How to avoid being accused "rip off"?

[jancivil]

[seems a rhetorical question but anyway]
Well, it's not usually a calculation like we saw there, methinks.

[donkey tugger]

I'd forgotten about this;

[jancivil]

the not-Marvin Gaye half of that is SO mediocre, besides the, what, dire need to appropriate that chord progression

[donkey tugger]

the not-Marvin Gaye half of that is SO mediocre, besides the, what, dire need to appropriate that chord progression

When I was listening to it I did think it puts into stark relief how great a singer Marvin Gaye was and how little Teddy Sheeran sounds pitifully weedy doing his best to rip him off.

[dzilizzi]

This is when I start wondering if using royalty free loops is good. If I use some loops, then you use the same loops, it is likely our songs will have similarities, even if my song is a rock song and yours is EDM.

Of course, if I used it first, then you copied LOL!

[jancivil]

the not-Marvin Gaye half of that is SO mediocre, besides the, what, dire need to appropriate that chord progression

When I was listening to it I did think it puts into stark relief how great a singer Marvin Gaye was and how little Teddy Sheeran sounds pitifully weedy doing his best to rip him off.

'weedy' is right

[Rappo Clappo]

@dzilizzi

Well... at least no one has to pay royalties

[OreoSplitter]

I tried looking into copyright and melody. How does one know legally they could be in trouble and never found an answer. It may seem like melodies have this gigantic 1 in a million chance to copy someone by accident but I believe it's darn near unavoidable. If we converted all songs to the key of C and grouped them to similar tempo and time signature it would be clear to claim I own this melody in court is ridiculous. You figure most notes are occurring at 16th notes to quarter notes. 32nd notes and smaller to me is too small a difference to claim it as a new rhythm that is so unique but tempo is important in that situation. Anyways 16th notes and up. Then you have 7 notes. Sure there are 12 but 99.9 percent of music is playing the notes of that key. In this case it's key of C. Then you could eliminate melodies that are not musically feasible like random notes, still in key. In other words only a small portion of all possible melodies makes sense Just like note placement and rounding things to 16th notes. No one is going to make a melody with 3 16th notes right away with nothing left for the rest of the measure.

You appear to have no real concept of melody, if you need that kind of reduction.

You have nothing better to with you're life then put other people down. Sit and spin.

[highkoo]

Nah its like a seasonal thing.
Jan puttin numbers on the board for spring!

@topic,
The question is so damn weird. Definitely to me personally, but even if I attempt to imagine being a 'real' musician, its a an odd concern.
Is this a common thing to worry about?

[SODDI]

First step in not being derivative is to not THINK derivative. If you are going to emulate something, do it out of love. Do it because it's part of you.

Find out why you like something, pick it apart and make that your own starting point.

"Game of Thrones" uses concepts from Michael Moorcock's work - but it's obviously because George R. R. Martin loved them and he wove them into his tapestry.

Laika and the Kosmonauts write great futuro-surf music (and what the f**k do they know about surf music, they're from Finland). I believe they do it because they love the form.

[VariKusBrainZ]

so...it is super hard to be purely original these day?

I hear music all the time that has the same melody as some other tune and sing the lyrics from that other tune just to point it out to my GF.

Maybe most people don't hear it because they don't / cant hear the constituent parts of a tune separately ?

[highkoo]

[jancivil]

I tried looking into copyright and melody. How does one know legally they could be in trouble and never found an answer. It may seem like melodies have this gigantic 1 in a million chance to copy someone by accident but I believe it's darn near unavoidable. If we converted all songs to the key of C and grouped them to similar tempo and time signature it would be clear to claim I own this melody in court is ridiculous. You figure most notes are occurring at 16th notes to quarter notes. 32nd notes and smaller to me is too small a difference to claim it as a new rhythm that is so unique but tempo is important in that situation. Anyways 16th notes and up. Then you have 7 notes. Sure there are 12 but 99.9 percent of music is playing the notes of that key. In this case it's key of C. Then you could eliminate melodies that are not musically feasible like random notes, still in key. In other words only a small portion of all possible melodies makes sense Just like note placement and rounding things to 16th notes. No one is going to make a melody with 3 16th notes right away with nothing left for the rest of the measure.

You appear to have no real concept of melody, if you need that kind of reduction.

You have nothing better to with you're life then put other people down. Sit and spin.

And you're not putting me down. I addressed what you said and I stand by that. I do a number of things, one of them involves melody.

And, 'you're' contracts 'you' and 'are'; the possessive that sounds like is 'your'. In a sentence: My life is none of your business.

[jancivil]

Melody is a far wider and deeper thing than that shite. You can absolutely have melodies that aren't derivative.
I'll reiterate: the reduction of melodic possibility to that simple grid doesn't do anything good for anybody.
What is it, an excuse?

[jancivil]

If you make things which are very derivative, you know they are, complaining about being called rip-off is just silly.
If you don't want that, do something based in your own idea of the landscape for a bit.