We all know how music infringement (like “pirating” music) has been an issue for a long time. I don’t understand where the point of crossing the line is, though. The ex-Beatle George Harrison was guilty of copying phrases from the Chiffons’ song “He’s So Fine” in his song “My Sweet Lord,” and this happened in 1971. Where is this line between legally copying certain notes from another song and illegally copying them? How many notes does it take, too? I’m sure every song has similar notes or phrases to at least one other song out there. I mean, there are seriously a ton of songs out there, so does an artist have to listen to every song and make sure they aren’t committing music infringement? I guess if an artist thinks his or her melody is similar to another artist’s, then he or she should get permission from the copyright owner. In George Harrison’s case though, he said he “unconsciously” copied the notes.

I recently listened to “He’s So Fine” and “My Sweet Lord” to compare the two. I can hear the same beat of about five notes repeated numerous times in both songs, but it is faster in “He’s So Fine” and both are in different keys. There could be a note added in “He’s So Fine” too, but it’s hard to tell. To be honest, I don’t think I would have noticed the similarity between the two if I already didn’t know about the lawsuit. A lot of songs have the same beat, so why not have lawsuits for them?

Downloading music has been a more recent form of copyright infringement. I will admit that in the past I have been known to download music, but I didn’t do it too often. It just seemed convenient if I wanted to find a certain song and not buy the entire CD. If I didn’t like every song on a CD, then I’d just download the songs I liked. CD sales have plummeted over the past years, which isn’t exactly a good thing for CD stores. Where should people draw the line on downloading music? Billions of people download music illegally, and it would be impossible to arrest every single person. I know if there’s any easy way to find something free, people will definitely go the free route. I’ve just been thinking more lately that the artists must dislike this approach since it wouldn’t give them any credit for their songs. When people buy a certain CD or a song from iTunes, the artist gets some credit for their talent. It’s interesting how few CD’s I’ve purchased in the past few years compared to my younger days. I can’t even remember the last time I stepped into a CD store.

I think music sales are just going to plummet even more as time moves on, too. They already have declined because of the illegal ways of finding music. It is even happening with DVDs, too. I know a friend who just rents DVDs and burns them. It all seemed to start with stealing a few notes, but now has turned into stealing entire CDs and DVDs.

So, for the moral of my rant: music copyright infringement will always exist and it will always be hard to draw a line in stopping it.