Writers/Bands that were sued for plagiarism.

I'm aware of some, but I'm sure there are tons. The ones that filed, were they successful? Was it thrown out of court? Was there an out of court settlement? I find this subject intriguing, and hope to see some good ones.

 

Maybe the granddaddy of them all: The "My Sweet Lord"/"He's So Fine" Plagiarism Suit

JcS

 

“Come Together” by The Beatles was subjected to a lawsuit by Morris Levy’s publishing company, claiming similarities with “You Can’t Catch Me” by Chuck Berry.

 

Led Zeppelin with half of everything they ever did.
Okay, exaggeration. Maybe a quarter.
Best example is how they stole Dazed and Confused from Jake Holmes and gave absolutely zero credit to him, saying that Page had written it. Not a hate post, just pointing out facts. Love their music, but I despise them.

 

In my opinion, a silly lawsuit. It was like a line from the song. Stolen, yes, and I don’t condone that but the melody wasn’t even a little similar.

I think one related to The Beatles that actually had merit was the obviously stolen intro from Revolution.

 

Curtis Mayfield had to pay Motown for his hit[Can't Satisfy-1966]because he borrowed from[This Old Heart Of Mine-The Isley Bros.].

 

Two famous ones are Hootie & the Blowfish/ "Idiot Wind" and the Stones/k.d. lang. Also, ELP were sued by Brubeck for lifting "Blue Rondo a la Turk" as Rondo.

 

Keith Jarrett versus Steely Dan is pretty well known:

‘Keith Jarrett sued Becker and Fagen for copyright infringement over the title track of the album, claiming it plagiarised "Long As You Know You're Living Yours" from his 1974 album Belonging. As a result, Jarrett has since been included as a co-author of the track, making it the only Steely Dan song credited to anyone other than Becker and Fagen.[15] In an interview after Gaucho was released, Fagen said that he loved the Jarrett track and had been strongly influenced by it.’

Gaucho (album) - Wikipedia

 

Madonna was convicted for plagiarising Salvatore Acquaviva's 'Ma vie fout le camp' in 'Frozen'. Decision was overturned in appeal.

 

Springsteen’s Outlaw Pete rips off “I Was Made For Lovin’ You” by KISS.
Don’t know if anything was ever done about it.

 

The Rolling Stones weren't sued over Anybody Seen My Baby, though. Once the similarity to Constant Craving was pointed out to them, they credited k.d. lang from the outset.

 

Tom Petty I Won't Back Down
Sam Smith Stay With Me

The latter's songwriters pleaded 'coincidence', TP was more than fair and reasonable about it by all accounts. Petty and Jeff Lynne now co-credited.

 

The Black Crowes successfully sued Gretchen Wilson for ripping off "Jealous Again."

Queen and David Bowie sued Vanilla Ice for stealing "Under Pressure."

Huey Lewis sued Ray Parker Jr. for stealing the Ghostbusters song from"I Want a New Drug."

 

The Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" springs to mind.

 

Robin Thicke & Pharrell Williams were sued over similarities with Blurred Lines & Marvin Gaye's 1977 hit Got to Give It Up and ordered $7.4m be paid to Gaye's children.

 

You can't get sued for plagiarizing a song, only for infringing its copyright. They are quite different things.

Pet peeve when folks talk about plagiarizing a song, as if the problwm was that earlier songs that discussed boys meeting girls in similar ways were not properly cited in a footnote.

 

I was thinking about this lawsuit the other day. As I recall part of the settlement was that John Lennon had to record the 'Rock And Roll' album recording songs that Levy had the publishing for. Though it was a Lennon song, Come Together was credited to Lennon/McCartney. Was there any penalty for Paul, or did he just have better lawyers than John?

 

So what you're saying is, "No, quarter."

 

You (and everyone here) might enjoy this article about how the Roots / Rock 'N' Roll albums came to be- it's quite an interesting story.

John Lennon: The Roots of Rock 'N' Roll

 

And then there´s Men At Work´s "DOWN UNDER", which was sued for infringing the copyright of the flute melody, if I remember correctly. The had to give away 100% of the royalties, I seem to remember.

Awfully vague today, aren´t I?

 

Sued for stealing the melody of Kookaburra which had been written in 1932 for a Girl Guides camp.

 

Thank you. You´re clearly less vague that I am at the moment! Thanks for the info.

 

I'm also Australian so it was quite a big news story here

 

Vanilla Ice was sued for using the Bassline to Under Pressure

 

But they're totally different songs! Ice said so himself.