Madonna Loses Plagiarism Lawsuit
By Jonathan Bailey • Nov 18th, 2005 • Category: Articles, Legal Issues, NewsReuters, along with other news agencies, is reporting that Belgian songwriter Salvatore Acquaviva won a plagiarism lawsuit against pop sensation Madonna. In the suit, Acquaviva claimed that the melody from Madonna’s 1998 hit song “Frozen” was lifted from his “Ma Vie Fout L’camp (My Life’s Getting Nowhere)”.
The ruling, which also required stores to remove copies of the song and for broadcasters to stop playing it, did not set any damages but, instead, left those to be negotiated at a later date.
However, what most of the media outlets aren’t covering is the fact that the alleged plagiarism was of only four bars in the respective songs. A three minute song, typically has about 90 to 100 bars. Though I’m not a musician by any stretch, it seems possible to me that two people could independently come up with four bars of identical music with no plagiarism taking place, much like how two identical sentences can appear in unrelated essays. I open the floor to any musicians who want guide me on that issue.
Nonetheless, the courts ruling is law (at least until Madonna appeals) and this isn’t Madonna’s first time she’s been brought to court for alleged copyright violations. It will be interesting to see how this case evolves and what the fallout from it is.
I have a feeling that this story is far from over.
[tags]Plagiarism, Madonna, Frozen, Copyright Infringement, Copyright Law, Sampling[/tags]
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Jonathan Bailey is The Webmaster and author of Plagiarism Today, which he founded in 2005 as a way to help Webmasters going through content theft problems get accurate information and stay up to date on the rapidly-changing field. He is also a consultant to Webmasters and companies to help them devise practical content protection strategies and develop good copyright policies.
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I hope Madonna wins this its getting old people doing anything at her expence to get press. I don’t think she stole anything and in the end Madonna writes the lyrics not the actual beats/bars used which was supplied by another source I doubt she ever heard of this man or his 4 bars untill she was sued. Just like when she was sued for “Justify My Love” which turned out the co-writer at the time stole some of the lyrics from his girl friend yet Madonna gets sued since she recorded it. I find that UNJUST.
I hope Madonna wins this its getting old people doing anything at her expence to get press. I don’t think she stole anything and in the end Madonna writes the lyrics not the actual beats/bars used which was supplied by another source I doubt she ever heard of this man or his 4 bars untill she was sued. Just like when she was sued for “Justify My Love” which turned out the co-writer at the time stole some of the lyrics from his girl friend yet Madonna gets sued since she recorded it. I find that UNJUST.
four bars in a 90 bar song sounds like a little but usually the four bars in question are repeated over and over throughout the song. However this lawsiut is still bullshit, There are countless songs out there with the same four bars.