Ripped and ready — famous song feuds that landed in court
Take a look back at some of the most high-profile cases of real, alleged and imagined rock music plagiarism in music history.
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It’s one of the most famous intros in rock history, the finger-picked descending chromatic scale that starts the eight-minute epic that is Stairway to Heaven.
Depending on who you believe, that intro is either plucked straight from the genius mind of guitarist Jimmy Page, or straight from an obscure 1968 recording of a song called Taurus by a US rock band called Spirit.
Spirit and its lawyers argued in court the mighty Zep ripped them off, and they want to be paid. A judge, however, disagreed and last week upheld the 2016 decision that found Stairway was an original work.
“The court got it wrong,” Spirit’s lawyer Francis Malofiy said.
It’s not the first time a fight over rock plagiarism has ended up in court and it certainly won’t be the last. We took a look at some of the most high-profile cases.
1) Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again, by The Angels, “borrowed heavily” from Lonely Night by Status Quo
Sometimes a song appears to be a rip-off and, if you listen carefully, you can hear some similarities. Occasionally the two songs will be quite close. And, rarely, a song will be such a blatant reproduction that you wonder what anyone was thinking. The Angels’ Am I Ever Gonna See Your Face Again is one of those songs. Is it an Aussie classic? Yes. Does it have an excellent crowd-chanted response? You betcha. Is it virtually identical to the Status Quo 1974 B-side? Yes. Yes it is. And according to Angels founder and guitarist John Brewster it ended with an out-of-court royalties settlement. Luckily, The Angels, formerly led by the late Doc Neeson are true-blue homegrown rock legends and can do no wrong in our eyes.
2) Stairway to Heaven, by Led Zeppelin, was accused in court of ripping off Taurus, by Spirit (but the courts say it didn’t)
Spirit was a Californian psychedelic rock band that actually appeared on the same festival bill as Led Zeppelin a couple of times in the late 1960s. Their instrumental track Taurus, which was played at these festivals, does bear a striking resemblance to the opening acoustic parts of Stairway to Heaven – enough of a resemblance to see the two bands face off in court several times. It’s not the only time Led Zep, featuring Robert Plant and Jimmy Page have found themselves under question for allegedly “borrowing” songs, with the group taking freely from older blues artists like Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf, and folkies like Bert Jansch. While the artists were originally uncredited, the band later added songwriting credits in many cases.
3) Elastica’s Connection was “heavily influenced” by Wire’s Three Girl Rhumba
Elastica were a breath of fresh air in the testosterone-heavy era of grunge and Britpop. They were three-quarters female and they had a sassy, spiky, punk and new wave-influenced sound. And they liked Wire. Like, they really liked Wire. So much so that they decided to release an obvious Wire rip-off as a single. An out-of-court settlement and a credit rewrite smoothed the waters.
4) The Last Time, by The Rolling Stones, repurposed This May Be the Last Time by The Staple Singers, and was in turn pinched by The Verve
The Last Time, the first Rolling Stones song to feature a Jagger/Richards songwriting credit, probably should really have read Jagger/Richards/The Staple Singers. Ironically, an orchestral version of the song’s intro was later pinched by The Verve and sampled in their huge hit Bittersweet Symphony. The Stones sued them, and The Verve had to hand over all royalties. In May this year The Rolling Stones, right, announced that they had handed copyright back to Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft. A convoluted rip-off tale that spans several decades.
5) My Sweet Lord, by George Harrison, stole from The Chiffons’ 1963 hit He’s So Fine
George Harrison’s 1970 single from All Things Must Pass was a smash hit on both sides of the Atlantic, and the first number one single from an ex-Beatle. Only trouble was that it bore a remarkable resemblance to The Chiffon’s He’s So Fine. Harrison ended up in court, where a judge found him guilty of ‘subconsciously’ copying the song. The whole thing ended up costing Harrison almost $US1.6m.
6) Vanilla Ice’s Ice Ice Baby blatantly nicked Queen and David Bowie’s Under Pressure
Back in the early days of sampling in hip-hop, artists would sometimes sample something obscure that they’d found on an old jazz record and hope nobody would notice. Not Robert Van Winkle, aka Vanilla Ice. No, he thought he could sample a collaboration between literally two of the biggest artists in the history of rock – Queen and David Bowie – and get away with it. He was wrong. That catchy bassline at the start of Ice Ice Baby that he stole from Under Pressure led to an undisclosed out-of-court settlement and songwriting royalties for Bowie and all members of Queen.
7) Lana Del Rey’s Get Free may have ripped off Radiohead’s Creep, which appeared to liberally borrow from The Hollies’ The Air That I Breathe
It’s a tale of a chord progression, a fairly common chord progression, that saw a bunch of artists seeing red. Get Free, the closing track on Lana Del Rey’s 2017 album Lust For Life, really does sound a lot like Radiohead’s smash hit Creep. Del Rey, right, said “although I know my song wasn’t inspired by Creep, Radiohead feel it was and want 100 per cent of the publishing”. Radiohead denies ever doing so. Ironically, The Hollies claimed Creep sounded a bit too much like their hit The Air That I Breathe. That case was settled out of court and members of The Hollies now share songwriting royalties on that track.
8) The Strokes’ Last Nite sounds a whole lot like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers’ American Girl
The ringing guitar intro from New York rockers The Strokes’ Last Nite is very much like the intro to American Girl, from Tom Petty’s 1976 record Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. But did the legendary Florida rocker sue The Strokes, pictured? No way! He laughed it off and even took them on tour with him. Rest in peace, Tom Petty, you great man.
9) Come Together by The Beatles purloined Chuck Berry’s You Can’t Catch Me
When does paying tribute become plagiarism? Come Together not only borrows from the melody of Chuck Berry’s 1956 single You Can’t Catch Me, but also some words (“here come old flat top”). Berry’s lawyers sued John Lennon and the case was settled. As a further mea culpa, Lennon covered You Can’t Catch Me on his 1975 Rock ’n’ Roll covers album.
10) Sam Smith’s 2014 smash hit Stay With Me borrowed from Tom Petty’s I Won’t Back Down
While Petty, inset, was cool enough to let The Strokes slide, he couldn’t ignore the similarities between Sam Smith’s tune and I Won’t Back Down. He took a 12.5 per cent songwriting credit along with collaborator Jeff Lynne, but he was still very cool about it all. “All my years of songwriting have shown me these things can happen,” Petty said. “Most times you catch it before it gets out the studio door but in this case it got by. Sam’s people were very understanding of our predicament and we easily came to an agreement.”
11) Men at Work’s Land Down Under borrowed a tiny bit of Kookaburra
In one of the more odd cases, the copyright owners of children’s song Kookaburra sued Men at Work after a question on TV’s Spicks and Specks asked “What children’s song is contained in the song Down Under?” The owners won the case and claimed royalty rights. Men at Work frontman Colin Hay is on the record saying stress over the protracted court case may have contributed to the early death of band member Greg Ham.
