to continue the case. The judge has other ways of signaling as the cases goes on as to the way the weight of evidence is pointing. There are regular internal client meetings where legal experts will weigh up the odds of winning and losing and the likely ongoing costs for the client. There is of course bluffing and sometimes the one with the deepest pocket can bully the other party into back down as they can't afford to lose no matte how good their case. My job is basically like playing poker with $1 million chips. We put a stack of those chips down every time we go in the court. It's the same in every industry.
@@brianthesnail3815 What an interesting comment. You're an expert witness? As a job? What's your field of expertise? Or do you actually get the majority of your income (or perhaps all of it) from acting as an expert witness in those commercial cases you cited? Is this in America? Or the UK?
@@jimreily7538 I am not allowed to receive any payment that is linked to the outcome of the case. I am paid a flat fee per hour similar to the lawyers by one or other side in the case but I am formally working for the judge. I have to give evidence in writing or orally under oath and am cross examined usually in one of the London courts. I don't have any specific training but long industry expertise and also as a published academic. I am bound by confidentiality clauses so I can't say which industry but the cases are always very large sums of money, stressful and therefore not something I can do every day.
Exactly. Who wouldn't break the law if the profit for doing so far exceeded the penalty? Look at the MLB Houston Astros sign stealing scandal for example. It cost the team $5 million, but they won the World Series. The team revenue jumped up by $50 million the year they won. There's more incentive to cheat.
@@jimreily7538 I only get paid a flat fee. I am not allowed to get paid on the basis of how the case turns out. I work in London and have to sign non disclosure agreements so I can't say what I do. I am an industry expert though and also an academic. It's very hard work so I can't do it every day.
I'm not a lawyer but "interpolation" is in fact part of US copyright law. It's when you insert part of a copyrighted song into another one and it falls under derivative works. To do it legally, you have to obtain consent from the author of the original song.
@@iu2 Sampling is when the original audio recording itself is involved. Interpolation involves only the underlying melody or lyrics. To make an interpolation requires permission (not a license) from the composer, lyricist and/or publisher and a cover license which is very cheap. To make use of sampling, would require a license from the owner of the original audio recording (usually the record company for big artists) and is typically extremely expensive. It is very unlikely that you would get a license to make an interpolation using sampling but if you did manage to pull it off, it would cost you an arm and a leg.
The irony of this complaint when "I Was Made For Lovin' You" directly lifted its melody from the backing vocal of The Beach Boys' "Heroes and Villains."
Exactly! That’s why it’s ridiculous for people to get upset about it. Ed Sheeran took a guitar to his case when he was getting sued and showed that he can play gobs of songs with the same four chords. It’s gonna happen. There’s nothing you can do about it. And I don’t believe in most cases it happens intentionally.
@@joshnizzle I think Rick's really only complaining about contemporary pop artists doing it. But I encourage Rick to go take a listen to "Crescent City Blues" and consider why he's not calling out Johnny Cash.
I'm glad someone mentioned the "I Was Made For Lovin' You" / "Heroes and Villains" similarity. I've heard it for years but never seen anyone mention it. Although Brian stole the whole "Hereos and Villains, just see what you've done..." from his own song "Do You Like Worms?", or if it was the other way around, I don't know 😄
I notice this all the time. I can’t count how many times a younger person plays what they think is a cool new song and I quickly ruin it by telling them it’s just a bad remake of a good old song
Thank you Mr. Beato, for speaking about this topic and your wonderful interviews. Here our composers association has a technical board that's is responsible of the evaluation of incoming copyright claims from the authors. If there is no claim the association will not act on behalf of the author. In the cases you exposed the authors should write a claim to their composers association and they have to investigate. This cases are very easy ones because the amount of used musical phrases is clearly a lot. I was the chair of our composers associations technical board for two periods. We had monthly meetings to evaluate the incoming claims. Our statements would not change the legal status of the registration but the intellectual property court would evaluate them. So the author should first contact the composers association, try to create a compromise with the support of the association, if it doesn't create a solution open a court case. Copyrights are only protected if the right holder protects them. All my best wishes from Istanbul
@@Kunibert_Knatter A number of Rexas singer-songwriters moved to Texas, especially Austin, in the 79s and 80s. Guy Clark, however, stayed in Nashville. He said it was because the best music lawyers were in Nashville. He said they were armed robbers in business suits, and he wanted them on his side.
Back in 90's in Berklee my teacher's first advice was to get a lawyer (instead of a manager), both for protection and also for reaching to A&R people and companies. Looks like nowadays lawyers are more important and have more things to do.
@@gilldavidmour4199 the lead singer/leader of my (our) new country band had a previous career as chief legal council for the ACLU in New England. (Doesn't help with entertainment law, tho.) :D
These examples seem legally very iffy in light of the "Land Down Under" and "Creep" judgements. If those few bars of the fairly old "Kookaburra" melody could lost Men at Work so many thousands then surely nicking off INXS, a band with members who are still alive, is just wide open for a lawsuit? You'd have thought that lawyers would be queueing up to take the cases.
I agree. Back in 1987 my band, Salvation Sunday got a £250,000 record deal from Polydor UK. We did not even have a manager, just a very clued-up, well connected lawyer. It worked. Then we got a manager - which wasn't very clever of us, or necessary.
In Germany, if you want to use another song for your own song, you need permission of rights owner to sample or modify it. You only need no permission if you just cover it. That is, if you take the song as it is, same melody, same harmonics, same lyrics and just re-interpret it with you own band (you may slow it down or speed it up or change the beat or add new instruments, as long as the song is still recognized as the original song), you don't need permission and nobody can stop you from doing that but you still need to pay royalties to all the rights owners. Yet if you want to make a completely new song out of it, you will need permission, as that is like modifying the original song, there's no way around that and you will surely get sued if you try that without permission.
I was a music industry major in the late 90's and remember learning the difference between "interpolation" and "sampling', so the concept isn't that new. However, it was never used as an excuse to not give credit where credit is due, rather, was a technical distinction to describe the way a borrowed section was used in a recording/performance. I know things have changed a lot since the 90s but I'm pretty sure songwriters of interpolated sections of significance are still supposed to get credit.
Only the naive would believe that artists who interpolate/sample other artists are doing so without some explicit permission. Yes there are cases in which some artists are not properly credited, but they eventually are and are compensated accordingly.
@@LeadSurge3000 Look at the credits given for each track in an album (this is a feature available on Spotify, not sure about Apple Music). If a song contains a sample, the original creator of that sample is listed as a writer. If they are listed as a writer, they are compensated via royalties (or an upfront free depending on the contract signed), which the original writer has to agree to otherwise the sample won't be cleared to use. As an example, look at the track Izzo from Jay Z. It contains a sample from The Jackson 5's "I Want You Back". The writers credited include people who helped write the original song. This is usually standard practice in hip hop due to the entire genre predicated on sampling other artists. It's very rare you see a sample not credited or the original artist not compensated and approved by them, and if they aren't, they usually are very quickly otherwise the label would be taken to court.
Curiously, he didn't point out the commonality stringing those altogether. If you pay attention, it's the same producer on every one of them - Andrew Watt.
It's possible. But it's not 2008 anymore and the days of making significant editing changes without providing a dependable source are long gone. The Wikimedia Foundation has done great work to raise standards to the point where it is more reliable than most general online sources. Try, for instance, to post unverifiable news about a politician you dislike, or just make up stuff about anything, and see how long it takes before you get blocked.
I was looking for some comment referring the fact that wikipedia may not be the most reliable source. Wikipedia is not officially written by the creators of the song. So expecting to see it credited there and taking it as official credit, is weird or simply wrong. If you want to use internet, maybe Discogs would be a better source, because it is usually based of the official edition’s publishing or literature. But even better it should be the official creator’s or the record label’s website. Also the physical format edition booklet or cover where the full credits show be published… although this is getting less common nowadays.
When asked in an interview about how he could write so many different plays (not counting historical), Shakespeare said, "All the stories have already been written, you just have to change them a bit. Personally, I steal from the best, The Bible." It is amazing to really listen to Romeo and Juliet and hear the lines directly from the Bible. On Johnny Carson, when asked how much longer Bonanza could run, Lorne Greene said, "As long as people watch. We've already done Romeo and Juliet 6 times." So, I guess that means, all the songs have already been written, too. We just don't admit it.
Hmmm......very amusing but only partly true...!! Would you really compare the blatant shameless rip offs here with Shakespeare's use of historical events..?!?!
The 60s, 70s, and 80s is when old school musical teaching/learning combined with creativity resulted in something new and fresh. There are still some current artists out there who make great new music, but most seem to be simple music production producers and artists who just want the quick buck.
This has been going on a long time. Why is everyone shocked. Most of your favorite artists have done it. For example, Led Zeppelin and my childhood favorite Nirvana did this. Greg Gutfeld asked King Buzzo: “What is the secret to good songwriting?” Buzz responded “ Hiding what your stealing “
Because Zepp (eventually) did credit the original artists. Killing Joke were cool with Nirvana’s Come As You Are. Borrow, be influenced, rework - but give credit to the original material.
@@AtAlCost Zep only did that when they were forced with a lawsuit, as in the case of Dazed and Confused and Whole Lotta Love. Where's the credit for stealing Stairway's intro, Custard Pie's lyrics, How Many More Times, Moby Dick's guitar riff, and others?
Exactly! Does Rick honestly think that the first person who ever played a bluesy pentatonic melody over a 1 4 5 progression with a flat 7 on the 1 is getting writing credits from the many many boomer guitarists who coppied them?
I knew a couple of jingle writers that were active several decades ago. They used to describe how when they wrote something they liked, they'd run around the office playing or singing it for everyone to to make sure they actually wrote it and didn't accidentally steal it from something else - lurking in the reaches of their memories.
😂 the guitarist in our band was writing a riff. He's working on it for about 2 hrs. Then we hear "ahh f%^k. F$%k me." Turns out he had been listening to a lot of Gorillaz like a month before and ripped off a whole rhythm section without realizing.
Interpolation really isn't new, but has been going on for a lot longer than people think. The video "Everything is a Remix" by Kirby Ferguson is an excellent breakdown on "copying" in art and general and why it's not a bad thing. The beginning section discusses early hip-hop sampling and the earlier interpolation by the likes of Led Zeppelin. The final takeaway is nicely summed up in the creator's words "The(se) words are all mine, but they're merged from the thoughts of countless people... (This video) is a testament to the brilliance and beauty of human creativity. In particular, its a testament to collective creativity. Human genius is not individual. It is shared."
Exactly... "In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a type of estimation, a method of constructing (finding) new data points based on the range of a discrete set of known data point" So the use of interpolation in regards to music SHOULD mean that NEW notes are constucted based on existong ones... NOT simply rerecording the same notes. That's called COPYING, or in these cases STEALING.
Its worth noticing that in Dua Lipa's case is deliberately on purpose, since the concept of the album "Future Nostalgia" is exactly that. She grew up listening to the classics of rock and pop from the 70's and 80's . As per her wikipedia page; "She wanted to create a record with the nostalgic memories of her childhood and the music her parents listened to and put a modern spin on it with futuristic elements, which is why she ultimately went with the title."
Finally someone who points this out! Yes I agree people need to be creative and a lot of songs are copied and boring nowadays, but in this case is it wrong if she does point it out so obviously?!
@@GSNLYT IMO there are cooler ways to pay homage to those classics or even collaborate as she did with Elton John for the song " Cold Heart" , or maybe invite the original artists to play those specific parts. I'll like to point out that Dua's songs caused a new audience to discover those classics and the streaming numbers of said songs increased, so i suspect there is some kind of agreement that will explain the lack of lawsuits against her label.
If she really wanted to throw back to the classics of the 70's and 80's she'd just steal an entire classical music piece and everyone would pretend that's different somehow.
Remember Pink Floyd's 1971 album Meddle? The track "Fearless (Interpolating "You'll Never Walk Alone)" does credit Rodgers and Hammerstein for use of the melody sung or chanted by the fans of Liverpool Football Club. The crowd noise heard at the beginning and coda of the song is actually credited as an interpolation way back when! Side note: This was how the song title was printed on the gatefold of the US Capitol release that I bought back in the mid eighties but the 2016 reissue leaves off the parentheses and listed as simply “Fearless”.
Hey, Rick! I had this happen: played out and used some of my new material 06-07 on the Seattle scene. The live shows were recorded, just mic and instruments, as well as live w the crowd. Long story short, another band swiped TWO of my tunes and this particular band went on to produce their first three albums, all cert platinum. We had people who specialized in this area of law take a look at it and were pretty much like, ‘yeah, but what do you really want to accomplish here?’ It turned out that my senior counsel called their agent (also an attorney-same dude who rep’d Maverick and screwed Candlebox) as soon as we were done with our second meeting AND he accepted $5000 for his agency in the matter…yeah, other band’s lawyer paid him $50k to attempt to dissuade me from suing and offered another $50k after I signed papers saying I have no rights to what I am claiming and it was all a misunderstanding. My live show recordings were from months before they ever cop’d those tunes AND I never signed those forms. The business is so damn dirty, brother. There are thousands of stories worse than mine, of those that will never be known, The Real nameless faceless songwriters that others built careers and companies on…
Most those 4+ writers are over 35 so they immediately know when the song sounds exactly like another huge pop song. They also know if it worked once then it’ll work again.
As a novice musician, I once tried to write a song. I thought I had a pretty cool ballad. I put it away and forgot about it for many months. One day, I started playing it and thought it sounded familiar. I played it over and over at faster tempos until I realized why it was so familiar. The melody was the theme for “Gilligan’s Island”.
i actually once came up with 2 songs, from fear factory and alter bridge, almost note for note, without having heard them before. And i was so proud of myself lol.. Until i heard the songs. Still proud a little 😂
I came up with a killer melody on piano one day then realised it was the opening riff to Cyndi Laupers ‘True Colours’ which must have been buried in my subconscious. I was only really used to hearing the chorus 🤦🏻♂️
Tale as old as time. Pete Seeger when asked to give advice to young musicians just starting out said "stop worrying about being so damn original." Everybody's stealing from everybody else, the trick is to steal from the right people.
@@chemicaldeath9866 that's a great point. So many songs are built on the 1, 4, 5 chord progression ..... But we don't consider them to be stealing each others riffs
Have you watched the recent Professor of Rock video interview with Rita Coolidge where they discuss how Eric Clapton stole Rita’s composition for the piano coda for the song Layla? Half the song that just lifted her piano melody from the song Time (that was recorded by Booker T and Priscilla Jones). Fascinating story and infuriating that she was never credited or compensated for it. According to her account, on a phone call, Robert Stigwood basically told her ‘Too bad. What are you going to do about it? You can’t afford the legal fees to fight us.’ I guess it was just “interpolated”.
spot on, there is a million more examples of this from artist that we love & value as artists. granted it is a fine line between interpolation & plagiarism. I heard a recording of Blind Willie McTell breaking down how blues musicians stole/interpolated from each other. Why is Rick acting like this is new?
Jim Gordon, Derek and the Dominos drummer was the one who stole it, that's why he's got a songwiting credit on it; the other guys apparently didn't know what he had done until after it was released
Jim Gordon was Eric Clapton’s drummer. He played and composed songs on piano. He wrote that piano part for Time, that was used in Layla. Rita Coolidge wrote the vocal melody for Time, that was not used in Layla. She admits this in her book (A memoir by Rita) Case closed.
Interpolation is a mathematical technique for estimating unknown values. It is often used for prediction of values of complex systems. It has nothing to do with "borrowing" copyrighted material.
The word "interpolation" isn't new, but the definition as used musically IS. It originally meant "the insertion of a remark into a conversation (usually off topic or tangential)" or in mathematics, adding a new number or value to a series by calculating or estimating the new value from the known ones in the series. Rick, YOUR definition is much more accurate: the use of part of a song without attribution or recompense, i.e., stealing.
10 years ago I played The Who's "Baba O'Reilly" for my niece - she thought it was a One Direction remix. Needless to say she discovered the truth, and has since renounced her One Direction fandom.
Many more moons ago while walking up to the house my niece and her friends rocking out in the garage. I came in singing "Well He was just seventeen, You know what I mean". For a few minutes I was the coolest Uncle on the planet and they beamed How do you know this? It was before today's tech but I took the opportunity to introduce them to the Beatles. I remember telling my brother my favorite song Disco Duck. He sat me down with his albums and introduced Elton John, Boz Scaggs, The Who and of course The Beatles Abbey Road. I've never looked back. Good memories.
you nailed it -interpolating is a not-so-fancy way to say stealing. i dont know whats worse -the blatant thievery or a absolute lack of originality and creativity from these marginally talented "artists" (aka image/fashion peddlers)
@@fourtyseven47572 was just going to mention sampling........seems like if you invent a word that describes the same action as stealing, but isn't considered stealing you can get away with it. Not so fast - if the concept for both words is the same, then you can be prosecuted for interpolating a car.
@@CookingAroundTheWorld If you give credit and clear the sample/interpolation thats not stealing. Stealing would be taking core musical elements from a song and not giving credit or royalties, which has been happening for over 5 decades, probably longer
@@mappplesirrup8473 samples are stolen from the original artists that's what's wrong with them. Samples are a crutch that hiphop has begun to rely upon too heavily. What's wrong with expecting recording "artists" to create their own original music? By the way I've reported your troll account. You're probably another thief
Wikipedia is not going to let anyone create an entry that accuses an artist of ripping off another artist, at least until it's been proven in court. So "interpolation" is a nice, safe word for a Wikipedia entry where everyone reading it replaces "interpolation" with "theft."
This all comes down to Wikipedia's "verifiability" policy. It works very well when most sources are right, but fails horribly when the majority of sources are wrong. There are also notable instances of Wikipedia's community admitting that this is a problem, but refusing to fix it "because that's not what everyone else does".
They DO care. They do it ON PURPOSE. They lift melodies and chord progressions from songs that were hits or at least catchy. That way the hit potential is highest.
We're not really allowed to say "this" in that way, anymore. It's a truncated, slackadaisical, caveman grunt expression lacking context and devoid of originality. Sorry not trending.
There are some artists that dont care about copyrighting and all that other business stuff. Tom Petty was one of those, he didnt care if RHCP used bits of his Mary Jane song, and in return RHCP allowed another group to use one of their guitar riffs.
Ethel, I think you mean people/BIG BIZ has been ripping off 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, + classics for at lease the past six decades, and it just confirms how awesome the real writers truly are! Thank you Rick, you Rock when it come to any thing music, you are all pro my friend!!!
The rights are for the song itself (melody + lyrics) but also each individual performance. So many people can have different versions of the same song as long as they get rights to the song itself. That’s a big reason for why you’ll find popular songs in movies that have been re recorded with new artists. It was cheaper to redo it than to pay the rights for the original studio version.
Boomer youtuber definition: I’m old and fabulous and I’m entitled to be angry and yell at the clouds and take credit for it because beatles is the greatest band ever.
In Dua Lipa case it's made sense, because her album is called Future Nostalgia and every song has a riff or melody from 80s song. Just saying. And Wikipedia isn't something that necessarily add credits because moderators simply can forget to add them. But still i think that today's pop music is holding too much on nostalgia and especially for the 80s sound. In 80s everyone made that music because it sounded new and fresh, today they just rely on nostalgia.
Interpolate has a VERY clear mathematical definition: to complete an incomplete data set based on surrounding data. For example: 2, 4, 6, __, 10. What is the missing number? Interpolation would say that 8 is the answer. How this word got used in the context of "borrowing" melodies is beyond me. If they had said that they used tune A to INSPIRE tune B, then sure, maybe. But there is no sense where the first tune is incomplete and the second tune completes it. Just theft.
You might interpolate two waves if sampled and converted in digital. So you have your digital sounds and you interpolate them with the old song's wave converted in digital. I think it's something like this.
It also means: to alter or corrupt (something, such as a text) by inserting new or foreign matter. Which is how they are most likely using it here. They take the original and insert a few things over it and it is now interpolated.
we've finally hit the plateau in musical creativity where the vast majority of musicians are simply selling the previous generations music back to the new generation repackaged with a generic "new" beat. The older bands/artists are retiring and without the influx of new and original music, we're left pining for the sounds we grew up with. New musicians are re-recording the same music to keep the older generation listening to the new music because "Musical Nostalgia" is a real thing, and we're powerless against it.
My late mom used to say: Good thing new kids are born every day so we can tell them the old jokes again. Since despite the fact that a back log of pop culture is freely available more than ever before, including to the general public, most people only tend to engage with new stuff, so they really don't know how much is a remake or stolen. Goes for movies, literature etc just as much as music.
Very good point, I notice this so much with movies, it is especially true with foreign movies or old Hollywood movies where Hollywood will remake them, occasionally they are an improvement but often they are worse. I suspect it goes on in Literature far more than is noted.
True story. When I was in high school a band called The Thompson Twins had a song called “Revolution”, that I thought they wrote. Many years later when the internet came around I found out it was written by a band called The Beatles. I didn’t listen to The Beatles so I wouldn’t know that. You make a GREAT point.
Great post! A bit off-topic, but it's interesting how memory works. I can remember an obscure piece of music I heard only once maybe 40 years ago, or a theme played in some lesser-known movie. But I can never remember a goddamn joke! I've heard thousands of great jokes over the years, but the moment someone asks me to tell a joke, I'm completely stumped. So I'm grateful that people like your mother was around to keep them alive!
I know the word from maths Interpolation: Calculating an approximate value Interpolation is the process of estimating a value based on known values. For example, in investing, interpolation is used to estimate a security's price or potential yield.
INXS' Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss are credited as writers on the song "Break My Heart". Thus, the interpolation appears to be cleared from a legal perspective. Additionally, as per ASCAP, Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss do receive publishing and songwriting royalties. As per ASCAP, Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss each receive 11.3% of the royalties (publishing and songwriting) that the song generates. This split assumes that the combined writing and publisher royalties under ASCAP's domain for the song, which totals 45.33%, is equally divided among Dua Lipa, Stefan Johnson of the production duo The Monsters and Strangerz (who co-produced the song, along with Andrew Watt), and the aforementioned members of INXS. The remaining 54.67% of songwriting and publishing royalties appear to be divided among Ali Tamposi (co-writer of the lyrics alongside Dua Lipa), Jordan Johnson (other part of the production duo The Monsterz and Strangers), and Andrew Watt. However, the trend of interpolating old songs may even become more prevalent, especially as artists are selling their catalog to investment firms. To this end, these firms and/or their associated publishers are holding writing camps/sessions where the explicit aim is for songwriters and/or producers to interpolate a certain song in their catalog. This may be applicable to Dua Lipa's case, as the Monsters and Strangerz and Andrew Watt are affiliated with Hipgnosis, one of the bigger firms that are involved in acquiring music rights. I am not sure why "Prisoner" or "Physical" do not have Kipner and Shaddick credited, especially when Doja Cat and SZA did so for their duet "Kiss Me More". While I think the latter borrows less from Newton-John's "Physical", it apparently came down to how much melodic phrasing was taken from the song? (This is as per a Billboard article entitled "Forever No. 1: Olivia Newton-John's Physical"). Additionally, Dua Lupa said that "Physical" was not based on the Newton-John song (At least, its conception was not based on it). She, however, acknowledges the similarity between the two songs (as per NPR interview in March 2020).
@EstebanAguilarSax In that regard, her new album, "Radical Optimism", is a significant improvement. While the influences are still primarily from 70s/80s disco, late 90s/early 2000s pop, there are no credited sampling/interpolation except for "Trauning Season" (which supposedly interpolates a song named "Tokyo Nights" by Dragonette, Digital Farm Animals, and Shaun Frank). I will admit that, to my ear, there are similarities of melody of the chorus of "Hold The Line" by Toto and the verses of Dua Lipa's "Falling Forever".
I happened to watch an interview posted yesterday with Rita Coolidge (on Professor of Rock). You know the coda section of “Layla” that begins with piano? Rita tells a pretty compelling story about how SHE wrote it, then heard it on the radio a year later. When she finally got in to see the label boss, Robert Stigwood, he said, “You’re just a girl…you can’t afford a lawyer to fight this…just let it go…”
Although I haven't had a chance to listen to or watch PoR in awhile, I do know that story. And it's soul crushing the way she and other talented female musicians of the time were often treated by their male counterparts and the music industry, so it's good to hear the real stories now.
I dislike the lack of credits, of course. I'm also irritated because we didn't need the word interpolation, which has a definition in mathematics. In music, the word is quoting.
@@ChrisColeChicago my understanding is that Jim Gordon claimed to be the creator of the coda to Layla when he played it in the studio when the song was recorded. Jim was the drummer for Derek and the Dominos but could play some piano as well. He was in a relationship with Rita at the time. He also had some serious mental health issues that led to a very troubled life. While this may provide you an opportunity to vilify Eric, it does not appear to be likely that Jim was leveling with anyone about the source of the music he played
That term "Interpolation" was used by digital camera manufacturers years ago to produce a higher image resolution than what the camera sensor was actually optically capable of...so a 6-megapixel camera produced a 12-megapixel image through that magic word, "interpolation." It was really a 6-megapixel camera, but through in-camera processing, the image became a 12-megapixel image. But even though the resulting file was bigger, the image did not really have the same image information as what a true 12-megapixel sensor camera would produce. In other words, the added visual information was just fudged because the sensor itself was not capable enough on its own to do it for real.
That's akin to the mathematical definition of interpolation. The camera makers are applying some function to estimate what the value of pixels between the real pixels would be, if the camera had a higher resolution. And the word is used in classical music in the same way: an interpolation is something which is put between two other parts of a piece, used to connect them. But I'm really not sure how this word applies to these pop songs. Using some previous melody as your own melody shouldn't be called interpolation. It kind of feels like someone trying to sound officious meant "interpretation" and misused the word once, and it stuck.
Actually what they did was extrapolate. They went far beyond the two points used for in between extraction and went way outside of any logic or common sense or legal sense. “Theft my dears, they call it theft.” - Sorry can’t recall the author. But Not Mine.
No one ever says the full quote from Oscar Wilde it’s actually an insult 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.'
interpolation is method used in mathemathics, engineering and science to find new data points based on known data points. but oh boy ith have new interesting meaning in music industry
The problem is everyone in the today is so profoundly creatively bankrupt. It seems ludicrous to me that every song today has 10 songwriters listed, and they STILL can't come up with something original, nor bring themselves to credit the actual creative people who wrote the original song. The complete and utter lack of creativity is something we see in the movie industry as well. Everything is a remake, reimagining, sequel, prequel, or some other kind of unoriginal rehash.
I write music for different publishers. The word 'interpolation' is often used in contracts, usually in the part of the contract that tells the writer what will be rejected or not allowed. 'No sample packs, no interpolation', etc. I also notice it used a lot more with publishers who are heavily focused on Pop, R&B, Hip Hop, Rap and New Country music. Some will mention it in almost every email, so I'm assuming it is and has been a problem with younger writers.
@@Oleg_K. Worth sharing is that the publishing world (production music, specifically) is always changing and you have to keep up with trends... Or not. Things they wanted 10 years ago are the very things they'll reject now. The industry is learning how to deal with AI right now. The more ethical companies are trying to fight it and you'll be rejected and possibly flagged if you use it. Others are adopting it with the goal to kill off writers, after they've studied and stolen our work. Gullible writers buy into this, thinking they'll be cashing in. These are usually royalty free sites, but not always. Avoid those. Like a lot of other businesses these days, the goal is to make the rich richer. The best thing you could do is really learn that side of the business, which is a novel unto itself, and then decide how you want to approach it. I'm doing my best to be myself while still staying within the boundaries of what is required for a given model. It's a tightrope.
@@wademosher Thank you for this insight, I really appreciate it. It does seem like a turbulent time for the creators in any field, perhaps especially in this industry. Do you have any more advice on how to come out on top - is there anything that you found that these publishing companies in particular value, that is specifically a human element that AI cannot replicate? Or is it so much about cutting cost that nothing else matters? Do we have an edge over them in any way?
I bet the original authors licenced their songs, got paid by it and signed an NDA. That's the only logical explanation I can find. Thank for your great work Rick, love your channel!
My introduction to the word 'interpolation' was during the making of The Matrix. When creating the bullet time effect, the VFX team used still cameras to wrap around the actors, then with computer graphics, they 'interpolated' frames between to make the move smoother. In the words of Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."
from etymonline: interpolation (n.) 1610s, "act of interpolating;" 1670s, "that which is interpolated," from French interpolation (17c.) or directly from Latin interpolationem (nominative interpolatio), noun of action from past participle stem of interpolare "to alter; falsify" looks like the music lawyers' use of this word is pretty on point
As it happens, the similar word 'interpellation' was important in the work of the French philosopher Louis Althusser. He understood it as being about the way we mentally absorb ideas and act on them as if we came up with them ourselves.
The label's sentiment is that if the song gains enough attention that it's a copyright problem, that means song is generating enough money to make it worth the risk. In other words, they don't care about the morality of it.
When Keith Richards daughter pointed out that inadvertently the melody of Has Anybody Seen My Baby sounded like Constant Craving they immediately updated the songwriting credits to include KD Lang and Ben Mink. It's a matter of honesty and integrity.
Rick, I love your stuff. I know almost nothing about music. So most of the time I don't know what you are talking about. You remind me of my friend Matthew. RIP We would stand around in his "band room" and listen to music and he would talk about it the way you do. It's like spending time with my friend. So thank you for that.
I remember back in school when the kid behind me kept trying to interpolate off my test.
😮
At least he interpolated 😂
lol good one
Did you get paid tho?
😂😂😂
“… unless they just don’t care.”
Nailed it, right there.
And GREED !
To me, it seems like it was made on purpose. "these songs sound good and were hits... let's just do them again."
Or they're completely ignorant of it.
A little bit of all of the above I’d say. But at the core I say greed.
It's 2024. They don't care.
I love the explanation of interpolation. “We ask the license holder if we can use their song, they so no, so we just do it anyway without paying.”
it’s easier to clear an interpolation than a sample (master). all musicians (if they were given credit in the song to begin with) have to okay the sample clear versus interpolation (think sheet music)
Interpolation costs less for the person doing it than sampling.
@@okbruh True as that may be, it is not being disputed nor is it the issue in question.
At least we have a name for it now. Pre-2010 and we just called this Riff Farming.... ripping people off..... stealing riffs.... etc.
Like this is anything new lololololol.
You assume they ever asked.
“Everything is a remix” is a must watch video. Insane that people are just learning about this.
That's an amazing video but i think it applies more when it's about a sample. Or it's a good conversation starter to understand at what point you build on something instead of just replicating it.
People say that music isn’t what it used to be. Apparently it is.
Well done sir, well done. Apologies in advance, but I WILL be stealing that line.
Me too, I will be interpolating your idea for my own comments. No credit will be given.
@@mathgodMake sure to sing it to the INXS riff.
lol brilliant, simply brilliant post.
But, like pizza, it's not as good regurgitated as it was first time around.
If I did it, it would be a "copyright infringement". If someone with expensive lawyers do it, it's called "interpolation". That's the difference.
Yes money make the difference when you have money you can do whatever you want even steal in the face😂
Using a new performance like a cover but with different lyrics becomes a "parody" and is protected by USC 17 Sec 17.
Therefore, modern music is a joke.
Spot on 👍🏼
@@billkeithchannel Ah, so interpolation is just the expensive word for parody
@@neoczy3249I thought that if you have money you can buy anything instead of stealing and going to courts again and again
Congrats, Michael Hutchence, for co-writing a hit song 23 years after death. What an achievement!
not the first time.
23 years - damn. What could have been.
That Michael Hutchence is so talented to write when he is dead or is it the defence lawyers we should be congratulating?
... and yet he did. He wrote the melody that is in that song.
It was Andrew Ferris that wrote the music.
This prompts the question why would Page and Plant felt Ok about wholesale copying and pasting old blues songs and rebranding as their own on earlier Led Zeppelin songs? Would love Rick’s take on that whole thing. Plant even said one is either a beggar or a thief in this biz.
What's wild is that the INXS riff is one of the most famous, most recognizable guitar riffs in pop music history, so it's not like nobody's going to notice.
Most people under 40 have never heard that song
Nile Rodgers strikes again! Oops that was original sin…
@@kwyatt261 not true though. I'm under 40 and almost everybody i know loves INXS.
@@TheScouseSpud13 Great Band by the way
@@kwyatt261 bro the hell are you talking about im 17 and most people my age in Australia know INXS 😂
Creativity still exists in the music industry. Unfortunately, it’s the lawyers that are getting creative, not the writers and artists.
Yup. Just ask Don Henley's lawyers.
Listen to the whole song Prisoner. That is simply an original song. it has a simple melody. Sure if you go though 50 years of music, wil you find similar frases? 100%. I write songs myself. After I finish a song sometime people say, hey that's a bit similar to a bit of another song. That can't be avoided. If I write a song and I'm not intentionally copying thet it's fine. As a songwriter I don't have the obligation to know and research all of the millions of songs ever written. This discussion is getting very annoying only lawyers are happy with it.
Brits would say "It seems the lawyers are a bit of an artist themselves.".
In Dua Lipas defence. She doesn’t write her own songs 😂
Creativity still exists from musicians. But in order to cut through the slog of infinite musical options, professionals rely on the cheat code of re-using things that have already worked. if it worked once, then it has a higher chance of working again than starting from scratch.
0:35 The irony of Tiktokers pointing out stolen riffs, while making the same exact video as 200 other tiktokers is hilarious.
99.9% of them don't make any meaningful money, neither are stealing a well known work
Are you being dense on purpose, or do you really think it's the same?
@@TheChzoronzonit is the same. It's ironic.
Money shouldn't determine if stealing and copying aka cheating is bad.
Morals
Totally NOT the same thing dude.
@@colt1596 So now Tik-Toks are copyrighted?
Wow
Tell me more about the TT appropriation please, so I can call the Meme Police next time
pfftf bwhahaha
I think that's basic human nature on display in both cases, we'd be nowhere had it not been for passing ideas down to others
I’m with you, Rick. It’s literally stealing.
I would argue that the stupidest thing about the music industry is that they are obsessed with chasing some broke teenager who downloaded their song for free and didn't give them an incremental dollar in sales, but then they let these kind of things go "unpunished". Solid logic!
A kid downloading a song for free means the label doesn't get paid. A "writer" ripping off someone else's song and that song becoming a hit means the label gets paid.
...yea, copyright laws are the most corrupt laws in the world, if you have million viewers you can rip off material from those who have 100k viewers. It is not protecting property, it only protects right to steal anything if big star does it.
The original artists deserve credit. I can’t interpolate the $$$.
@@wyssmasternot the label of the original writer
That part lol😂😂😂Make it make sense
Prince, when he wrote “Purple Rain” called Journey because it sounded like one of their progressions. They gave him permission and didn’t ask for credit. The proper thing to do.
Could've been so easy for anyone else to just ask right?
Good for Prince!
Prince was a pure musician, he could hear when something sounded similar. Many "musicians" nowadays don't know enough about music to know if something sounds familiar like that, nor have the talent to create something original, nor care. Sad...
Proving once again that Prince was, unfortunately, an exception.
That was so cool of him to do that
Great take on the issue. I immediately thought about the Ed Sheeran/Marvin Gaye lawsuit. Which thankfully ended with the "nobody actually owns chord progressions" statement. The similarity is key here, but chords aren't copyrightable.
If something is straight up taken, tho, straight up stolen melodicaly, that's a problem! Just to clarify this further.
Interpolation, or in other words, I have no creative talent so I'll just copy someone who does.
I love that it takes like 8 writers to steal a melody. No variation of pitches or note durations. No shuffling the phrases. No tempo difference. At the very least they could change the key center
The Dua Lipa song is a different key and different harmonic context
@@hjones4922 Okay, so it takes 7 songwriters to transpose a piece of music. God help them if they try to change a lightbulb.
@@catman300games4 Are you people incapable of actually listening to the music he's talking about? Those 5 seconds aren't the whole song.
@@docdelete Yeah, this was my point at least. Although having now listened to it, as suggested, it took 42 seconds to get to the first truly original part of the track, and the guitar hook from 'Need You Tonight' seems to be the main hook in 'Break My Heart'. So, while not the whole track, removing it would be like having a museum without any exhibits: You're just left with an empty building that takes a while to walk around.
@@sabirbikmaev2658 LOL yeah the rest of the song is so boring it's not worth listening to, that's why they copied the hook
With Dua Lipa, this just seems to be her thing. To me she is the definition of the modern cover band. Or Interpolation singer.
She called the album "Future Nostalgia" and leaned heavily into past decades of music.
Interpolation is the most sincere form of copyright infringement....
Interesting that there is a subtle difference between authorship and copyright. Copyright is more like a patent, you do not have to be the actual author, you just have to file the patent. And authorship is more natural concept, if I would write a song with the same melody as 'Let it Be', but with a different lyrics and claim the melody as my own, this will look either immoral or crazy even without going to court.
Winner winner pheasant dinner.
Awesome
If people could copyright arrangements more effectively and there was more money in arranging, these arrangers would be less incentivized to steal song writing credit.
Yeah, Just second to ai
It’s especially amazing that it took 9 people to write (steal) the I Was Made For Loving You knockoff and 6 people to produce it.
Especially when Kiss songs aren't exactly high art to begin with.
The people that want to rob the bank need to do more prework to get the money than people that have their money deposited there.
@@seculi7757but people that make gold bars (pun intended) need to do more work than people stealing them
@@qwipperty Whatever high art is. KISS rules. They made good records for decades.
@@mr.brenman2132 they definitely have.
A friend of mine had free time in a studio (owned by Daniel Lanois and run by his brother) and was throwing down some song ideas to work on at another time. When he went back to pick up the master tapes, they couldn't find them. They only had a copy on cassette. The engineer had moved to LA and took some masters with him for his portfolio. Fast forward 2 years, and my friend was driving and his girlfriend noticed the song on the radio and asked, isn't this your song? It was his song, without changing a thing. It was Christina Aguilera's Beautiful. My friend went to a lawyer with the cassette copy, and the lawyer said, yup, absolutely, that is your song. The problem is that the record companies have millions of dollars to drag it out in court forever till you go broke. Plus, he would have to prove that Linda Perry heard that master tape somewhere and that it wasn't just a coincidence.
Something similar happened to a friend of mine, back in the 90s. He'd sent some demos of his to an electronic music oriented record company, hoping they'd sign him. They didn't. Some months later, an already established group released a track that was clearly "inspired" by my friend's work. He was just a skint teenager creating, so there wasn't much he could do about it.
Did you mean "interpolated," right?
I’m sorry that happened to your friend. It sucks that there is so much unfairness out there. I hope your friend is still enjoying creating
Today is much better you can upload a song to your whatever the authority website is in your country, and then its yours.
Oddly somewhat related, and completely bizarre so I have to share it; the brother of one of my old girlfriends used to play this nutty character at parties where he did a ridiculous dance to the Vengaboys "We Like to Party", he would go around and try and get people to join him in dancing, waving them over. He had a shaved head and wore thick black framed glasses, and one of the times he was recorded doing the routine while at a wedding, where he was wearing a tuxedo with a red bowtie (the version I was shown because my girlfriend thought it was so funny). A few years later, the creepy six flags guy appeared in commercials doing the exact same dance moves to the same song, dressed the same, bald cap, thick black glasses. I couldn't believe it! someone had stolen the whole identity of this character and used it as a marketing tool.
Interpolation, in the music industry, equals theft.
To be clear, interpolation DOES STILL REQUIRE an agreement made with the original songwriters. They absolutely still get a PUBLISHING ROYALTY on the new song. Though the original writers are not always listed as songwriters on the new song, as you saw with the first Dua Lipa example. It depends on the deal that's made. Sometimes quite a lot of the pub from the new song is given to the writers of the interpolated song depending on how it's used.
Mind you this is ONLY from the publishing royalty. As opposed to sampling which requires you to give MASTER royalties to owners of the original recording. Interpolating allows the label or artist to retain full ownership of the master of the new song.
Not a comment on whether I think this is a good thing for the industry or not just wanted to clarify that original writers are getting paid and it's a bit misleading to say 'stealing' .
@@MooseCabooseMedia You appear to be assuming that as regards the instances where the original writer receiving no credit they were compensated in a way that crediting doesn't reveal. That's *quite* an assumption. In this video we see cases presented where they weren't credited, so we don't know where your extrapolation of a fact that so far isn't in evidence derives from.
Exactly. This is kind of a nothingburger; it's done all the time, and I kind of would've thought Rick knows this considering how long he's been in the industry. Dua Lipa and company aren't going to risk a slam-dunk lawsuit against them for such an obvious lift. The due diligence was done, or we would've heard otherwise by now.
@@everonlyallforthee I will tell YOU what the definition of a " nothing burger" is. Its the lazy no-talent B.S. people like Dua Lipa and Mily Cyrus. They could not come up with an original great song on their own if their life depended on it. It happens all the time "now a days" but it NEVER EVER happened in my day- EVER!! I do not care if these so called artist are getting paid or not- Rick is right -they rip offs-period.
100% this, thank you for wording it in such an easy to understand way.
And the sad part is, youtube will give Rick a copywrite strike for playing these samples.
🤣so true!
From the “interpollating” ‘artists’ at least…
Copyright. Copywrite (more properly "write copy") means to compose text for advertising material.
@@nzechesforreal. How fitting
Twice over for each example
In journalism, interpolation is when the writer or editor adds/removes part of a quotation. It's usually done to clarify an oddly spoken sentence, or to cut out a part of a sentence that's unnecessary or confusing. To indicate an interpolation, you put an ellipses (...) where you removed words, and you put added words [inside brackets]. In journalism ethics, it's perfectly acceptable to use interpolation when quoting someone, but you're supposed to ensure your interpolations don't change the meaning or intention of the speaker's original entire quote.
Right you are, no ethics in music 😢, it’s all about clicks and likes and the bejamins!
So its the same as music interpolation?
In science interpolation is to make a reasonable estimate of missing data based on existing data either side of the missing range. Kind of "joining the dots" or "filling the blanks. The related concept is extrapolation, where you estimate data outside of a range of existing data.
The use of the word appears to be kind of backwards here. The stolen sample isn't the interpolation, it's the source from which the rest of the song is interpolated (or extrapolated).
@@fourtyseven47572 No, the law completely differs. The right to quotation is not submitted to copyright laws, and there is no such thing as right to quotation in music.
Interpolation is a buzzword term I’ve seen thrown around in the last 10 years. Music fans defending a song that sounds similar.
However, I and many people - thought that bands had to license or pay the original artist to interpolate. To find out that they don’t - and the entire process is designed to get out of paying or crediting IS INSANE.
Legit I always thought these songs paid the original songwriters. And the interpolation was just to make it more modern and hip. Or put a spin on it. To find out it’s basically plagiarism is wild.
It’s like a student copying a Nobel peace winners essay, but then thinking it’s okay because they re-wrote some of the words. How this is even legal in the music industry is beyond me. Awful
As an Architect, we were taught that nothing is original...so we interpolate what has come before.
That may have been what you were told but it’s extrapolation. Extending in a similar fashion from what was before. It’s a mathematical term for extending a series or curve beyond the current or past data. Like in guessing the inflation rate in 12 months time.
Interpolation is filling in gaps from sampled points - again a mathematical technique for smoothing curves from discrete samples.
It brings to my mind that quote from a music producer in the documentary Sound City. He said that technology has allowed people who have no business in the music industry to become stars. He was referring to people who have no real musical talent or creativity. But then it's not about talent or being talented for many. It's about being famous (not talented) and money.
The puff daddy model.
FACTS! and this generation is raised on technology. so they literally went hand IN HAND pun inFUCKINGtended
he would have been correct if he had said 'allowed MORE people'. Technology that was new to him wasnt the source of such things.
Exactly. No one can look at me with a straight face and tell me Dua Lipa is talented. It's simply not true. It's all about showing skin on social media for Likes, the "music" is secondary.
@@uzi978 Sam Smith comes to mind.
Oh, I wasn’t stealing that car! I was just “interpolating” it!
As long as you repaint it all good.
If you're a dem, everything is okay if you tell the judge you're sorry.
To the song, 'Fascination' as sung by Nat King Cole:
It was interpolation, I know. That's what was making the music world go . . .
@@SteamvilleQuintetoh brother 🙄. You missed your exit, sparky
Interpolating is probably part of the progressive language group
I love it that my favorite band of 25+years (they are 40+) does their own original music but also covers that they credit for the love of the music.
People have been ripping off 80s classics for the past three decades, and it just confirms how awesome the 80s really was.
Yep!
I was about to say "three decades?! What are you talking about? It hasn't been three decades since the 80s?!" But then I remembered that it's not still the year 2000 😅
And in the ‘80s, Pop songs ripped off songs from the ‘50s-70s.
@@KevyNova name one
@@victortesla4198 I can name several but since you asked for _one,_ I’ll give you “Footloose” by Kenny Loggins in 1984 gets its chorus melody from the guitar riff of the 1970 Joe Walsh/James Gang song “Funk #49”
Greed plus a lack of creativity = pop music for a while now
Exactly. Its been like this since 2004. 20 years. Just a while.
@@mackash Goes back well before 2004, it started with 8 bit synthesizers and drum machines. +
nuh uh
@@DavidDacaroNah a lot of innovation was done with electronic instruments
Remember kids, creativity isn't dead, labels just aren't signing creative people. Remember bands? Remember when we use to have bands in the top 40?
The last time a band was on the list of the top 25 earning musical artists was Maroon 5 in 2010. Long Live Rock!
Thank you!
People don't want to be musicians, they just want to be entertainers/celebrities. I agree with you and have brought up this before.
@@mdarrenu
As a Christian I can tell you that I could easily replace the word “musician” in your comment with the word “pastor”. It’s rampant in our churches nowadays. Instead of pastors feeding the sheep, we have clowns entertaining goats.
Charles Spurgeon.
Now we have teams of producers only!
The word “Interpolation” has been hijacked by the legal community. Historically interpolation could be viewed as a technical term where, for example, an processor might interpolate a bunch of numbers into something else - say like a sample rate converter going from 44.1kHz to 48kHz. Or a thermometer that switches back and forth between C and F.
Back many years ago I worked for a guy right there in Atlanta who owned a “ sound alike” studio business. His business model was pretty clever. We would take 8 to 10 hit tunes a week and re-record them, mix them, and he would lease them to South American markets. I think back then (late 70s) a lot of this flew way under the radar. If this was today the studio owner would easily be covered under the “interpolation” rule. The sound alike business eventually dried up simply because, among other things, by the ‘80d, song production got denser and denser. Getting 8 quality sound alikes done a week was difficult. Anyway, today, it’s a matter of ethics, which increasingly seems to fly out the window.
Ya know, Rick is one of the few individuals on TH-cam who is actively keeping track of what people are doing, and keeping rock alive.
"Well, you only get caught when you're successful. That's the game"
--Robert Plant
The captains of interpolation station!
@@sovereignbrehon No, that would be Weird Al -- but he always gets permission and gives credit...
Yeah, they were indeed naughty (like several other notable bands at the time). At least Led Zep didn't capitalise merely on stealing but filled the rest of their records with truly original work, but still, a bit of a blemish on their legacy. Alas.
There's a great vid up about the song "Dazed and Confused" and the musician who originally wrote/performed it.
@@JacoWium "Original" adjective, a work wherein it has not yet been widely discovered the source from which it was plagiarised.
You're on the right track, Rick. As an engineer and not a musician, what they call interpolation is not what I think of as interpolation. As other commenters suggest here, one for the lawyers.
Right. I'm an artist so I've been painting since I was a child. At this point I could probably do a direct Recreation of the Mona Lisa if I wanted to. But if I decided to do that instead of buying/renting the REAL Mona Lisa to hang in my gallery, that doesn't mean that that image is mine to display lol. That would indeed be stealing if I tried to pass off that painting as an original creation of MY mind.
In my sphere of the computer world, it's largely meant as a blend/morph. Either way highly sus and some modern pretzelspeak that juries and judges are falling for. Like so many other aspects of the 2020s.
@@trophyscene5015 That is a great point!
@@trophyscene5015 The Mona Lisa is a bad example. It's long out of copyright, so you can do whatever you want with it, pretty much. If you passed off your copy as being painted by Da Vinci, that would be fraud, but mostly anything else goes, legally. To take your specific example, there'd be no legal problem with putting your copy of the Mona Lisa in a gallery, as long as you didn't claim it was Da Vinci's original. Thing is, nobody really cares about your copy of the Mona Lisa, regardless of how accurate it is. You could even claim it was your own original idea, except that obviously that would make you look like an idiot.
Interpolate indicates a thing was imported/inserted etc as itself, instead of an interpretation of that item, so that argument would be tossed out.
I’m going with Option B - “they just don’t care” (because they’re betting they’ll make more from the song than it will cost them to fight about in court)
Well, technically, shouldn't they lose everything they made....? 🤔
@@MH3GLThat’s what I think now and thought back when I was a photographer. People thought, hey, it’s in the paper I’ll just go get a copy and then…
... like in _Fight Club_, where the car company (Ford) doesn't issue a recall until a certain number of people die.
This didn’t start yesterday. Since about 2018, many of the top 40 type pop artists have been either sampling older pop songs directly, or covertly copying their riffs and phrasing etc.
We are in the age of music as a consumer product. Quick and easy wins the day.
Since wayyyy before then. Been happening for decades.
@@UncleBenjs Can't Touch This.
@@ubertar True but since even before
What are you, like 10? This has been happening since the beginning of music.........
Vanilla Ice was bashed publicly until he was effectively forced into buying the publishing rights to Under Pressure. stealing melodies has always been a thing, but it was us as the audience that made musicians avoid it. The courts didn't make Vanilla Ice buy Under Pressure because Ice Ice Baby used and almost identical intro, it was us calling him out.
An interesting case of this happened in film in the movie True Romance. The Hans Zimmer composed theme "You're So Cool" "interpolated" Gassenhauer By Carl Orff (and Gunild Keetman). The director wanted the original and couldn't get it, so he had Zimmer write a clone.
Reminds of the scene in Fight Club, when Edward Norton explains his job as a recall coordinator: "My job was to apply the formula... A times B times C equals X. If X is less than the cost of a recall, we don't do one." It wouldn't surprise me if companies estimate the song's profit, and release it if the expected legal challenge costs less than the profit.
That is exactly how all commercial cases work. I am an expert witness in commercial cases, not in the music industry. My job is to tell the truth of course and make sure the data and evidence is interpreted correctly. Then at some point the judge makes it clear to one or other side (s)he is minded to award costs to the other side if they wish to continue the case. The judge has other ways of signaling as the cases goes on as to the way the weight of evidence is pointing. There are regular internal client meetings where legal experts will weigh up the odds of winning and losing and the likely ongoing costs for the client. There is of course bluffing and sometimes the one with the deepest pocket can bully the other party into back down as they can't afford to lose no matte how good their case. My job is basically like playing poker with $1 million chips. We put a stack of those chips down every time we go in the court. It's the same in every industry.
@@brianthesnail3815 What an interesting comment. You're an expert witness? As a job? What's your field of expertise? Or do you actually get the majority of your income (or perhaps all of it) from acting as an expert witness in those commercial cases you cited? Is this in America? Or the UK?
@@jimreily7538 I am not allowed to receive any payment that is linked to the outcome of the case. I am paid a flat fee per hour similar to the lawyers by one or other side in the case but I am formally working for the judge. I have to give evidence in writing or orally under oath and am cross examined usually in one of the London courts. I don't have any specific training but long industry expertise and also as a published academic. I am bound by confidentiality clauses so I can't say which industry but the cases are always very large sums of money, stressful and therefore not something I can do every day.
Exactly. Who wouldn't break the law if the profit for doing so far exceeded the penalty? Look at the MLB Houston Astros sign stealing scandal for example. It cost the team $5 million, but they won the World Series. The team revenue jumped up by $50 million the year they won. There's more incentive to cheat.
@@jimreily7538 I only get paid a flat fee. I am not allowed to get paid on the basis of how the case turns out. I work in London and have to sign non disclosure agreements so I can't say what I do. I am an industry expert though and also an academic. It's very hard work so I can't do it every day.
I'm not a lawyer but "interpolation" is in fact part of US copyright law. It's when you insert part of a copyrighted song into another one and it falls under derivative works. To do it legally, you have to obtain consent from the author of the original song.
I think that’s the point everyone is making, that it seems like there hasn’t been permission given. Maybe they have behind the scene.
maybe the author no longer owns the song.
@@carlosgaspar8447bingo. If the record company owns the song, they can let other artists re-use melodies etc.
Isn't that called "sampling"? That's how the public knows it as.
@@iu2 Sampling is when the original audio recording itself is involved. Interpolation involves only the underlying melody or lyrics. To make an interpolation requires permission (not a license) from the composer, lyricist and/or publisher and a cover license which is very cheap. To make use of sampling, would require a license from the owner of the original audio recording (usually the record company for big artists) and is typically extremely expensive. It is very unlikely that you would get a license to make an interpolation using sampling but if you did manage to pull it off, it would cost you an arm and a leg.
The irony of this complaint when "I Was Made For Lovin' You" directly lifted its melody from the backing vocal of The Beach Boys' "Heroes and Villains."
beach boys themselves "borrowed" a lot from various blues artists
@@franepoljak9605true though this was mostly their early sixties work, unfortunate but true.
Exactly! That’s why it’s ridiculous for people to get upset about it. Ed Sheeran took a guitar to his case when he was getting sued and showed that he can play gobs of songs with the same four chords. It’s gonna happen. There’s nothing you can do about it. And I don’t believe in most cases it happens intentionally.
@@joshnizzle I think Rick's really only complaining about contemporary pop artists doing it. But I encourage Rick to go take a listen to "Crescent City Blues" and consider why he's not calling out Johnny Cash.
I'm glad someone mentioned the "I Was Made For Lovin' You" / "Heroes and Villains" similarity. I've heard it for years but never seen anyone mention it. Although Brian stole the whole "Hereos and Villains, just see what you've done..." from his own song "Do You Like Worms?", or if it was the other way around, I don't know 😄
I notice this all the time. I can’t count how many times a younger person plays what they think is a cool new song and I quickly ruin it by telling them it’s just a bad remake of a good old song
Thank you Mr. Beato, for speaking about this topic and your wonderful interviews. Here our composers association has a technical board that's is responsible of the evaluation of incoming copyright claims from the authors. If there is no claim the association will not act on behalf of the author. In the cases you exposed the authors should write a claim to their composers association and they have to investigate. This cases are very easy ones because the amount of used musical phrases is clearly a lot. I was the chair of our composers associations technical board for two periods. We had monthly meetings to evaluate the incoming claims. Our statements would not change the legal status of the registration but the intellectual property court would evaluate them. So the author should first contact the composers association, try to create a compromise with the support of the association, if it doesn't create a solution open a court case. Copyrights are only protected if the right holder protects them. All my best wishes from Istanbul
"... they obviously had much better lawyers ..." You got me cracking up, Rick!
It could also be that a volunteer wiki editor decided to add it. Let's not be too quick... giving credit to the record company.
@@hnhl2770 They're also credited on Apple Music.
@@Kunibert_Knatter A number of Rexas singer-songwriters moved to Texas, especially Austin, in the 79s and 80s. Guy Clark, however, stayed in Nashville. He said it was because the best music lawyers were in Nashville. He said they were armed robbers in business suits, and he wanted them on his side.
@@larrymckenney6410 hmmmmgnihihi
Back in 90's in Berklee my teacher's first advice was to get a lawyer (instead of a manager), both for protection and also for reaching to A&R people and companies. Looks like nowadays lawyers are more important and have more things to do.
Can you imagine if lawyers joined the bands? “And tonight on bass we’ve got … and on the bar we’ve got …!”
@@youngwt1Lol!
I worked with a lawyer that played drums. He was the butt of many jokes! Good drummer however and a good civil attorney.
@@gilldavidmour4199 the lead singer/leader of my (our) new country band had a previous career as chief legal council for the ACLU in New England. (Doesn't help with entertainment law, tho.) :D
These examples seem legally very iffy in light of the "Land Down Under" and "Creep" judgements.
If those few bars of the fairly old "Kookaburra" melody could lost Men at Work so many thousands then surely nicking off INXS, a band with members who are still alive, is just wide open for a lawsuit? You'd have thought that lawyers would be queueing up to take the cases.
I agree. Back in 1987 my band, Salvation Sunday got a £250,000 record deal from Polydor UK. We did not even have a manager, just a very clued-up, well connected lawyer. It worked. Then we got a manager - which wasn't very clever of us, or necessary.
In Germany, if you want to use another song for your own song, you need permission of rights owner to sample or modify it. You only need no permission if you just cover it. That is, if you take the song as it is, same melody, same harmonics, same lyrics and just re-interpret it with you own band (you may slow it down or speed it up or change the beat or add new instruments, as long as the song is still recognized as the original song), you don't need permission and nobody can stop you from doing that but you still need to pay royalties to all the rights owners. Yet if you want to make a completely new song out of it, you will need permission, as that is like modifying the original song, there's no way around that and you will surely get sued if you try that without permission.
I was a music industry major in the late 90's and remember learning the difference between "interpolation" and "sampling', so the concept isn't that new. However, it was never used as an excuse to not give credit where credit is due, rather, was a technical distinction to describe the way a borrowed section was used in a recording/performance. I know things have changed a lot since the 90s but I'm pretty sure songwriters of interpolated sections of significance are still supposed to get credit.
Only the naive would believe that artists who interpolate/sample other artists are doing so without some explicit permission. Yes there are cases in which some artists are not properly credited, but they eventually are and are compensated accordingly.
@@kiramaticc- *You say that so confidently. How can you be so sure? (No disrespect intended; just wondering) Cheers!* 🤘🏼
@@LeadSurge3000 Look at the credits given for each track in an album (this is a feature available on Spotify, not sure about Apple Music). If a song contains a sample, the original creator of that sample is listed as a writer. If they are listed as a writer, they are compensated via royalties (or an upfront free depending on the contract signed), which the original writer has to agree to otherwise the sample won't be cleared to use.
As an example, look at the track Izzo from Jay Z. It contains a sample from The Jackson 5's "I Want You Back". The writers credited include people who helped write the original song.
This is usually standard practice in hip hop due to the entire genre predicated on sampling other artists. It's very rare you see a sample not credited or the original artist not compensated and approved by them, and if they aren't, they usually are very quickly otherwise the label would be taken to court.
Curiously, he didn't point out the commonality stringing those altogether. If you pay attention, it's the same producer on every one of them - Andrew Watt.
And three of the writers are all the same, too: "Jordan K. Johnson" (aka Jordan K.); Andrew Wotman; and Stefan Johnson."
Also, Andrew Watt and Andrew Wotman are the same guy.
Don't leave anything valuable laying around your house if he comes there for a party. 😆
The number of credited writers on that Bieber thing is hilarious. And then they steal from someone else.
Who is doing what Mark Ronson did with Bruno Mars and others.
3:26 or Wikipedia someone went in and changed it.
Yeah, one should not use Wikipedia as an official source.
The whole point of wikipedia!!
It's possible. But it's not 2008 anymore and the days of making significant editing changes without providing a dependable source are long gone. The Wikimedia Foundation has done great work to raise standards to the point where it is more reliable than most general online sources. Try, for instance, to post unverifiable news about a politician you dislike, or just make up stuff about anything, and see how long it takes before you get blocked.
I was looking for some comment referring the fact that wikipedia may not be the most reliable source.
Wikipedia is not officially written by the creators of the song.
So expecting to see it credited there and taking it as official credit, is weird or simply wrong.
If you want to use internet, maybe Discogs would be a better source, because it is usually based of the official edition’s publishing or literature.
But even better it should be the official creator’s or the record label’s website. Also the physical format edition booklet or cover where the full credits show be published… although this is getting less common nowadays.
When asked in an interview about how he could write so many different plays (not counting historical), Shakespeare said, "All the stories have already been written, you just have to change them a bit. Personally, I steal from the best, The Bible." It is amazing to really listen to Romeo and Juliet and hear the lines directly from the Bible. On Johnny Carson, when asked how much longer Bonanza could run, Lorne Greene said, "As long as people watch. We've already done Romeo and Juliet 6 times."
So, I guess that means, all the songs have already been written, too. We just don't admit it.
Hmmm......very amusing but only partly true...!! Would you really compare the blatant shameless rip offs here with
Shakespeare's use of historical events..?!?!
The 60s, 70s, and 80s is when old school musical teaching/learning combined with creativity resulted in something new and fresh. There are still some current artists out there who make great new music, but most seem to be simple music production producers and artists who just want the quick buck.
Interpolation is great ... it's all the reason I need not to listen to all the "new" shyte
This has been going on a long time. Why is everyone shocked. Most of your favorite artists have done it. For example, Led Zeppelin and my childhood favorite Nirvana did this.
Greg Gutfeld asked King Buzzo:
“What is the secret to good songwriting?”
Buzz responded “ Hiding what your stealing “
This is blantant stealing tho, they aren't hiding anything.
Because Zepp (eventually) did credit the original artists. Killing Joke were cool with Nirvana’s Come As You Are. Borrow, be influenced, rework - but give credit to the original material.
@@AtAlCost Zep only did that when they were forced with a lawsuit, as in the case of Dazed and Confused and Whole Lotta Love. Where's the credit for stealing Stairway's intro, Custard Pie's lyrics, How Many More Times, Moby Dick's guitar riff, and others?
Exactly
Exactly! Does Rick honestly think that the first person who ever played a bluesy pentatonic melody over a 1 4 5 progression with a flat 7 on the 1 is getting writing credits from the many many boomer guitarists who coppied them?
I knew a couple of jingle writers that were active several decades ago. They used to describe how when they wrote something they liked, they'd run around the office playing or singing it for everyone to to make sure they actually wrote it and didn't accidentally steal it from something else - lurking in the reaches of their memories.
😂 the guitarist in our band was writing a riff. He's working on it for about 2 hrs. Then we hear "ahh f%^k. F$%k me." Turns out he had been listening to a lot of Gorillaz like a month before and ripped off a whole rhythm section without realizing.
Wow. Ethics and integrity from the "advertising people", but not from the "artists".
That's what Paul McCartney did when he wrote "Yesterday"
Interpolation really isn't new, but has been going on for a lot longer than people think. The video "Everything is a Remix" by Kirby Ferguson is an excellent breakdown on "copying" in art and general and why it's not a bad thing. The beginning section discusses early hip-hop sampling and the earlier interpolation by the likes of Led Zeppelin. The final takeaway is nicely summed up in the creator's words "The(se) words are all mine, but they're merged from the thoughts of countless people... (This video) is a testament to the brilliance and beauty of human creativity. In particular, its a testament to collective creativity. Human genius is not individual. It is shared."
They also stole the word "interpolation", which has a very specific (and different) meaning in engineering and mathematics.
and ancient text/scripture
So they intepolated interpolation, that's an iterposeption.
I mean, plenty of uses for the word interpolation. We even use it in animation.
@@iceman10129 and none of them mean "re doing what was done". it means in a general sense "placing thing between things"
Exactly... "In the mathematical field of numerical analysis, interpolation is a type of estimation, a method of constructing (finding) new data points based on the range of a discrete set of known data point"
So the use of interpolation in regards to music SHOULD mean that NEW notes are constucted based on existong ones... NOT simply rerecording the same notes. That's called COPYING, or in these cases STEALING.
Its worth noticing that in Dua Lipa's case is deliberately on purpose, since the concept of the album "Future Nostalgia" is exactly that. She grew up listening to the classics of rock and pop from the 70's and 80's . As per her wikipedia page; "She wanted to create a record with the nostalgic memories of her childhood and the music her parents listened to and put a modern spin on it with futuristic elements, which is why she ultimately went with the title."
Finally someone who points this out! Yes I agree people need to be creative and a lot of songs are copied and boring nowadays, but in this case is it wrong if she does point it out so obviously?!
@@GSNLYT IMO there are cooler ways to pay homage to those classics or even collaborate as she did with Elton John for the song " Cold Heart" , or maybe invite the original artists to play those specific parts. I'll like to point out that Dua's songs caused a new audience to discover those classics and the streaming numbers of said songs increased, so i suspect there is some kind of agreement that will explain the lack of lawsuits against her label.
Early 80's rock/metal was very influenced by music of the 70's that those guitarists grew up on and did incorporate bits and pieces.
@@kmndz6759 I agree, there are definitely cooler ways to pay a homage!
If she really wanted to throw back to the classics of the 70's and 80's she'd just steal an entire classical music piece and everyone would pretend that's different somehow.
Remember Pink Floyd's 1971 album Meddle? The track "Fearless (Interpolating "You'll Never Walk Alone)" does credit Rodgers and Hammerstein for use of the melody sung or chanted by the fans of Liverpool Football Club. The crowd noise heard at the beginning and coda of the song is actually credited as an interpolation way back when!
Side note: This was how the song title was printed on the gatefold of the US Capitol release that I bought back in the mid eighties but the 2016 reissue leaves off the parentheses and listed as simply “Fearless”.
Those are proper examples of what the word "interpolation" means.
Would a fan in the crowd on the day the sample was recorded have any standing to claim a share of the royalties?
@@stephenderry9488Ever read the back of an entrance ticket, parking ticket, concert ticket, almost any ticket? You’d be amazed.
@@emptywig K, so Rick has taught music college level theory, how is he unfamiliar with the term?
@@stephenderry9488 Only if you can make out their voice in the original recording.
Hey, Rick! I had this happen: played out and used some of my new material 06-07 on the Seattle scene. The live shows were recorded, just mic and instruments, as well as live w the crowd. Long story short, another band swiped TWO of my tunes and this particular band went on to produce their first three albums, all cert platinum. We had people who specialized in this area of law take a look at it and were pretty much like, ‘yeah, but what do you really want to accomplish here?’ It turned out that my senior counsel called their agent (also an attorney-same dude who rep’d Maverick and screwed Candlebox) as soon as we were done with our second meeting AND he accepted $5000 for his agency in the matter…yeah, other band’s lawyer paid him $50k to attempt to dissuade me from suing and offered another $50k after I signed papers saying I have no rights to what I am claiming and it was all a misunderstanding. My live show recordings were from months before they ever cop’d those tunes AND I never signed those forms. The business is so damn dirty, brother. There are thousands of stories worse than mine, of those that will never be known, The Real nameless faceless songwriters that others built careers and companies on…
Most those 4+ writers are over 35 so they immediately know when the song sounds exactly like another huge pop song. They also know if it worked once then it’ll work again.
As a novice musician, I once tried to write a song. I thought I had a pretty cool ballad. I put it away and forgot about it for many months. One day, I started playing it and thought it sounded familiar. I played it over and over at faster tempos until I realized why it was so familiar. The melody was the theme for “Gilligan’s Island”.
🤣You got me!
well if you take chords progression, it is mostly the same for everybody I-IV-V with minor variations
@@danielstachnik5792 LOL 🤣
i actually once came up with 2 songs, from fear factory and alter bridge, almost note for note, without having heard them before. And i was so proud of myself lol.. Until i heard the songs. Still proud a little 😂
I came up with a killer melody on piano one day then realised it was the opening riff to Cyndi Laupers ‘True Colours’ which must have been buried in my subconscious. I was only really used to hearing the chorus 🤦🏻♂️
These modern artists and writers should try "interpolating" some integrity.
Oh they probably found out how quickly the record deal will vanish if they choose that road long ago...
Awesome comment!
You old farts are gonna pretend like older artists like Zeppelin hadn't been doing this decades ago? All artists steal, get over it.
Most of U2 hits "interpolate" other songs.
Tale as old as time. Pete Seeger when asked to give advice to young musicians just starting out said "stop worrying about being so damn original." Everybody's stealing from everybody else, the trick is to steal from the right people.
They follow the principle: as long as noone is suing, we are doing fine.
"Unless they just don't care." Truer words were never spoken
Customer in a restaurant:
"Hey, you're eating my meal!"
Other customer:
"No! I'm just Interpolating it into my body."
Or if a fast food restaurant called 'Slack Donald's' made a burger identical to a Big Mac and called it a 'Big Slack'.
By the way unlike music, you can't copyright a recipe.
Good one!
@@Payne2view It was McDowell's and the Big Mick
@@chemicaldeath9866 that's a great point. So many songs are built on the 1, 4, 5 chord progression ..... But we don't consider them to be stealing each others riffs
"Cliff, you borrow something without asking first, they call that stealing!" - The Rocketeer
Have you watched the recent Professor of Rock video interview with Rita Coolidge where they discuss how Eric Clapton stole Rita’s composition for the piano coda for the song Layla? Half the song that just lifted her piano melody from the song Time (that was recorded by Booker T and Priscilla Jones). Fascinating story and infuriating that she was never credited or compensated for it. According to her account, on a phone call, Robert Stigwood basically told her ‘Too bad. What are you going to do about it? You can’t afford the legal fees to fight us.’ I guess it was just “interpolated”.
spot on, there is a million more examples of this from artist that we love & value as artists. granted it is a fine line between interpolation & plagiarism. I heard a recording of Blind Willie McTell breaking down how blues musicians stole/interpolated from each other. Why is Rick acting like this is new?
And Duane allman borrowed the famous Layla lick from Albert King. Just sped it up
Jim Gordon, Derek and the Dominos drummer was the one who stole it, that's why he's got a songwiting credit on it; the other guys apparently didn't know what he had done until after it was released
It's like the World today where, if you are part of the club, you can cheat. And if you're not, you can't.
Jim Gordon was Eric Clapton’s drummer.
He played and composed songs on piano.
He wrote that piano part for Time, that was used in Layla.
Rita Coolidge wrote the vocal melody for Time, that was not used in Layla.
She admits this in her book
(A memoir by Rita)
Case closed.
Interpolation is a mathematical technique for estimating unknown values. It is often used for prediction of values of complex systems.
It has nothing to do with "borrowing" copyrighted material.
I've often said there are 2 types of people in the world: those who can interpolate from incomplete data
Well, it's more than a mathematical term. But that said, this seems to be a way of hiding theft.
@@hijeffinition2042 nice one
Words can have different meanings in different contexts.
exactly. As a data scientist we use this term everyday.
The word "interpolation" isn't new, but the definition as used musically IS. It originally meant "the insertion of a remark into a conversation (usually off topic or tangential)" or in mathematics, adding a new number or value to a series by calculating or estimating the new value from the known ones in the series. Rick, YOUR definition is much more accurate: the use of part of a song without attribution or recompense, i.e., stealing.
10 years ago I played The Who's "Baba O'Reilly" for my niece - she thought it was a One Direction remix. Needless to say she discovered the truth, and has since renounced her One Direction fandom.
Doing the Lord’s work.
(The WeekEnd-Save your tears 2021) is a direct copy of (Lilly Allen-The Fear 2008)
@@MichaelSuperbacker Neither of which manage to be good, too! Consistent, if nothing else.
Truly, a child saved...
Many more moons ago while walking up to the house my niece and her friends rocking out in the garage. I came in singing "Well He was just seventeen, You know what I mean". For a few minutes I was the coolest Uncle on the planet and they beamed How do you know this? It was before today's tech but I took the opportunity to introduce them to the Beatles. I remember telling my brother my favorite song Disco Duck. He sat me down with his albums and introduced Elton John, Boz Scaggs, The Who and of course The Beatles Abbey Road. I've never looked back. Good memories.
you nailed it -interpolating is a not-so-fancy way to say stealing. i dont know whats worse -the blatant thievery or a absolute lack of originality and creativity from these marginally talented "artists" (aka image/fashion peddlers)
@@sunsetjunior9313 is sampling stealing?
@@fourtyseven47572 was just going to mention sampling........seems like if you invent a word that describes the same action as stealing, but isn't considered stealing you can get away with it. Not so fast - if the concept for both words is the same, then you can be prosecuted for interpolating a car.
@@CookingAroundTheWorld If you give credit and clear the sample/interpolation thats not stealing. Stealing would be taking core musical elements from a song and not giving credit or royalties, which has been happening for over 5 decades, probably longer
@@fourtyseven47572 -IMO if it's used with permission, given proper credit including royalties, then NO. otherwise, yes. pretty basic and obvious?
@@sunsetjunior9313 so interpolation isnt stealing... gotcha
It’s like when I realized about 100% of the rap songs I liked as a kid I only liked because of the hooks….. that all turned out to be samples.
and whats wrong with them being samples?
@@mappplesirrup8473 I didn’t know they were samples. I thought the rappers knew how to write good hooks 😅
"You can get with this"bassline was from Ron Carter.
Lol I have the same experience but EDM (specifically hardstyle/hardcore)
@@mappplesirrup8473 samples are stolen from the original artists that's what's wrong with them. Samples are a crutch that hiphop has begun to rely upon too heavily. What's wrong with expecting recording "artists" to create their own original music? By the way I've reported your troll account. You're probably another thief
Wikipedia is not going to let anyone create an entry that accuses an artist of ripping off another artist, at least until it's been proven in court. So "interpolation" is a nice, safe word for a Wikipedia entry where everyone reading it replaces "interpolation" with "theft."
This all comes down to Wikipedia's "verifiability" policy. It works very well when most sources are right, but fails horribly when the majority of sources are wrong.
There are also notable instances of Wikipedia's community admitting that this is a problem, but refusing to fix it "because that's not what everyone else does".
I do think it’s interesting that Andrew Watt produced all those tracks
Indeed.
And they all have the same 'writing' team...
Yep. The Monsters and Strangerz uncreatives.
Exactly
And such classic music
"Unless they just don't care". This.
They DO care. They do it ON PURPOSE. They lift melodies and chord progressions from songs that were hits or at least catchy. That way the hit potential is highest.
We're not really allowed to say "this" in that way, anymore. It's a truncated, slackadaisical, caveman grunt expression lacking context and devoid of originality. Sorry not trending.
@@kuwgukl5211 这个！
Unless their parents bought Dey career
There are some artists that dont care about copyrighting and all that other business stuff. Tom Petty was one of those, he didnt care if RHCP used bits of his Mary Jane song, and in return RHCP allowed another group to use one of their guitar riffs.
Ethel, I think you mean people/BIG BIZ has been ripping off 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, + classics for at lease the past six decades, and it just confirms how awesome the real writers truly are!
Thank you Rick, you Rock when it come to any thing music, you are all pro my friend!!!
Pedanticalllllllllllllly, they can't have been ripping off stiff from the 70s on for the last 6 decades 🤣. Otherwise, you said it all.
The rights are for the song itself (melody + lyrics) but also each individual performance. So many people can have different versions of the same song as long as they get rights to the song itself. That’s a big reason for why you’ll find popular songs in movies that have been re recorded with new artists. It was cheaper to redo it than to pay the rights for the original studio version.
Interpolation definition: I’m young and fabulous and I’m entitled to do anything I really want and take credit for it.
Boomer youtuber definition: I’m old and fabulous and I’m entitled to be angry and yell at the clouds and take credit for it because beatles is the greatest band ever.
Yeah, I miss back in the old days when people would just rip off classical music without crediting Mozart.
@@domerust6899 - REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
Wrong. Miley Cyrus is getting to middle age.
Err NO!
In Dua Lipa case it's made sense, because her album is called Future Nostalgia and every song has a riff or melody from 80s song. Just saying.
And Wikipedia isn't something that necessarily add credits because moderators simply can forget to add them.
But still i think that today's pop music is holding too much on nostalgia and especially for the 80s sound. In 80s everyone made that music because it sounded new and fresh, today they just rely on nostalgia.
Which case? She is listed as a co writer on all these examples....
Having that concept is ok as long as she admits it and pays the actual songwriters and credits them, which she didnt do , as far as i know
"It's not plagiarism, it's homage" LOL
She is still talentless if she needs to do that to create 80s sounding songs.
Interpolate has a VERY clear mathematical definition: to complete an incomplete data set based on surrounding data. For example: 2, 4, 6, __, 10. What is the missing number? Interpolation would say that 8 is the answer.
How this word got used in the context of "borrowing" melodies is beyond me. If they had said that they used tune A to INSPIRE tune B, then sure, maybe. But there is no sense where the first tune is incomplete and the second tune completes it. Just theft.
You might interpolate two waves if sampled and converted in digital. So you have your digital sounds and you interpolate them with the old song's wave converted in digital. I think it's something like this.
It also means: to alter or corrupt (something, such as a text) by inserting new or foreign matter. Which is how they are most likely using it here. They take the original and insert a few things over it and it is now interpolated.
yes, it is COPYING. not inferring, not deducing.
"Wow wow, slow down, egghead"
Wouldn't that be extrapolation??
we've finally hit the plateau in musical creativity where the vast majority of musicians are simply selling the previous generations music back to the new generation repackaged with a generic "new" beat. The older bands/artists are retiring and without the influx of new and original music, we're left pining for the sounds we grew up with. New musicians are re-recording the same music to keep the older generation listening to the new music because "Musical Nostalgia" is a real thing, and we're powerless against it.
My late mom used to say: Good thing new kids are born every day so we can tell them the old jokes again. Since despite the fact that a back log of pop culture is freely available more than ever before, including to the general public, most people only tend to engage with new stuff, so they really don't know how much is a remake or stolen. Goes for movies, literature etc just as much as music.
Very good point, I notice this so much with movies, it is especially true with foreign movies or old Hollywood movies where Hollywood will remake them, occasionally they are an improvement but often they are worse. I suspect it goes on in Literature far more than is noted.
True story. When I was in high school a band called The Thompson Twins had a song called “Revolution”, that I thought they wrote. Many years later when the internet came around I found out it was written by a band called The Beatles. I didn’t listen to The Beatles so I wouldn’t know that. You make a GREAT point.
Great post! A bit off-topic, but it's interesting how memory works. I can remember an obscure piece of music I heard only once maybe 40 years ago, or a theme played in some lesser-known movie. But I can never remember a goddamn joke! I've heard thousands of great jokes over the years, but the moment someone asks me to tell a joke, I'm completely stumped. So I'm grateful that people like your mother was around to keep them alive!
@@JacoWium Interesting. Not saying it can be diagnosed from that alone, but sounds like something that might be connected with autism.
@@galaxyii In my case it was Phil Collins' cover of "You Can't Hurry Love", although I did wonder why it sounded so retro.
I know the word from maths
Interpolation: Calculating an approximate value
Interpolation is the process of estimating a value based on known values. For example, in investing, interpolation is used to estimate a security's price or potential yield.
INXS' Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss are credited as writers on the song "Break My Heart". Thus, the interpolation appears to be cleared from a legal perspective.
Additionally, as per ASCAP, Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss do receive publishing and songwriting royalties. As per ASCAP, Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss each receive 11.3% of the royalties (publishing and songwriting) that the song generates. This split assumes that the combined writing and publisher royalties under ASCAP's domain for the song, which totals 45.33%, is equally divided among Dua Lipa, Stefan Johnson of the production duo The Monsters and Strangerz (who co-produced the song, along with Andrew Watt), and the aforementioned members of INXS. The remaining 54.67% of songwriting and publishing royalties appear to be divided among Ali Tamposi (co-writer of the lyrics alongside Dua Lipa), Jordan Johnson (other part of the production duo The Monsterz and Strangers), and Andrew Watt.
However, the trend of interpolating old songs may even become more prevalent, especially as artists are selling their catalog to investment firms. To this end, these firms and/or their associated publishers are holding writing camps/sessions where the explicit aim is for songwriters and/or producers to interpolate a certain song in their catalog. This may be applicable to Dua Lipa's case, as the Monsters and Strangerz and Andrew Watt are affiliated with Hipgnosis, one of the bigger firms that are involved in acquiring music rights.
I am not sure why "Prisoner" or "Physical" do not have Kipner and Shaddick credited, especially when Doja Cat and SZA did so for their duet "Kiss Me More". While I think the latter borrows less from Newton-John's "Physical", it apparently came down to how much melodic phrasing was taken from the song? (This is as per a Billboard article entitled "Forever No. 1: Olivia Newton-John's Physical"). Additionally, Dua Lupa said that "Physical" was not based on the Newton-John song (At least, its conception was not based on it). She, however, acknowledges the similarity between the two songs (as per NPR interview in March 2020).
Looks like Dua Lipa can’t write a song without taking someone else’s melody.
@@EstebanAguilarSax I'm shocked I tell you, shocked! I'm not. :)
@EstebanAguilarSax In that regard, her new album, "Radical Optimism", is a significant improvement. While the influences are still primarily from 70s/80s disco, late 90s/early 2000s pop, there are no credited sampling/interpolation except for "Trauning Season" (which supposedly interpolates a song named "Tokyo Nights" by Dragonette, Digital Farm Animals, and Shaun Frank).
I will admit that, to my ear, there are similarities of melody of the chorus of "Hold The Line" by Toto and the verses of Dua Lipa's "Falling Forever".
@@SystematicMechanic 🤣
Don't think Michael Hutchence needs it anymore.
I happened to watch an interview posted yesterday with Rita Coolidge (on Professor of Rock). You know the coda section of “Layla” that begins with piano? Rita tells a pretty compelling story about how SHE wrote it, then heard it on the radio a year later. When she finally got in to see the label boss, Robert Stigwood, he said, “You’re just a girl…you can’t afford a lawyer to fight this…just let it go…”
Another reason to dislike Clapton, then.
Although I haven't had a chance to listen to or watch PoR in awhile, I do know that story. And it's soul crushing the way she and other talented female musicians of the time were often treated by their male counterparts and the music industry, so it's good to hear the real stories now.
I dislike the lack of credits, of course. I'm also irritated because we didn't need the word interpolation, which has a definition in mathematics. In music, the word is quoting.
@@ChrisColeChicago my understanding is that Jim Gordon claimed to be the creator of the coda to Layla when he played it in the studio when the song was recorded. Jim was the drummer for Derek and the Dominos but could play some piano as well. He was in a relationship with Rita at the time. He also had some serious mental health issues that led to a very troubled life. While this may provide you an opportunity to vilify Eric, it does not appear to be likely that Jim was leveling with anyone about the source of the music he played
Take it to Congress, Rick!!! Let's take back artist rights!
That term "Interpolation" was used by digital camera manufacturers years ago to produce a higher image resolution than what the camera sensor was actually optically capable of...so a 6-megapixel camera produced a 12-megapixel image through that magic word, "interpolation." It was really a 6-megapixel camera, but through in-camera processing, the image became a 12-megapixel image. But even though the resulting file was bigger, the image did not really have the same image information as what a true 12-megapixel sensor camera would produce. In other words, the added visual information was just fudged because the sensor itself was not capable enough on its own to do it for real.
So basically a musician who uses interpolation is basically crap?
That's akin to the mathematical definition of interpolation. The camera makers are applying some function to estimate what the value of pixels between the real pixels would be, if the camera had a higher resolution.
And the word is used in classical music in the same way: an interpolation is something which is put between two other parts of a piece, used to connect them.
But I'm really not sure how this word applies to these pop songs. Using some previous melody as your own melody shouldn't be called interpolation. It kind of feels like someone trying to sound officious meant "interpretation" and misused the word once, and it stuck.
Actually what they did was extrapolate. They went far beyond the two points used for in between extraction and went way outside of any logic or common sense or legal sense. “Theft my dears, they call it theft.” - Sorry can’t recall the author. But Not Mine.
They used to say imitationing was flattery,now its just stealing
Well, it can be all flattery you want but as long as they don't give any credit then it's just stealing as well.
No one ever says the full quote from Oscar Wilde it’s actually an insult 'Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery that mediocrity can pay to greatness.'
Interpolation is clearly a euphemism for "I'm just going to steal your work and I better not hear any complaints about it."
interpolation is method used in mathemathics, engineering and science to find new data points based on known data points. but oh boy ith have new interesting meaning in music industry
@@turnpike, except this is yet another example of another non- scientist misusing a technical term to achieve his non-deserved end.
@@ronaldhorne5106 Indeed
@@turnpike There are two types of people, those who can extrapolate from incomplete data and....
Not true, they still have to pay to use the melodies
The problem is everyone in the today is so profoundly creatively bankrupt. It seems ludicrous to me that every song today has 10 songwriters listed, and they STILL can't come up with something original, nor bring themselves to credit the actual creative people who wrote the original song. The complete and utter lack of creativity is something we see in the movie industry as well. Everything is a remake, reimagining, sequel, prequel, or some other kind of unoriginal rehash.
Just wait 15 or 20 years until someone "interpolates" Need You Tonight again and Dua Lipa sues them for stealing from HER and wins millions
Vanilla Ice should have "INTERPOLATED" that Queen bass riff...😏😏
He did - he added an extra note
What he didn't do was admit it right away. Denying by lying is never a good look.
Just imagine the heights he would have soared if it wasn't for that one blunder. Such a loss.
That was exactly what he argued that he did at the time.
It wasn’t just the bass riff he lifted…
I write music for different publishers. The word 'interpolation' is often used in contracts, usually in the part of the contract that tells the writer what will be rejected or not allowed. 'No sample packs, no interpolation', etc. I also notice it used a lot more with publishers who are heavily focused on Pop, R&B, Hip Hop, Rap and New Country music. Some will mention it in almost every email, so I'm assuming it is and has been a problem with younger writers.
I find that very interesting. Is there anything else worth sharing that you've noticed with publishing or in trying to market and place your work?
@@Oleg_K. Worth sharing is that the publishing world (production music, specifically) is always changing and you have to keep up with trends... Or not. Things they wanted 10 years ago are the very things they'll reject now. The industry is learning how to deal with AI right now. The more ethical companies are trying to fight it and you'll be rejected and possibly flagged if you use it. Others are adopting it with the goal to kill off writers, after they've studied and stolen our work. Gullible writers buy into this, thinking they'll be cashing in. These are usually royalty free sites, but not always. Avoid those. Like a lot of other businesses these days, the goal is to make the rich richer.
The best thing you could do is really learn that side of the business, which is a novel unto itself, and then decide how you want to approach it. I'm doing my best to be myself while still staying within the boundaries of what is required for a given model. It's a tightrope.
@@wademosher Thank you for this insight, I really appreciate it. It does seem like a turbulent time for the creators in any field, perhaps especially in this industry. Do you have any more advice on how to come out on top - is there anything that you found that these publishing companies in particular value, that is specifically a human element that AI cannot replicate? Or is it so much about cutting cost that nothing else matters? Do we have an edge over them in any way?
I bet the original authors licenced their songs, got paid by it and signed an NDA. That's the only logical explanation I can find. Thank for your great work Rick, love your channel!
My introduction to the word 'interpolation' was during the making of The Matrix. When creating the bullet time effect, the VFX team used still cameras to wrap around the actors, then with computer graphics, they 'interpolated' frames between to make the move smoother.
In the words of Inigo Montoya: "You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means."
from etymonline: interpolation (n.)
1610s, "act of interpolating;" 1670s, "that which is interpolated," from French interpolation (17c.) or directly from Latin interpolationem (nominative interpolatio), noun of action from past participle stem of interpolare "to alter; falsify"
looks like the music lawyers' use of this word is pretty on point
All produced by Andrew Watt…
As it happens, the similar word 'interpellation' was important in the work of the French philosopher Louis Althusser. He understood it as being about the way we mentally absorb ideas and act on them as if we came up with them ourselves.
The label's sentiment is that if the song gains enough attention that it's a copyright problem, that means song is generating enough money to make it worth the risk. In other words, they don't care about the morality of it.
When Keith Richards daughter pointed out that inadvertently the melody of Has Anybody Seen My Baby sounded like Constant Craving they immediately updated the songwriting credits to include KD Lang and Ben Mink. It's a matter of honesty and integrity.
That’s exactly right! Anything else is stealing (if done by purpose) and it’s just not cool!
wow, i never noticed. both majestic songs tho!
So, they didn't mean to...just coincidentally happened...i think that is something that can probably happen to many composers
Why would they credit them when they came up with it on their own?
I had an Rolling Stones album which said that Don't Lie To Me was written by Jagger/Richards.
Rick, I love your stuff. I know almost nothing about music. So most of the time I don't know what you are talking about. You remind me of my friend Matthew. RIP We would stand around in his "band room" and listen to music and he would talk about it the way you do. It's like spending time with my friend. So thank you for that.