![]() ![]() ![]() Lennon reciprocated on the complaint front and countersued Levy. Morris’s case was complicated by other issues between his firm and John Lennon, who gave a deposition in the case. “Come Together” A few months after September 1969, Chuck Berry’s music publisher, Morris Levy, brought a copyright infringement action against The Beatles/Apple, claiming that their 1969 track ‘Come Together’ had lifted music and lyrics from Berry’s 1956 track, ‘You Can’t Catch Me’.(Perhaps trademark could apply, under some circumstances, but not copyright.) Under copyright law, the title and/or a single short phrase would not be subject to protection. While rumors of a threatened court action by Scott against the Beatles, demanding a lyrical credit, have been circulated for many years, there is no firm documentation that indicates that any such action happened. The title and refrain were used by Paul McCartney, the principal composer of the song, from a coined as a catchphrase by a Jimmy Scott, a London-based Nigerian musician of McCartney’s acquaintance. “ Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” This is one of the tracks included on the ‘White Album’ (1968), and it is a bouncy little number. ![]() Money (That’s What I Want) : Five Instances of Beatle-related Copyright/IP Issues: The industry practice of covering songs is a licensed activity – basically, the label pays a license for each cover it releases. Early in their career, the Beatles performed and recorded a couple of dozen covers, sometimes very memorably (“ Twist and Shout” is the best known among these) and sometimes not so much ( “Besame Mucho” or perhaps “Red Sails in the Sunset“). In music, a “cover” is a licensed re-recording of a track which has already been recorded and released by someone else – usually the original artist, who may also be the writer of the music and lyrics. However, before talking about some infringement issues that came up for the Beatles (and the post-Beatles), I begin by mentioning the uses they made of “other people’s music” which were not infringements: cover versions. For a reasonably descriptive -but still very introductory - overview (for non-lawyers), see “ The Fair Use Rule,” a blog post by Richard Stim posted at. *Note: This is a painfully compressed allusion to the wide-ranging operation of fair use, but I am not going to try and go through the doctrine in any detail here. Copyright Act) and the body of court decisions that have been built around it.* Multiple defenses against a charge of copyright infringement are possible, including “It didn’t happen,” “It wasn’t me” and (in the US) “What I did should be excused due to the fair use doctrine.” “Fair use” is, basically, a legal defense framed by the four-factor test as expressed in Section 107 of Title 17 of the U.S. As with any court proceeding, the desired result is not guaranteed to either side in the dispute - facts have to be substantiated, arguments made and the case proved, and the court needs to come to a decision. Many small infringements go without notice or are not followed up on but the copyright holder has the right to complain and, if they choose, to take the matter to court. For this round, I thought I would focus on a whole ‘nother aspect of copyright (as illustrated by vignettes concerning The Beatles), this time focusing on questions of infringement.Ĭopyright infringement occurs when someone -or some corporate entity-misuses a copyrighted work (and that copyrighted work is still being managed by its creator or another rightsholder, such as the work’s publisher). In my first essay for the Informed Librarian Online, I highlighted several of the times the Beatles (and later, their creation Apple Corps ) were innovators in the domain of intellectual property (IP). It touches upon fair use, alleged (or subconscious) plagiarism, and parody. This post focuses on questions of alleged infringement of musical works, and how those questions were resolved. Part II of a post about the nexus of The Beatles and Intellectual Property, primarily copyright. ![]()
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