Kavinsky says Gaga rip-off his song

[Bronco 21,377]

21 hours ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

But if it’s been adjusted to the extent that it’s melodically different, then it’s not really a sample or an interpolation anymore (see: the funk guitar in Killah being a clear reference to Fame by Bowie without crossing into the territory of explicit interpolation or sample because it’s meaningfully different enough to be its own lick).

I think live recordings must also have different rules re copyright etc.

Cuz I've checked - Gaga isn't given credits on the MDNA tour album in Express Yourself despite Madonna actually singing part of Born This Way

Edited 12 hours ago by Bronco

[GagaUnderYou 5,017]

Did Gaga approve and get credit when Madonna did the mashup with Born This Way? I think when it comes to covers and live performances the licensing might be slightly different? 

[Ladle Ghoulash 44,934]

3 minutes ago, Bronco said:

I think live recordings must alsp have different rules re copyright etc.

Cuz I've checked - Gaga isn't given credits on the MDNA tour album in Express Yourself despite Madonna actually singing part of Born This Way

That may be true, but I still stand by that I don’t even think it’s a sample or interpolation. I also think the BTW sample is kind of loaded because if Gaga sued, it’d create a whole legal and media shitstorm abt EY vs. BTW and whether BTW was meaningfully derivative of EY.

Edited 12 hours ago by Ladle Ghoulash

[Helxig 44,893]

22 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

He’s saying the REQUIEM version of DWAS is a rip off of his song Nightcall

 

OH I haven't actually watched Requiem yet! Omg. Sounds like I need to! Thank you for clarifying

[innuendo141 32]

Edit - nevermind, Im over it. 

Edited 11 hours ago by innuendo141

[Ladle Ghoulash 44,934]

11 minutes ago, innuendo141 said:

I disagree strongly here. People have sued and won for far less. The beat, bass, synth effect and sound - all almost completely identical for the chorus. The keys are literally just a reverse of what is played on Nightcall. I honestly thought that Kavinsky was just over reacting to his music being covered, but I'm hoping this is an oversight. It is the definition of "rip off" if not acknowledged as a "cover of sorts". There are way too many common factors for this to be merely "it sounds similar to". Born This Way sounds quite similar to Express Yourself but this is just blatantly taking somethig they heard and used it without credit. 

Nightcall is a pretty popular song too, Kavinsky almost single handedly turned Synthwave/Outrun into the beast it became and this song had a major hand in that.

If nothing is done and she (or her team) leave it as it is, that says to me that "My art-pop can mean anything, but yours means f*ck all and is fair game." It is blatantly obvious what's happened here and all it takes is a few extra characters to be added to Apple Music. 

Edit - I just read that Madonna didn't credit her for BTW so it looks like there are different rules for such mixed songs maybe - although "contains elements of" is almost always used on live CD's so Im not convinced.  A physical booklet could have settled this once and for all, digital credits are not great. 

 

Didnt Boys Noize have to work to get a credit for his contribution to Rain On Me too? 

I mean, there are not that many uniquely common factors lol. The synth parts are not the same notes, the bass parts are not the same etc. Sounding similar to another song in vibe or style is just not the same as being a “rip off” in any legal sense (and I’d argue Madonna would actually probably have a more substantial claim for BTW than Kavinsky would here). And Kavinsky being a tentpole in the genre actually cuts *away* from the idea that this would be considered derivative in a meaningful legal sense, given that the song is now just a staple in synthwave, meaning that there are probably thousands of songs that are stylistically and structurally similar, which would make this version even less meaningfully derivative. 

Edited 11 hours ago by Ladle Ghoulash

[innuendo141 32]

Just now, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I mean, there are not that many common factors lol. The synth parts are not the same notes, the bass parts are not the same etc. Sounding similar to another song in vibe or style is just not the same as being a “rip off” in any legal sense (and I’d argue Madonna would actually probably have a more substantial claim for BTW than Kavinsky would here). And Kavinsky being a tentpole in the genre actually cuts *away* from the idea that this would be considered derivative in a meaningful legal sense, given that the song is now just a staple in synthwave, meaning that there are probably thousands of songs that are stylistically and structurally similar, which would make this version even less meaningfully derivative. 

We'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. 

[Ladle Ghoulash 44,934]

11 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I mean, there are not that many uniquely common factors lol. The synth parts are not the same notes, the bass parts are not the same etc. Sounding similar to another song in vibe or style is just not the same as being a “rip off” in any legal sense (and I’d argue Madonna would actually probably have a more substantial claim for BTW than Kavinsky would here). And Kavinsky being a tentpole in the genre actually cuts *away* from the idea that this would be considered derivative in a meaningful legal sense, given that the song is now just a staple in synthwave, meaning that there are probably thousands of songs that are stylistically and structurally similar, which would make this version even less meaningfully derivative. 

On the tentpole point specifically: there are sometimes moments when an artists structurally reshapes or defines a genre in a way that becomes emulated for decades to come, like Moroder’s iconic synths on I Feel Love or the bass synth on Robin as’ “Show Me Love” and I honestly think Nightcall is the same thing to synthwave. Think of how many songs are indebted to Moroder, Robin S, and Kavinsky in their respective genre and how ridiculous it would be to litigate broad stylistic similarities as if they were plagiarism and how much music is lost in that process. That part of why, generally, when litigating plagiarism, the emphasis isn’t on stylistic signifiers, but on whether or not compositional material has been directly lifted and this case, I’d say it hasn’t.

Edited 11 hours ago by Ladle Ghoulash

[imogen2133 327]

1 hour ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

Again, I genuinely don’t think they either sampled or interpolated Nightcall. It’s in a different key and the arpeggios throughout the instrumental are different. Nightcall has become a staple in a lot of synthwave, so there’s a lot of music in that style that is heavily inspired by it or derivative of it, but there’s no solid evidence of the presence of anything other than a stylistic similarity.

Well I disagree I listened to both again and I can clearly hear the strong influence and the same melody and the vocals being like the song doesn't help either, either way she should have credited him.

[Ladle Ghoulash 44,934]

5 minutes ago, imogen2133 said:

Well I disagree I listened to both again and I can clearly hear the strong influence and the same melody and the vocals being like the song doesn't help either, either way she should have credited him.

I can hear the influence, but the melody just isn’t meaningfully similar 🤷

[imogen2133 327]

2 minutes ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I can hear the influence, but the melody just isn’t meaningfully similar 🤷

Agree to disagree then.

[dynamite 65,774]

I heard the resemblance as soon as it started playing, and then the vocal came in and I was like

[Guillaume Hamon 6,873]

5 hours ago, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I mean, again, the bullying is obviously wrong, but also: why should she credit him for something she neither sampled nor interpolated? Stylistic similarities =\= direct lift of any kind. If we applied this argument more broadly to Gaga’s catalogue, we’d be saying Madonna deserves credits on BTW and Babylon, Bowie and Prince deserve credits on Killah etc. 

Indeed it's not a sample since it's an original recording and also not an interpolation since it ain't a note for note redo. Now is it a lift because of the similarities? It's up to everybody to judge where it gets too close I guess... But if blurred lines can be condemned for plagiarism with million of dollars to give to the Marvin Gaye estate, imo this bit can clearly be deemed a borrowing too since the similarity is even more direct.

 

For express yourself/ born this way beef, it was about, as Madonna (who co-wrote the first) said herself when asked about it for the first time, a similarity with the chord progression. Nearly all songs share a chord prog' with others tracks but not all song directly remind masses of an other standard like here with Nightcall.

 

For Babylon it's ballroom culture aspects only that are similars. Not a Madonna creation but rather both ladies giving a nod to a set of rules distinct and older than their fames. For killah, it's more vague for the Prince and Bowie inspiration. It's just vibes and style, not direct parts of their works even if a handful of folks got all worked out over 2 second guitar riffs lmao.

Edited 7 hours ago by Guillaume Hamon

[Ladle Ghoulash 44,934]

22 minutes ago, Guillaume Hamon said:

Indeed it's not a sample since it's an original recording and also not an interpolation since it ain't a note for note redo. Now is it a lift because of the similarities? It's up to everybody to judge where it gets too close I guess... But if blurred lines can be condemned for plagiarism with million of dollars to give to the Marvin Gaye estate, imo this bit can clearly be deemed a borrowing too since the similarity is even more direct.

 

For express yourself/ born this way beef, it was about, as Madonna (who co-wrote the first) said herself when asked about it for the first time, a similarity with the chord progression. Nearly all songs share a chord prog' with others tracks but not all song directly remind masses of an other standard like here with Nightcall.

 

For Babylon it's ballroom culture aspects only that are similars. Not a Madonna creation but rather both ladies giving a nod to a set of rules distinct and older than their fames. For killah, it's more vague for the Prince and Bowie inspiration. It's just vibes and style, not direct parts of their works even if a handful of folks got all worked out over 2 second guitar riffs lmao.

Tbf, the similarity in EY and BTW is more than the chord progression: “I’m beautiful in my way etc” and “if you want it right now, better make him show you how” follow a similar walk down pattern (not saying I think it’s a rip off, but for the sake of argument). Not to mention the rap sections in both DITD and BTW are clearly nods to Vogue (which you could argue is a “lift” in terms of style), same goes for Babylon with the rap style over the syncopated house pianos. For Killah, the Prince reference is the chromatic walk down in the verses mirroring Sign O’ the Times and for Bowie, imo, you could absolutely say that the riff is close enough that the reference is pretty immediately recognizable, not to mention that both of those components are the rhythmic, melodic, and structural backbones of those songs. All of those I think are more overt than this and none of those would likely warrant legal action, so I think the same goes here. To me, it’s a fairly obvious nod and nothing more.

Just for context (because the references on Killah in particular are definitely more than “vibes”):

0:13-0:43

 

0:51-1:11

0:30-:0:50

0:11-0:30

 

Edited 6 hours ago by Ladle Ghoulash

[Murakami27 7,851]

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