Quote:
Originally Posted by Spoon 11th
Every time I hear a Rush song I see in my head the Spinal Tap scene where that midget of whatever dances around mini-Stonehenge.
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No, no.. that's Geddy Lee...
It is true most of pop music can be played with four chords. Back in the late 60s, there was a local LA band called The Knack (not the "My Sharona group) and part of their act was to go through a whole blizzard of songs in G just using four chords. They also had a segment where they did impressions of Top 40 rock groups of the time...
The question of how long it took to make the claim and file the lawsuit is a tricky one: often the party who has been damaged cannot afford to hire adequate legal representation to pursue their claim. Add to this the tactics used by the record companies at the time (late 60s to 80s) of basically throwing every legal obstacle in the way of the claim and it really becomes daunting. The artist may suffer a loss of royalties and legal damages but the record companies also might take a hit because they very often have a stake in the publishing and copyright royalties and are thereby co-liable. They have very strong law firms on retainer and will simply bury any claims with very expensive legal maneuvers, court filings, and other paper work the claimant cannot afford...
There is also a great deal of intimidation: record companies will often "blacklist" artists, composers, and others who rock the boat. This will spread not only from the originally claimed against company, but throughout the rest of the industry; you simply are tagged as "difficult", "uncooperative", or a "liability" when all you did is stand up for your rights and proper credit due. The companies will also often go to the extent of wooing the lawyer(s) representing the claimant by hinting there could be the chance of working for the company on legal matter in the future if they get their client, the claimant, to settle or drop the claim. This happens far more often than you would expect. Here, in Hollywood, there is a saying in the music world that if you are dealing with the record companies, you best hire a lawyer and then hire a second lawyer to watch the first one you hired...
I came across this in Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_plagiarism
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