Copyright Madness: Blurred Lines Mess Means Artists Now Afraid To Name Their Inspirations

from the cultural-losses dept

The ways in which the disastrous Blurred Lines verdict represents a complete mess for the music ecosystem are fairly legion, from chilling artistic creation for fear of unintended infringement to the absurdity of giving estates of long-dead artists license to stifle the release of new art that would benefit our culture as a whole. The awful ripple effects of the lawsuit don't end there and it's useful to keep in mind that the jury awarded the $7.3 million verdict to the Marvin Gaye estate acknowledged that there was no willful infringement on the part of Blurred Lines creators Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams. Put another way, the jury latched onto the duo's perceived and, in the case of Pharrell, stated inspiration by Gaye's contributions to music and decided that inspiration was copyright infringement. For anyone with even a cursory understanding of how music is made and creativity sparked, this was crazy.

So crazy, in fact, that as the world waits for the appeal, it seems that some musicians and their management groups have decided that nobody ought to talk about who inspired whom publicly.

Now though, music experts have told the Victoria Derbyshire programme that artists are being advised not to mention publicly who has inspired them. This is because of a high-profile copyright infringement case in which US jurors ruled that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, on their song Blurred Lines, had copied Marvin Gaye's Got To Give It Up. According to forensic musicologist Peter Oxendale "everyone's concerned that inspiration can [now be interpreted as] a catalyst for infringement. "All of these companies are worried that if a track is referenced on another at all, there may be a claim being brought," he explains.

If you've ever wondered what a chilling effect looks like in its chilly, chilly flesh, this is it. Since time immemorial, it has been common practice in the music industry to laud praise on one's inspirations and heroes in the music world, with no narrow eyes cast at those inspired by the greats from the past. When Bruno Mars created Uptown Funk, everyone who listened to it knew the era and genre the music was inspired by. Hell, the first time I heard that song, it made me immediately go back and listen to Morris Day and the Time, for instance. That's how music and culture works... and it's great for music and culture. Homages such as Uptown Funk or Blurred Lines, with their nods to music's past and to the great artists that built that past, are undoubtedly what keeps those past artists relevant. But now, in the wake of a terrible jury award for what everyone seems to agree wasn't even willful infringement, we get to witness copyright killing that part of the culture. Instead, apparently everyone will simply pretend publicly that all art is created in a vacuum of influence, devoid of homage and bereft of cultural context.

And the labels aren't just stopping there. There are some reports that the labels want artists to secretly disclose their influences contractually as a way to do a risk analysis on future copyright lawsuits.

Mr Oxendale says some artists are now having the requirement to name their influences written into contracts by their record labels - although he would not specify names. "Many of the companies that I work with ask the producers and the artists to declare all of the tracks that may have been used as inspiration for their new tracks," he says. He also confirmed that he is being sent new music to check the possibility of future copyright infringement claims.

No serious person could possibly claim this is good for music, for artists, or for our shared musical culture. And if we agree on that, then we agree that this ruling represents a perversion of copyright from its intended purpose, which is to foster more culture and creation. Much in the way certain industries absolutely hate ambiguity in their markets, so too does the music industry on matters such as these.

Nevertheless, Simon Dixon - one of the lawyers for Ed Sheeran, Sir Elton John and the Rolling Stones - says the judgement has made some people in the industry nervous. "[The court case] wouldn't have been decided the same way over here [in the UK]," he explains. "So as a result, everyone felt they knew what the law was, they knew what the parameters were. And when you know what the laws are and the rules are you get comfortable. This injects an element of grey into the picture. So as a result people are less certain now about what they can and can't do. And as a result, everybody feels a bit nervous."

Any person who would want to state that this nervousness has no effect on artistic output would make that claim to the peril of their credibility. It has to have an impact and that impact cannot possibly be positive. If ever there were a case of copyright being used against its own purpose, this certainly must be that case. It also serves nicely as a canary in the coal mine for what our permission culture might ultimately do on our wider culture as a whole.

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Filed Under: blurred lines, chilling effects, copyright, creatitivity, infringement, inspiration