RE: Radiohead attempts to Sue Lana Del Rey for Stealing the melody of there song "Creep"
I believe that it is wrong for Radiohead to request 100% of the royalties they should be split and shared it sounds like Radiohead is just being greedy and trying to seize the opportunity
It is difficult for musicians today to write and record something truly original. We still love their music and embrace and crave it. However there are very few boundaries left to break. Thus much of what is already been written is variations or innuendos of the original. From classical music to atonal and twelve-tone music. From Ragtime to Fusion jazz from pop to rap. What new boundaries can be broken what new music can be written? Thus we get the melodic motif of the original in some variation.. and so we get lawsuits and music lawyers make money over copyrights. Music historians are then helpful at pointing out these discrepancies and encouraging new Bright forms of music. I remember George Harrison and Eric Carmen both went through their own lawsuits. Although it is right that the royalty should be split rather than asking hundred percent as Radiohead requested
I find it all a real grey area. If she had used the actual creep instrumental entirely that would be worthy of 50/50 but its only really the underlining chord structure, I see more claim in the Vanilla Ice situation. Its really hard to say. Its almost like in these cases you would have to break down the elements of the song and decide what percentage of the song was similar, cause after everything added by Lana and Sean the producer you might say only 20% of the song was the same as Radiohead creep, and at that rate is there a particular artist who should be getting 50/50 cuts of every song in the key of G or that uses say a G EM pattern together and so forth to infinity. I only see need for percentage splits when its directly the same as very close in the Vanilla Ice example, and its still a maybe as there is a note change. Then it makes you ask the question how many note changes need there be? what about strum pattern? I have several songs that are the same exact chords as alot of basic nirvana songs and yet they sound nothing alike. Its a thinker!!!