Can I just say I'm tired of the anal-retention/hypocrisy that goes on with these music-lawsuit cases? (This is a bit off-topic, sorry.) I realize there's a fine line to be drawn between "sue every bastard who uses the same two-notes we did" and "let everyone rip us off and profit by it", but surely the bands who are in comfortable positions financially (like, U2, Tom Petty, etc.) can rest at ease if a fellow artist "borrows" their chord-progression or a part of a melody, provided that it's "outed" by the media and that everyone knows who originated it.
It's a different story if (a) the artist being ripped off is struggling to pay the bills, like most musicians (not sure about Satriani -- does he need money? 'Cause he sure is making an ass of himself in the Coldplay case), or (b) if the "borrowing" is a complete rip-off to the point where the new song couldn't even exist without the old one (for example, Oasis's B-side "Step Out", which was supposed to be on Morning Glory until the first person who heard it matched it to Stevie Wonder's "Uptight" -- did he actually think he would get away with that??).
The cases that piss me off, though, are the ones like The Rolling Stones' management versus Richard Ashcroft and the Verve. Way back in 1964/65, Mick and Keith wrote a song, "The Last Time", which was a bit UK hit, going to #1. Some months later, their manager hires some studio musicians to do an orchestrated version of some of their songs, including "The Last Time", for which the orchestration sounds nothing like Mick and Keith's song. 32 years later, The Verve obtain permission to use a sample of the orchestration before releasing their record. When "Bittersweet Symphony" becomes a big hit, suddenly ABCKO and the Stones' publishing cry 'foul' and argue that Ashcroft used too much of the sample, even though the violin melody, the lyrics, and the lyrical melody have no basis in the old track (which Mick and Keith had nothing to do with in the first place). So now R.Ashcroft has to suffer the indignity of his biggest song being officially credited to "Jagger and Richards" even though they didn't write the melody of the orchestral version which he (legally and with permission) sampled. I'm sure it was Mick and Keith who initiated the legal proceedings in that case, but obviously they had the power to stop it from going through, which would have been the graceful thing to do, especially when The Stones made their whole career on copying old blues guys who never earned a cent.
What I'm saying is, all musicians, by necessity, borrow things. Famous and wealthy groups should have the grace to turn a blind eye unless it's totally obvious (I mean, like beyond obvious), or else they run the risk of invoking the wrath of the rock'n'roll gods. . .
