There are famous, woefully obvious cases of musical plagiarism. Vanilla Ice’s unauthorized sampling of Queen and David Bowie’s Under Pressure in his much more forgettable Ice, Ice Baby comes to mind first.
That’s the clearcut, shaking my head sort of copyright infringement. But the waters get much murkier in terms of who owns what in a musical canon that isn’t getting any smaller. There are only twelve notes in the Western scale, and only so many ways to arrange them.
Which brings us to the bit of news that Tom Petty has been awarded a percentage of songwriting royalties and a writer’s credit on Sam Smith‘s 2014 breakout hit “Stay With Me.”
Huh? You might ask.
Well unbeknownst to us, when the track was released in April of last year, many well-tuned listeners thought the chorus bared a striking resemblance to Petty’s “Won’t Back Down.”
Petty’s lawyers agreed, and reached an agreement with camp Smith for a whopping 12.5% of royalties. They settled back in October, but the details have only just emerged.
In addition, Pettey and singer-composer Jeff Lynne (of ELO fame) have been given songwriting credits, as shown here on the song’s credit on ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers):
Consequence of Sound quotes one source close to the case saying:
“When Sam’s track was originally released, it was clear to a lot of musicians that there were notable similarities between the tracks,” referring specifically to melodies of the respective choruses. “After it was pointed out to Sam’s camp, they didn’t try to fight it and amicably dished out royalties. It wasn’t a deliberate thing, musicians are just inspired by other artists and Sam and his team were quick to hold up their hand when it was officially flagged.”
A rep for Smith added:
“Not previously familiar with the 1989 Petty/Lynne song, the writers of ‘Stay With Me’ listened to ‘I Won’t Back Down’ and acknowledged the similarity. Although the likeness was a complete coincidence, all involved came to an immediate and amicable agreement in which Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne are now credited as co-writers of ‘Stay With Me’ along with Sam Smith, James Napier and William Phillips.”
“Stay With Me” was one of the most successful singles of 2014, selling around 4 million copies. It’s also up for Best Pop Performance and Record of the Year at the 2015 Grammy Awards.
Here are the two choruses played over one another. What do you think?
Stache99
I guess it’s for the youngies thinking their actually hearing something original.
onthemark
The headline says Sam was “forced” to do it?
“After it was pointed out to Sam’s camp, they didn’t try to fight it and amicably dished out royalties.” … “all involved came to an immediate and amicable agreement….”
Doesn’t sound too forced.
xzall
I’ve heard that this was similar to a Tom Petty song. It’s still not as identical as Kelly Clarkson’s new song “Heartbeat” is identical to Jimmy Eat World’s “The Middle”. I expect there’ll be some kind of settlement with that as well.
Sebizzar
Are you serious? I’ve never even heard of this similarity until now. If we go by this logic then practically every song today could be considered “plagiarism”.
Cam
Apparently this happens somewhat often, nice of Smith to admit the possibility. Michael Jackson claimed his 1993 song didn’t have anything to do with a 1987 song put out by this Italian guy.
Jacksons 1993 song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dE4YrrAAGk
The 1987 song from Italy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuk_tQ3MLWQ
sfhally
I think these lawyers and judges (well, maybe not the lawyers, they wouldn’t care) need to read the Spider Robinson story “Melancholy Elephants”. He writes about a time when no new music is allowed whenever a “substantially similar song” already exists. Excellent story.
Captain Obvious
This literally happens all the time in not only music, but movies, and television. Creative people have their work stolen all the time and capitalized on by the greedy. It is what it is.
Merv
@Captain Obvious: I wouldn’t assume it’s always intentional. When a song comes to you, you don’t always know where it’s coming from.
T101
They copied… It’s BS that these writers didn’t hear Petty’s song – VERY recognizable songs and well played song!
wpewen
It’s really sad to see what has happened to popular music. Seeing is the correct verb, all one has to do is check out the visuals-another MARKETED commodity who may/may not have anything original musically to say. Many of the young don’t like new music. I’m 56, listen mostly to rock, always have. The rock and roll ethos is so far from people like Sam, Taylor Swift, Timberlake that it makes me want to puke. I feel deeply sorry that an entire generation is clueless about freedom of spirit and has been corporatized so completely. And it’s not old counterculture cliche, it’s reality now.
Sam’s gay, correct? Reminds me of Tim Cook. In the 60’s and 70’s we called it plastic. LOL. Now it’s the norm.
Tracy Pope
@Cam: Which, in turn, sounds like “Bless You for Being an Angel”. Over 70 years old. But yeah, Michael Jackson’s Free Willy song (there’s a horrible joke in there somewhere) sounds so much like the Al Bano song you have to wonder if royalties were paid.
jjose712
Plagiarism is one you use another song knowing what you are doing with not acknowlege it.
I don’t know what happen with Sam Smith and gay sites but they are incredibly harsh to him.
This is not a case of plagiarism, the simply understand there are similarities between both songs and have an agreement.
It’s like what happened to Roling Stones with Anybody seen my baby and its similarities with KD Lang’s Constant Craving
callenstewart
So ridiculous. Not alike.
Dev.C
I don’t understand how someone has to give over writing credit because their beat is similar, The writing and song itself are not the same at all, this is complete BS. When Sam can afford better lawyers I hope they will be able fight people taking advantage of his work like this.
RSun
The first time I heard Smith’s song, I immediately thought it sounded like Petty’s.
jaleoman
The gay community we have in Sam Smith a very talented,
Famous, with a phenomenal voice that is having a lot
Of success, and is part of the LGBT community.
Female artist always have pretend to be lesbians
Or bi to get our money, now we finally have openly
Gay artist like Sam Smith that is successful on the
English speaking world, and Ricky Martin that is
very sucessful on the Spanish speaking world, and
Many other countries. Let’s embrace and support
Our stars.
remyfacade
I don’t think it’s actual plagiarism. just more of a coincidence
rcb1
@T101: Tom Petty isn’t overly popular in England and doesn’t get played all that much on the radio. Im sure it’s not something that Sam Smith would be looking to copy. I personally dont like either artist.
hellogorgeous
@jaleoman: What about Judy Garland, Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Barbra Streisand, Madonna, Liza Minnelli, Grace Jones, etc. etc. etc. ? The gay community has supported many openly straight female artists, often times better than their straight fans.
cflekken
This is pure BS. It took serious manipulation of both songs to find the similarities. I can hardly believe that the writers of Stay With me were listening to I Won’t Back Down, slowed down the tempo and said, “hey this would make a great ballad”. I wish they would have allowed this to go through litigation. Unlike the Michael Jackson lawsuit, which, IMO, was a direct and blatant copy of the “I Cigni Di Balaka”, the comparison of Sam’s and Tom’s song is quite the stretch. Speaking of that Jackson lawsuit, the Italian judge must have been paid substantially to rule in favor of Michael.