Accidental Plagiarising?

[vurt]

The solution is to use generative processes to come up with all of your chord progressions and melodies. Then you’ll have a legally defensible position, even if you end up creating something similar to an existing work. Of course, everything you create will sound haphazard and poorly conceived, but it’s a small price to pay to keep the lawyers at bay.

just wait till theres ai lawyers

[harryupbabble]

My reply is probably not going to be helpful. It requires that songwriters make demands or maybe create "it" themselves.
The "it" is melody-search engine. Something like Google but only about melodies.

With Google, if you type a phrase in the search box and put it in quotes, Google will give you results word for word.
For example, I typed "Yesterday, all my troubles seem so far away" and I got about 5,420 results.

Maybe someday, anyone can drag and drop their melody onto Google (or whatever search engine) and if you got zero results
on that day that you searched for your melody... then your melody is original by law?
Just copy the screen and the date and that will be your proof of originality?

Such a melody-search engine would have to contain all the melodies that was ever made though.

But since melody-makers are probably less than one percent of the population, such a melody-search engine will probably never exist?
Not enough demand for such a melody-search engine?

And what if you upload your melody and it is an original then the melody-search engine would have your original melody saved on a server somewhere and if the melody-search engine company is not secure then melody thieves/hackers can steal all those original melodies.

But still, your version of that original melody would have a date of creation that is BEFORE all other stolen versions.

[Musicologo]

Pretty much all singable melodies coincide or are very similar to some previous one at this point, so I wouldn't worry about it anyway.
I highly doubt someone can come up with "original" melodies anymore within the constraints of being tonal, singable and representing short phrases (less than 10 notes) in the quantized form (the more common notation format).

What differenciates them is small expressive deviations (not being quantized), tempo, timbre and ornamentation, intonation, the lyrics they are set into, etc... basically the HOW they are expressed, the way the "notes" connect to each other.

You can always search for melodies using browsers like peachnote

http://www.peachnote.com/#!nt=singleNot ... 2+-1+-2+-2

Or look up for tunes in midomi (https://www.midomi.com/) to see where they were previously used. Depending on the databases you might find more or less occurrences.

My solution is using folk melodies or classical melodies in public domain and acklowledging them. That way if anyone bothers you you can claim "yeah, my melody is based on a work of Chopin, or on this folk tune from Spain in the 19th century that is public domain".

[donkey tugger]

What's this 'accidental' bollocks?

[vurt]

accidental bollocks.

now that's a genre!

[telecode]

There are only a set amount of notes, scales, and modes. Disregarding microtonal stuff, which is outside my understanding and experience, it is inevitable that over centuries of time and countless compositions, any given series of musical thingumbobs has been hit upon before you even began. Shrug it off, keep your ethics engaged and enjoy. I view the arrangement as my safe space.

That's true, there's a limited amount of notes etc. My ethics were fully engaged, but all that got me was getting accused of ripping off Pirates of the Carribean

I think with the continued migrations of people from asia to the west, there will be a greater mixing of styles and genres with Eastern musical traditions. More movement in more diverse rhythms and micro tonal music. This should open up possibilities for greater originality. I am already seeing lots of Iranian and Arabic music communities in my area. It's opening up some very interesting opportunities.

[Ou_Tis]

There are only a set amount of notes, scales, and modes. Disregarding microtonal stuff, which is outside my understanding and experience, it is inevitable that over centuries of time and countless compositions, any given series of musical thingumbobs has been hit upon before you even began. Shrug it off, keep your ethics engaged and enjoy. I view the arrangement as my safe space.

That's true, there's a limited amount of notes etc. My ethics were fully engaged, but all that got me was getting accused of ripping off Pirates of the Carribean

I think with the continued migrations of people from asia to the west, there will be a greater mixing of styles and genres with Eastern musical traditions. More movement in more diverse rhythms and micro tonal music. This should open up possibilities for greater originality. I am already seeing lots of Iranian and Arabic music communities in my area. It's opening up some very interesting opportunities.

This would be happening much faster if not for the hysteria over cultural appropriation. It's gotten to the point where any novel imitation or influence from a "non-white" ethnicity other than one's own (or even anything that could be mistaken for such influence) will be condemned as cultural misappropriation, and even purchased or authorized samples need to be screened based on their original cultural meaning, or else condemned as oppression or "cultural colonialism". For example, many of my "white" Jewish friends have now retreated from their interests in East Asian, Arabic, and indigenous Latin American cultures to focus on aspects of American Jewish identity. Meanwhile, conservatives have become more xenophobic.

[BONES]

... for all I know, I may be channelling something I heard years ago; I try to run it by friends/family/acquaintances, but the music I listen to is hardly mainstream, so chances are terrific that somebody who's on a steady diet of e.g. Lana del Rey or Avicii or some stuff like that will never have heard the songs I like... etc. etc.

I found myself in exactly that position, way back in 1984. It was one of the first proper songs I'd written - as in complete with verses, a chorus and lyrics - and after about 6 months I put on a 12" 45 of something I had probably only ever listened to once or twice, a year or more previously (the first This Mortal Coil EP), and realised that the main musical theme in my song was exactly the same as one of the songs on this EP. It was a year or so before I started playing live, so I'd never performed it, but after I realised what I'd done, I never played that song again.

I really wonder how much longer it makes sense to be able to make copyright claims for music.

It depends. In my case, it was a complete and obvious rip-off, even though it had been unintentional. If I had decided to keep playing that piece and got sued over it, I'd have had no defence at all. OF course, in other circumstances it's almost impossible to hear what is being claimed as a rip-off and I agree that those kinds of vexatious litigants need to be lined up against a wall and shot.

Now, I'd like you to tell me what you think my chances would be if I published it and a big movie studio came after me...

Seriously? Is that all you are worried about? You don't actually care if you rip someone off, as long as you don't get sued over it?

First of all, you'd have to have made money from it and how likely is that? And not just $50, but enough to make a percentage of it worth the time and effort to the film company to come after you. So we'd be talking millions of dollars, not hundreds.

Secondly, the onus of proof will be on them, not you. The standard of proof is lower than for criminal court but they'd still have to prove that you copied their work. Then, after all that, they'd still only he entitled to a small percentage of the publishing royalties, so the chances of them bothering are very, very slight. Who knows, they might decide it's easier to pay you to do the music for the next one?

... its good to sound like something that is popular because you have a greater chance with connecting with an audience.

Maybe if all you see music as is a means to make yourself popular. I want to challenge audiences, not soothe them with the familiar. The artists I enjoy are often those who challenge me as a listener, who do things entirely different from the norm, not the ones who spend the whole set trying to get me to like them.

[jancivil]

Among really interested musicians it's happening fast. Cross-cultural richness in all directions.
I can't imagine a serious person talking about a strong musician's "cultural appropriation" like that, that's just a lot of crap (more internet echo chamber replication of tropes). I also would feel sorry for someone whose individual agency and confidence isn't strong enough to just do whatever the f**k they like.

[whyterabbyt]

accidental bollocks.

now that's a genre!

never mind it.

[vurt]

[Ou_Tis]

Among really interested musicians it's happening fast. Cross-cultural richness in all directions.
I can't imagine a serious person talking about a strong musician's "cultural appropriation" like that, that's just a lot of crap (more internet echo chamber replication of tropes). I also would feel sorry for someone whose individual agency and confidence isn't strong enough to just do whatever the f**k they like.

It's not just on the internet; it's become a major part of campus protest culture and activist culture. This example seems commonplace:

"I am a non-Indian who has been obsessed with Indian culture since I was a child. I became a vegetarian years ago and ate all the time at an Indian cafe near my house, where I befriended the owner and his family.

At university, I studied Sanskrit and Hindi/Urdu. I finally visited India and lived with two different Indian families in Delhi and Amritsar, and learned a lot.

When I came home, I took sitar lessons and got a lot of compliments from my teacher and from other Indians.

I like to play the sitar out in the open when the weather is good. Unfortunately, I live near a college campus and young people often scream 'cultural appropriation' at me and tell me to knock it off because it is not my instrument.

I am tired of this. I really appreciate Indian culture and worked hard to learn sitar. How do I deal with these people?"

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 459AAzmBGC

And it's not just an issue of individual fortitude: arts organizations are reluctant to provide funding or support for anything which could be construed as cultural appropriation. It's become taboo for the liberal mainstream, but not in a way that makes breaking the taboo generally appealing, since it's equated with racism.

[vurt]

do you not have a middle finger you could wave at them?

[fmr]

do you not have a middle finger you could wave at them?

I wonder what those jerks would say when Debussy "apropriated" the balinese gamelan sonorities, Ravel the ragtime, or Messiaen the Hindi rhythms.

Those "movements" are despicable, as are all those "causes".

[vurt]

do you not have a middle finger you could wave at them?

I wonder what those jerks would say when Debussy "apropriated" the balinese gamelan sonorities, Ravel the ragtime, or Messiaen the Hindi rhythms.

Those "movements" are despicable, as are all those "causes".

without going too far hpc, its the kind of shit that gets in the way of arguing against actual racism.


and of course i want to culturally appropriate stuff, you know what my culture is, morris f**king dancing! hell yes give me some african or asian rhythms and dances!