Sound Alikes

[Len911]

Trademark infringement for sounding like someone else? I wonder if looks are also an infringement, not that I look like a celebrity, but there are people who do. If you're broke and your career is flat, what have you got to lose for all the free publicity? Subpoena the artists, and songwriters, at least you'd get to meet them if they weren't deceased. Make it a good story and you'll be on all the major networks and prime time to boot. Better hurry if you want to schedule an Oprah appearance. This is America, land of opportunists. And then you have to write a book about your experience, and do another round of appearances. I better stop, I feel the inspiration for a book coming, and I don't want to give away the plot,lol!! I am just kidding of course, I wouldn't have the balls to write a book like that unless it was a novel. But as far as getting sued, why not?

[fret17]

Trademark infringement for sounding like someone else? I wonder if looks are also an infringement, not that I look like a celebrity, but there are people who do. If you're broke and your career is flat, what have you got to lose for all the free publicity? Subpoena the artists, and songwriters, at least you'd get to meet them if they weren't deceased. Make it a good story and you'll be on all the major networks and prime time to boot. Better hurry if you want to schedule an Oprah appearance. This is America, land of opportunists. And then you have to write a book about your experience, and do another round of appearances. I better stop, I feel the inspiration for a book coming, and I don't want to give away the plot,lol!! I am just kidding of course, I wouldn't have the balls to write a book like that unless it was a novel. But as far as getting sued, why not?

If this is true...Then Vegas casinos would be in court all the time!....Fret17 has left the building....

[duanesharman]

There was a lengthy discussion of this at the Road Rally. Seems that if the ad company/publisher had previously talked to the original artist and your song sounds like theirs, you're in deep trouble.

Presumably this only is a problem for film, TV, and advertising where synch rights are the issue?

[T&V Marino]

Yes, guys. It's sad but true. Here is a link to the famous "Bette Midler v. Ford" lawsuit: http://www2.bc.edu/~yen/Torts/Midler.pdf Ms. Midler sued Ford and the ad agency because the person singing on the commercial sounded just like her. They had originally approached Bette to sing but she declined. So, the ad agency used a "sound alike" (who used to be a back-up singer for the "Divine Ms. M") and created a MESS and Ms. M sued. This was also discussed at one of the panels at the TAXI Rally, too. It's very SCARY!!!!

[Len911]

Looks like she lost the one against Ford.

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-27/ ... tte-midler

[rnrmachine]

This is a good topic imho... too often people intentionally ripoff other peoples songs for this very reason. Trying to make money on someone else's melody. BUT I truly believe that there are people that find a melody on their own without meaning to mimic a past song. Either way, someone else did it first so intent doesn't really matter to the copywrite office or fans for that matter imho. I would imagine that being able to establish intent (intent to copy) would make a difference in court, it still wouldn't matter in the bottom line of whether the song is legally original or not. It does seem though, in these particular cases, that the overall intent to bypass the artist's wishes of not being associated with said products is very bad behavior at best. After all, the company has a right to choose if they don't want to be associated with someone or something. Tiger Woods would be a good recent example of companies dropping a spokes person because of wanting to disassociate themselves from something they do not believe is good for their image. Why shouldn't artists be allowed to choose this disassociation as well without someone putting together something that is a blatent ripoff?!

If you are not an artist who is trying to copy someone elses music you still have this fact to deal with... We, as musicians, are in no different situation then inventors of today. Go back 100-200 years and there was a lot more room for invention.

Imho, if someone tries to employ you to do something that would piss you off if it was done to you... don't do it. Hand them something that could be inspired by that song... not an obvious ripoff.

I will say though... IF I found a loop hole in the law, where I could walk into a bank and take a wad of money and it wouldn't be against the law.. would I take the money or would I warn the law makers ?? I honestly don't know what I would do without the actual situation happening. HAHA So imho, we all have our bounderies and it is for us to decide how far we go with copying someones music. Put yourself into the situation of the artist they want mimiced and go from there.. perhaps... /shrug

Rob

[rnrmachine]

Looks like she lost the one against Ford.

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-10-27/ ... tte-midler

At the bottom of the article it says it was reintstated... /shrug

[mojobone]

First music lawyer I ever consulted told me, "You should be so lucky as to get sued; it would mean you're somebody worth suing."

Also loved Len's excellent point about Jan & Dean, hee.

[Casey H]

I always wondered why every song in the 50's wasn't a lawsuit?

Maybe chords other than I-vi-IV-V weren't invented yet... (It's kinda like how my kids tell me I didn't have to take History in High School)...

[fret17]

It seems to me that a simple solution for ad agencies that use sound alikes is to write at the bottom of the screen (Really,really tiny of course) this aint Bett Midler singing...