Its uncanny!!
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/led-zeppelins-stairway-to-heaven-targeted-for-plagiarism-20140519
mooghead
Thread
Posts in chronological order
noorie
You can hear STH in there! And I just love that song!
The King Of Rhye
Seems waaaaaaaaaaay late, doesn't it??? 40-some years after the alleged plagiarism happened!
thomasquinn 32989
The thing is - this is not really news. And it's far from the only instance where Led Zeppelin committed plagiarism.
http://turnmeondeadman.com/led-zeppelin-plagiarism/
http://turnmeondeadman.com/led-zeppelin-plagiarism/
Mr.Jingles
The question is... what took them so damn long?
Accusations against Led Zeppelin over plagiarism have been going on for years.
Accusations against Led Zeppelin over plagiarism have been going on for years.
Holly2003
I seem to recall LZ had to give song writing credits to at least one person from whom they had borrowed material. This was on a reissue, but I don;t have it so can't confirm. To be honest, I;m not that put out by it. While they should have acknowledged their influences at the time, and paid royalties to them, it was very common among blues players to use other players riffs. It was never really an issue until big music corporations became involved and started looking for their cut too. Take Robert Johnson, the "King of the Delta Blues" and a huge influence on Dylan, Clapton and Keith Richards. He stole the melody for Sweet Home Chicago and never acknowledged it. He also stole the "sold my soul to the devil at the crossroads" story from anoter blues musician who was using it to promote his career. No one is suing the heirs to Johnson's estate for that. (Also, a lot of old blues music is now owned by people unconnected to the original artists or their families and the rights have been bought by investers. It's often those people suing artists for alleged plagiarism, not artists or their families. It's all become part of the commercialisation of art.)
john bodega
First of all, we've known this for decades.
Second; it hurts for them to admit it, but the song was improved by the theft. It was developed beyond what it was originally. Now you can look at that as being dirty business, but I don't give a fuck about the original.
Second; it hurts for them to admit it, but the song was improved by the theft. It was developed beyond what it was originally. Now you can look at that as being dirty business, but I don't give a fuck about the original.
pittrek
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyvLsutfI5M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zThdTAWQFAQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zThdTAWQFAQ
thomasquinn 32989
[QUOTE] [b]Zebonka12 wrote:[/b]
Second; it hurts for them to admit it, but the song was improved by the theft. It was developed beyond what it was originally. Now you can look at that as being dirty business, but I don't give a fuck about the original.[/QUOTE]
You've completely and dramatically failed to see the point. Yes, the song is an improvement. That is not the point. They are, by all means, welcome to take a song, any song, and improve it. That is not the point either. What IS the point is that you are supposed to give credit for what you borrowed. Borrowing in music is nothing new and nothing to be ashamed of, but when you borrow stuff and pretend that you wrote it, you are a thief and a conman rolled into one.
Example: Rachmaninoff wrote Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He used, quite blatantly, Paganini's 24th Caprice as a basis for this work. Nobody gives Rachmaninoff a hard time over this. Why not? Because he admits, in the title no less, that he used Paganini's work as a basis. There's no shame in that, and no one with any appreciation of music will think less of Rachmaninoff or of Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini because it is borrowed. It is, by all means, a vast improvement over the original.
On the other hand, there is Mozart. Really respected composer, universally hailed as a musical genius, right? Well yes, according to the general public. But serious scholars of music have some more reservations. What is their main reservation about Mozart? He stole much of what is now remembered as "his masterpieces". Take The Magic Flute, it is by now well-established that he stole much of it, both subject matter and music, from an earlier opera (The Beneficent Dervish) written by friends and acquaintances of his. This is not the only example of Mozart being a thief. Needless to say, Mozart didn't have a knack of holding on to friends. And music historians regularly talk smack about Mozart for being a fraud while the only criticism leveled at Rachmaninoff tends to be that he was a little on the conservative side in his compositions.
The morale? If you borrow and frankly admit to it, all the more credit to you and to the music you improved. If you steal and pretend it's your own work, it'll depreciate the music and ruin your reputation.
Second; it hurts for them to admit it, but the song was improved by the theft. It was developed beyond what it was originally. Now you can look at that as being dirty business, but I don't give a fuck about the original.[/QUOTE]
You've completely and dramatically failed to see the point. Yes, the song is an improvement. That is not the point. They are, by all means, welcome to take a song, any song, and improve it. That is not the point either. What IS the point is that you are supposed to give credit for what you borrowed. Borrowing in music is nothing new and nothing to be ashamed of, but when you borrow stuff and pretend that you wrote it, you are a thief and a conman rolled into one.
Example: Rachmaninoff wrote Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. He used, quite blatantly, Paganini's 24th Caprice as a basis for this work. Nobody gives Rachmaninoff a hard time over this. Why not? Because he admits, in the title no less, that he used Paganini's work as a basis. There's no shame in that, and no one with any appreciation of music will think less of Rachmaninoff or of Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini because it is borrowed. It is, by all means, a vast improvement over the original.
On the other hand, there is Mozart. Really respected composer, universally hailed as a musical genius, right? Well yes, according to the general public. But serious scholars of music have some more reservations. What is their main reservation about Mozart? He stole much of what is now remembered as "his masterpieces". Take The Magic Flute, it is by now well-established that he stole much of it, both subject matter and music, from an earlier opera (The Beneficent Dervish) written by friends and acquaintances of his. This is not the only example of Mozart being a thief. Needless to say, Mozart didn't have a knack of holding on to friends. And music historians regularly talk smack about Mozart for being a fraud while the only criticism leveled at Rachmaninoff tends to be that he was a little on the conservative side in his compositions.
The morale? If you borrow and frankly admit to it, all the more credit to you and to the music you improved. If you steal and pretend it's your own work, it'll depreciate the music and ruin your reputation.
mooghead
"it hurts for them to admit it, but the song was improved by the theft."
But you can say that about Ice Ice Baby...
;-)
But you can say that about Ice Ice Baby...
;-)
brENsKi
[QUOTE] [b]mooghead wrote:[/b]
"it hurts for them to admit it, but the song was improved by the theft."
But you can say that about Ice Ice Baby...
;-)[/QUOTE]
obviously you're talking about the Jedward version?
"it hurts for them to admit it, but the song was improved by the theft."
But you can say that about Ice Ice Baby...
;-)[/QUOTE]
obviously you're talking about the Jedward version?
FreddieCat
And Queen's reference to Innuendo being inspired by LZ's Kashmir.
john bodega
RE: "You've completely and dramatically..."
I've never seen someone use so many words to essentially say 'I agree with you'. I said it was dirty business, we agree. I said the song was improved, we agree. And while song theft is a shit thing on paper, I'm thinking about this from a longer term perspective, ie. once we're all dead and only the songs are left. Which is why it's pretty handy to bring Paganini and Mozart into this. They're all dead now, so it really doesn't matter. I don't want to come over all Ozymandias on you guys, but as someone who's dabbled in creating stuff - it's great while it lasts, but how long is that going to be, realistically?
In no way do I think plagiarism is a cool thing to do, but I'm dubious about the Stairway thing only just now becoming a legal matter.
I've never seen someone use so many words to essentially say 'I agree with you'. I said it was dirty business, we agree. I said the song was improved, we agree. And while song theft is a shit thing on paper, I'm thinking about this from a longer term perspective, ie. once we're all dead and only the songs are left. Which is why it's pretty handy to bring Paganini and Mozart into this. They're all dead now, so it really doesn't matter. I don't want to come over all Ozymandias on you guys, but as someone who's dabbled in creating stuff - it's great while it lasts, but how long is that going to be, realistically?
In no way do I think plagiarism is a cool thing to do, but I'm dubious about the Stairway thing only just now becoming a legal matter.
Queenfansunite
I am Surprised dragonfly trumpeter is not making a claim, but I haven't heard him being a clone of any personnel of Zeppelin yet.
The Real Wizard
Page was always one to ask for forgiveness rather than permission. His thinking is that he'd have the money to deal with it later. I'd say he made the right choice.
About a quarter of the Zeppelin catalogue comes from somewhere else, some credited and some not. Page was a bluesman. This is what they did, and they didn't always give credit. It was generally considered a form of flattery for someone to use your song and make it better. Zeppelin were the first band to make a lot of money doing this. It wasn't until litigation in the music business became fashionable that this actually became a major issue - with rare exceptions, of course.
Nobody really knows who Jake Holmes, Spirit or Bert Jansch are. The only reason why 99% of the people who've heard of them have heard of them is because of Jimmy Page. He put them on the map, not the other way around. Page will just settle out of court.
As for this particular case - it's just an acoustic guitar playing a descending bass line. The Beatles used the same musical idea a couple years earlier on And Your Bird Can Sing. It even goes back to classical music. There are way more blatant examples of Page borrowing/plagiarizing than this one.
About a quarter of the Zeppelin catalogue comes from somewhere else, some credited and some not. Page was a bluesman. This is what they did, and they didn't always give credit. It was generally considered a form of flattery for someone to use your song and make it better. Zeppelin were the first band to make a lot of money doing this. It wasn't until litigation in the music business became fashionable that this actually became a major issue - with rare exceptions, of course.
Nobody really knows who Jake Holmes, Spirit or Bert Jansch are. The only reason why 99% of the people who've heard of them have heard of them is because of Jimmy Page. He put them on the map, not the other way around. Page will just settle out of court.
As for this particular case - it's just an acoustic guitar playing a descending bass line. The Beatles used the same musical idea a couple years earlier on And Your Bird Can Sing. It even goes back to classical music. There are way more blatant examples of Page borrowing/plagiarizing than this one.