Music's greatest copycats strike again! We're diving into the world of musical "borrowing" where some artists' tracks became so notorious that they actually revived the original songs' popularity. Get ready for a wild ride through sampling, interpolation, and legal drama!
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the plagiarism controversies
00:09that resulted in old songs becoming new again.
00:16Number 10.
00:17Carry On by Lil Nas X vs. Carry On by Bobby Caldwell
00:22Lil Nas X's smash hit, Old Town Road, featured a 9-inch nail sample approved by Trent Reznor
00:28himself.
00:29However, he found himself in legal hot water with this track.
00:36A California publisher hit Lil Nas X with a $25 million lawsuit in 2018, claiming that
00:45his mixtape track, Carry On, appropriated elements of Bobby Caldwell's song of the
00:50same name.
00:56Caldwell's smooth style of modern blue-eyed soul was a hit back in the 80s, but it could
01:04easily be argued that very few of Lil Nas X's fans might have been aware of the similarities.
01:15Regardless, the influences seem to be little more than just cursory for many critics and
01:21journalists, and the lawsuit remains unsettled at the time of this writing.
01:28Number 9.
01:30Safaera by Bad Bunny vs. Get Your Freak On by Missy Misdemeanor Elliott
01:35The music business is exactly that, a business.
01:39There's often a number of people behind the scenes that are responsible for writing, producing,
01:44and otherwise bringing a song to life.
01:51Missy Misdemeanor Elliott successfully negotiated 25% of the royalties from Bad Bunny's Safaera
01:57after it was revealed that the latter contained an uncleared sample from Get Your Freak On.
02:08That said, other songwriters and producers also share in that song's collective pie,
02:13yet Safaera's undeniable success also managed to remind many of us just how good those old
02:19Missy Elliott albums were back in the day.
02:26Number 2.
02:27Babe I'm Gonna Leave You by Led Zeppelin vs. Babe I'm Gonna Leave You by Joan Baez
02:33Call this next instance of plagiarism a case of miscommunication.
02:42Babe I'm Gonna Leave You was originally written by Anne Breeden, who currently enjoys co-authorship
02:48of the Led Zeppelin version from 1969.
02:51However, it was Joan Baez's cover of the song from 1962 that reportedly inspired Zepp's
02:57arrangement of the tune.
03:07Baez's live album neglected to credit Breeden, mistakenly labeling Babe I'm Gonna Leave You
03:12as a traditional folk song.
03:14Zeppelin kept this label, although they added an additional arrangement credit to Jimmy
03:18Page.
03:27It wasn't until news finally broke of this controversy that both the Baez cover and Breeden
03:32original made their way back into the public spotlight.
03:45Number 7.
03:47Good For You by Olivia Rodrigo vs. Misery Business by Paramore
03:52Artists being influenced by other artists is nothing new, but the complicated business
03:57of publishing sometimes necessitates a fluid roster of writing credits.
04:08Fans remarked online about how Good For You by Olivia Rodrigo possessed certain compositional
04:14similarities to Misery Business by Paramore.
04:23The latter seemed to agree and successfully sued Rodrigo's publishing company, Warner
04:27Chapel, for 50% of the writing credits.
04:36Those same fans that first noticed the arguably coincidental kismet between the two tunes
04:42are also largely divided today about whether or not those similarities were strong enough
04:46to warrant such a hefty share of the profits.
04:53Number 6.
04:54Shape of You by Ed Sheeran vs. No Scrubs by TLC
05:00There is a marked difference between the interpolation of music and a direct sample.
05:10Ed Sheeran admitted back in 2017 that his team had made moves to clear his interpolation
05:16of No Scrubs by TLC for his hit, Shape of You.
05:24This means that Sheeran re-recorded the borrowed bit instead of lifting it directly from TLC's
05:30original.
05:36Final approval of this interpolation wasn't cleared prior to the song's release, however,
05:41and the credits were subsequently revised.
05:44This helped bring No Scrubs back to the cultural zeitgeist, but it also added in multiple songwriters
05:50to the already crowded Shape of You pot.
05:58Number 5.
05:59Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke vs. Gotta Give It Up by Marvin Gaye
06:05At what point does musical inspiration deviate into outright theft?
06:09The lines are often blurred, see what we did there, with regards to how much an artist
06:15takes their influences.
06:20A 2015 verdict resulted in a $5 million settlement in favor of Marvin Gaye's estate after it
06:26was found that Robin Thicke's blurred lines borrowed too closely from Gaye's Gotta Give
06:31It Up.
06:38The latter's popularity as a soul legend hasn't really gone away, even years after
06:43his death.
06:44Yet the lawsuit also lifted Gotta Give It Up's popularity alongside better-known gay
06:48tracks like Sexual Healing and Let's Get It On.
06:59Number 4.
07:01Bittersweet Symphony by The Verb vs. The Last Time by The Andrew Oldham Orchestra
07:06It used to be something of a common practice, whereby certain cash-in cover albums of popular
07:13artists would be released featuring top hits of the era.
07:23The Andrew Oldham Orchestra's cover of The Last Time by The Rolling Stones was created
07:27by the legendary rock band's former manager.
07:35But it would be another Stones manager named Alan Klein that would result in this otherwise
07:40innocuous cover earning a new lease on life.
07:43This all came down to Klein's successful legal poaching of full royalties from The
07:47Verb, who neglected to get Klein's publishing permission for their sample.
07:57It took until 2019 for Klein's son Jody and the Stones to revert financial revenue
08:02back to The Verb's songwriter, Richard Ashcroft.
08:11Number 3.
08:13Rappers Delight by The Sugarhill Gang vs. Goodtimes by Sheik
08:18The embryonic era of hip-hop was largely the Wild West in terms of sampling, interpolating
08:23and accreditation.
08:29Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards from Sheik had already enjoyed chart success with their
08:33hit Goodtimes, but it would be their threat of a lawsuit that would perhaps ensure their
08:38disco hits eternal longevity.
08:47This all came down to The Sugarhill Gang's unlicensed interpolation of Sheik's music
08:52in their own hit Rappers Delight.
08:59Today the lifting is blatantly obvious, yet we just can't help but be reminded of Bernard
09:04Edwards' iconic bass playing every good time we boogie to The Sugarhill Gang's beat.
09:19Number 2.
09:20Ice Ice Baby by Vanilla Ice vs. Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie
09:26Popularity can be a fickle thing.
09:28The classic rock of Queen will probably always be cool, while Vanilla Ice admittedly burned
09:34hot back in the early 90s with Ice Ice Baby.
09:42Yet fans and critics alike noticed immediately how the hit tune heavily adapted John Deacon's
09:48iconic bass playing, albeit with a couple of extra tings.
10:00Ice even attempted at the time to distance himself from the controversy, claiming how
10:05the tunes weren't the same.
10:11Today however, Under Pressure receives unironic love from Heritage radio stations, while Ice
10:17Ice Baby is primarily left to the dustbin of one hit wonderdom.
10:41Number 1.
10:43I'll Be Missing You by Puff Daddy and Faith Evans vs. Every Breath You Take by The Police
10:48Sean Combs was going hard back in 1997.
10:57We are speaking, of course, about how his hit I'll Be Missing You not only interpolates
11:02Every Breath You Take by The Police, but also lifts a direct sample.
11:14It's Biggie Smalls' widow Faith Evans who sings the interpolated version of the main
11:18melody that's also sampled for the tune.
11:29And apparently Combs didn't feel it was necessary to get clearance before sampling the already
11:34immensely popular original.
11:36Sting may have appeared alongside Combs at the 1997 MTV Video Music Awards, but this
11:41was only after successfully suing for 100% of his owed publishing royalties.
11:47It should be said, however, that the cross-genre pollination of a classic new wave song and
11:53a hip-hop tune did bring a host of new ears to The Police.
12:01There are only so many guitar chords and keys on a piano.
12:04Should there be a dividing line between artistic inspiration and outright theft?
12:09Who makes that line?
12:10Let us know your thoughts in the comments.