By: Nat and Sung Sung

1. What is Music Plagiarism 2. George Harrison vs The Chiffons 3. Michael Bolton vs The Isley 4. Vanilla Ice vs Queen& David Bowie 5. New Order vs John Denver

 Music plagiarism: is the use or close imitation of another author's music while representing it as one's own original work.  Plagiarism in music now occurs in two contexts – with a musical idea or sampling (taking a portion of one sound recording and reusing it in a different song).

 One of the famous cases of plagiarism is that former Beatle George Harrison's My Sweet Lord. Harrison's first solo single was a huge success. The song was a number one hit on both sides of the Atlantic in 1971 as well as Germany, Australia and Ireland. The song shot back to number one in the UK in 2002 after Harrison's death. The song was grounded in Harrison's new found faith and the Hindu God Krishna.  Shortly after its release the similarities between My Sweet Lord and The Chiffon's He's so Fine where noticed and a court battle ensued. The U.S. federal court decision in the case, known as Bright Tunes Music v. Harrison's Music, decreed that Harrison was found to have unintentionally copied passages from the song. The legal wrangles went on for ten years with the settlement finally being dealt with in Harrison ended up $500,000 out of pocket as a result of his unintentional lift.

 George Harrison is not the only artist to suffer financially as a result of plagiarism. American ballad superstar Michael Bolton was ordered to pay the sum of $5.4 million in a payout to the Isley Brothers for lifting material from their song Love Is A Wonderful Thing. The Bolton song of the same name was deemed to have been a lift from the Isley Brothers original. The ruling in 2000 resulted in Michael Bolton attempting and failing to purchase the publishing rights to the Isley Brothers song book.

 Not all cases reach court. Vanilla Ice's direct lift from the Queen and David Bowie hit under pressure resulted in an out of court settlement. The worldwide hit from 1991 was based on a sample of the bass line line from the Queen and Bowie record but no attempt was made to license or credit the original composers of the song. The result was a massive out of court settlement that stripped Vanilla Ice of the majority of the royalties from the sales of the hit single and album.

 Other notable out of court settlements include, New Order paying John Denver for lifting parts of Leaving on a Jet Plane for their single Run2. Radiohead had to ad a co-writing credit to their first hit single Creep once the similarity to the Hollies Air That I Breather was noted by the composers of the 1960's hit. The case was settled out of court, and as a result the single in its remixed form was out of print for a number of years.

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