You'll Hear It: Full Album Deep Dives with Jazz Musicians - The Katy Perry/Flame Lawsuit

Episode Date: August 14, 2019

On this first episode from YHI Live, Peter and Adam wade into the controversial waters that are the recent Katy Perry/Flame lawsuit.For Adam Neely's excellent video on this topic, go here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ytoUuO-qvgAnd be sure to have a look at Open Studio's brand new course from Edu Ribeiro: Brazilian Jazz Drumming! Learn authentic Brazilian grooves like samba, baião, choro, and more from one of the world's greatest Brazilian jazz drummers. Go to https://www.openstudiojazz.com/brazilian-jazz-drumming for more information.Like those You'll Hear It shirts Peter shows off on the podcast? Want some YHI swag of your own? Take a visit to our store! Just go to https://teespring.com/stores/open-studioLet us know what you think by leaving a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ review, or head over to our YouTube channel and leave a comment for this episode.Interested in more jazz advice? Go here to browse our catalog of jazz lessons and courses available for purchase.Follow us on Facebook, Twitter & Instagram at:https://www.facebook.com/heyopenstudiohttps://twitter.com/heyopenstudiohttps://www.instagram.com/heyopenstudio See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hey, Pete. Hey, Adam. Is this a live thing? I think this is a live thing. Yeah. I'm Adam Maness. And I'm Peter Martin. And you're listening to the You'll Hear at podcast.

Daily Jazz Advice coming at you. That D-flat there is... That's like a ringtone, man. Why'd you hit it again? Now it's never going to stop. I mean, for such a huge piece of junk, the Kranach and Bach has amazing sustained. I mean, it's like, it's all day.

Let's see if it'll sustain the whole episode. I think the soundboard on this thing is made up of old, like, British warships, like wood from old. Like, you know what I mean? This whole place would burn down and it would still be here. For sure. So it's good to be here on a big Wednesday. Hump day.

Yes. It is Hump day. You got a right. Today is hump day. And this is fun because we're actually recording the episode while we're live. So big shout out to YouTube Nation. Everybody joining us for the live stream. We're having some fun today.

And we're projecting ourselves into the next week as we like to do on Wednesday. Heck yeah. And today we're kind of going back into some controversial territory, which we don't do often. Because we usually step in it when we do. Have you noticed that? Yes. But I think we do this, to our credit, we do this more than we should. Yeah.

And we tend to brave into these waters on the regular, I think. And, you know, this isn't that controversial because there's an overwhelming opinion on the subject that we're talking about today, and especially amongst people who know about music. And we're talking today about this recent Katie Perry decision about copyright infringement. where Katie Perry recently lost a lawsuit to a Christian rap artist named Flame. Who's from St. Louis? I didn't know that until 10 minutes ago. Oh, I had no idea.

So there are some, there's a couple of St. Louis connections. There's some St. Louis connection. Yeah, he's from St. Louis. I think he lives here. I wasn't familiar with him. His given name is Marcus Gray. Flame, young guy, talented. Has nominated, if not won Dove Awards, Grammy Awards.

I mean, he's like, you know. A Dove Award? Is that like a Christian? It's a Christian Grammy Award. I had no idea. The more you know. Always be learning. ABL.

ABL. Hashtag it. So he has this song, Joyful Noise, comes out a few years before Katie Perry's huge hit, Dark Horse came out, which I think 2013.

2013. And this was, Flame was 2008. So, you know, quite a bit of time for it to marinate in the consciousness possibly. And we'd also just say

this is not just, it's Katie Perry, Capital Records, some other writers, producers. Right. It's kind of a, you know,

whoever's involved with the copy you write, I guess the writing and the dissemination of that copyright. So it's not just, we don't want to pin this all on Katie Perry. Although she seems most likely to be able to afford to pay this, right? Well, so I mean, the common thread through all these things we're

going to talk about today is that the people that are getting sued it's like mega hits, right? It's like, nobody suing, you know, Joe Shmo, singer, songwriter down the corner for stealing, you know, Pacabelle's canon a million times. I mean, I would be so honored to be, like, sued for stealing something from, like, Thelonious Monk or something. Yeah, sue me for that. That's a, that's

like so like oh I sound too much like monk my bad yeah no exactly we owe herbie Hancock so much money yeah yeah yeah oh I'm sorry I imitate in herbie again you heard it every time I do this yeah yeah yeah all right so let's check out the jazz is just so inside baseball and indecipherable no one could ever sue anybody they don't I mean we're ripping people off all the time actually everybody is though so that's going to be I think the the overwhelming point of this is that this is just It's getting ridiculous out here. Okay, so let's just play a little bit of joyful noise.

This is something that we can do because we're not as big of a podcast as Adam Neely, who, by the way, had a great video on this. Yes, yes. Let's link to that below. Andrew linked to that video for sure. Because he's only got 1.9 million views. Come on. Jealous much?

Yeah. All right, so here's a little bit of joyful noise. Okay, that's all we're doing. Okay. All right. But that's all you really need. We were not even going to play the melody. In terms of what the attorneys presented, this is what it's really about.

So let's hear a little bit of dark horse. I'm going to try to find the spot. Not yet. I'm capable of anything. Here it is. Okay. Go faster, different key. Yeah.

But, you know, it's funny because they kept, everybody's calling this an ostinado, which, I mean, both in the trial and the videos about this. Don't get too far from your headphones, by the way. I have more examples. Am I ready to go? We can put it back on.

I'm just saying. Ostenado, which, you know, I'm so ignorant with my jargon. It was a lot of jargon apparently being thrown out in this. And Adam Neely uses the word jargon, I think, really correctly. But then he uses a bunch of jargon. To me, this whole thing of like, I'm always thinking of like a bass ostinado. That's traditionally where a jazz musician would use an ostinado.

Yes. But it's a correct usage as even a high secondary line that in this case, and the Joyful Noise case helped develop the beat in the Dark Horse case. I think it's kind of, I think it's like less a part of the actual beat of the, the song more of just like a counter melody happening or texture even but apparently they got into a whole thing of playing these parts for the jury this was in l.A like what a week ago too i mean this is very recent very very very and it was all about like for what i always thought my very limited legal musical mind was you know things like you can't copyright a bass line you can't copyright a groove and these

kind of thing court changes court changes you can't copyright court changes but what they presented So it was always about stealing melody and or lyrics and especially any kind of connection between those. That's when they would get you. So these were the old Tin Pan Alley copyright laws that were really guiding the industry for years and years and years and years, decades and decades. Remember that law firm, Tin Pan Alley and Associates. They defended many of these cases. I do not know if that's true. That would be interesting, wouldn't it?

Absolutely not true. That's not true. We don't know that. No, but you know what? This is a very important point to make up. To make that. as I just kind of BS my way through this episode. No, that for years and years, you could take the chord changes from us.

I mean, we're jazz musicians. We have a million songs over I got rhythm. Yeah. You know, the blues. Like there's so many that there's a, what's the, what's that word I'm trying to think of of a counterfact? Counterfact. You know, of like Donnelly is Indiana. Yeah.

All these different kind of things. Layering a different melody over core changes in form, basically. Exactly, right. Which was certainly stealing a certain about or borrowing or taking, lifting. Of course, yeah, yeah. But they presented this, they weren't even trying to say they stole the melody. No, no, no, no, that's what I'm saying. But they kind of tried to say that this,

dun dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, is a melody. Right. Without actually saying that, they're calling it an ostinado. I'm like an ostinado's not a melody, but in the original, apparently, that's the most prominent melodic component. But then they're also adding in the sound, like the synth sound. And Adam Neely's thing is like, they don't sound anything like each other. And I'm like, yeah, they kind of do.

I mean, a little bit, but not, it's a very different vibe for me. I think, you know what boils down and the other ones will play. I have another example that we can play, a more famous one even, I think. But it seems like that these like these attorneys probably, I'm guessing, who are driving this is, they're trying to like copyright a vibe. Yeah, a vibe. You know what I mean? Like so if the vibe is similar enough,

for a recorded piece of music, then that is apparently copyright theft, intellectual property theft. Well, isn't that, doesn't this kind of go back to the whole Farrell, Marvin Gay, Robin Gay, Robin, because that was, oh, is that what we're going to listen to? I have it up, yeah, yeah.

Because that I got to say. So this was, but I love Marvin Gaye, so. I know, well, this is a classic example of maybe like getting really, really close to the vibe, if not lifting the vibe completely. Because Marvin Gay's got to give it up. Now, we don't even actually have to get into the melodies of this because they're not similar at all.

Apparently, that's not even the legal barrier anymore anyway. Blurred lines. Some background noises. Kind of Marvin-esque a little bit, maybe. There's actually nothing. It's not as good, though. That's my thing. Of course it's not as good.

But how come somebody, why can't it just be enough to be like, look, Farrell is not as maybe innovative or creative or interesting? as Marvin Gay and the folks that created that original. So he obviously stole something from it, or he's influenced and maybe he's building off of it. Why can't it just be enough to be like, hey, everybody, go listen to the original, so at least you'll make some money off it. Why does it have to be,

same thing with this Katie Perry thing? Yeah, maybe she heard it. Maybe somebody stole a little bit of it, but we're all taking things. There's nothing that we really own. I think unless you're taking the actual words and the melody, then you're doing a version of them. I agree.

I think it's a very gray area, and it's frankly, for lack of a better term, it's a slippery slope here because like when the when the Marvin gay robin thick thing happened I remember saying to someone at the time like are we really are we really going to copyright vibe here or is everybody just like loving Marvin gay more than Robin Thick which is a natural thing to do you know what I mean so of course like oh yeah like they ripped off like they were obviously were influenced by got to give it up when they made blurred lines but you know are we going to go back in, should we really go back in history to like early R&B, early blues, early rock and roll, John Coltrane,

did he steal from Lester Young? I mean, does every jazz drummer owe Kenny Clark a check for walk the dog? You know what I'm saying? Like for creating a vibe with a walking baseline and, you know, in jazz, there's just not enough money for anyone to get interested partly. Although occasionally there is. You talk about, you know, Blockbuster Records, Keith Jarrett, Miles Davis, you know, different artists in jazz that actually have generated enough to warrant that. But I think that there's more of a feeling in jazz of a shared cultural and common language and there's more generosity

in terms of like, don't steal my lick and this kind of thing. I mean, you get a little bit of that but I don't know of any big lawsuits within jazz. Plus, the juries can't understand it. That's the bottom line. They were able to get the jury and we'd be remiss if we didn't bring up another St. Louis connection here, a certain Todd Decker,

who apparently was sort of the musicologist of note of record in this case. He's a... On the flame side of things. Right. And he's a musicology professor here at Washington University just blocks from where we are now. Yeah, yeah. And he apparently was instrumentally and convincing with, according to Adam Neely, his overuse of musical jargon that they didn't understand. They played him this thing, and then they had this guy who's like supposed to be an expert in this,

explained to them how it was stolen in words that they didn't really, musical words that the layman didn't understand. This is according to Adam Neely. I was in at the trial. I kind of agree with Adam Neely, actually. So, I mean, yeah, slippery slope and the blame. I mean, to me, it's just like, everybody go home, make some more music. Like, don't waste your time suing each other about this kind of. There's so much more other music.

Does this speak more to just the dearth of ideas and creativity out there now? I mean, dun, dun, dun, dun, or dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. That's the two versions of this supposedly stolen ostinado. Yeah. I'm like, you know, come up with some other notes or I don't know. Maybe I'm too anti-basic or something, you know. I don't even know what I'm saying I don't even know who signed I'm on that I'm not really sure

where you're landing on this bro I want to you know why I'm landing I want to get a piece of this 2.78 million that was awarded can I get a little bit I know that's the thing so if you if you're not hit to this Katie Perry did lose the lawsuit yeah and had to pay damages of almost didn't have to pay they've been award but apparently it's going to be a bun this is just the beginning oh that's right

yeah because I heard an interview with the Mike con who's a St. Louis attorney who's a lead attorney on this who said he already he's already told that his client flame he's like nothing's being paid now there's going to be a bunch of, you know, injunctions. They are talking about settlements, maybe whatever. But I mean, so the final thing hasn't been said on this. But, I mean, I was just thinking about Bruno Mars.

He's beloved. I was stolen so many. The exact. How come but nobody suing him? How has Sting not sued Bruno Mars? I know. The Earth went in fire. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. His whole career is based on Lenny Kravitz, too. He's like really getting close to some old influences, a little, maybe a little too close to the sun, but I'm better with letting that go than I am the other way, where now everybody's on lockdown. Like, how much can I borrow from this? Because sometimes, you know how it is. When you're writing or creating something, sometimes you'll go back to it and be like, holy cow,

I think I just wrote, We Are the World. I know. And you didn't go out to do it. No. It's just in your head or it's in the zeitgeist or something. And I think if the melody isn't so similar and you're not using the same, I mean, that's where really traditionally, and I believe in that. where you get into theft.

I mean, like, what are the chances that you're going to come up with that same melody and the same words? Okay, yeah, then you're just playing another song. Yeah. And so, yeah, there's probably

a slippery slope or there's some gray areas in there. I think so. But to me, blurred lines, this is some blurred lines. I think unless it's an obvious, an obvious, obvious plagiarism. Yeah.

I think vibe and zeitgeist and these things that get in the air of music, I think we got to let it go. Well, this is definitely. Even on these two cases, which I do think, we're intentionally a little too close to the line. I still think it's like, come on,

you've got to let that go. But now apparently this has got to be opening up the floodgates because you're getting more, it's becoming accepted. The attorneys were even saying, we're not saying they stole the music or the words or anything. They didn't claim you that. It was the vibe, the ostinado, and then they start. We don't even know what an ostinado is,

and we're trained musicians. Copyright that. Come on, you can't do that. All right. Well, we are brought to you by Open Studio. Did you know that? I did know that. Am I rushing too closely to our little ending here?

No, I mean, you are kind of ripping off a hundred other podcasts by having a sponsor at the end. I know, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, and we're at a brand new home. Please join us there. We're getting so much, so much just love and satisfaction from being there, open studio, jazz.com. Same great artists, same great content, but some new content. Can you tell them about our latest course? So the cool thing with the new platform that we're on, shout out to Podia, by the way, great platform, is we could add things like quizzes that are integrate seamlessly within the lessons.

You can see what you've, what lesson you were just on. It kind of gets crossed out at the end. Yeah, a sense of completion. Very much so. It's so easy to make, it's a lot easier even for us to make the content better. Like we've added stuff like practice routines, things like more playalongs, more living notation, more transcriptions, more workbooks, more worksheets, things like that. But it's really, really exciting then. Yeah, and we've already, I mean, from the short time we've been there just a few weeks, we've already have two new courses.

so I would encourage people if you're interested to check out our All Access Pass. We have two new courses already. Have you checked out Adieu Ribeiro's new Brazilian jazz drumming course? It's mind-blowing. I'm going to put this out here. That's one of the best drummers I've ever seen in my life. Yeah.

Andrew Rivera, yeah. Check it out. Check it out. Yeah, so that's exciting. And then we have the You'll Hear of Premium, which is kind of jumping off, which is available there. You can go to You'll Hear.com, actually, and sign up there just for some extras.

Really more about, like, supporting the podcast and becoming a part of that community. We're starting to get some nice commenting and back and forth from you'll hear at listeners. So if you're deep into it, join us there. If not, join us here. It's all good. We love you. YouTube, Apple, Stitcher, keep stitching, all that kind of good stuff.

We got anything else? Just for our people who are live with us right now. Oh, we're pretending like they're not there until we get to the band. If you're listening Wednesday, it's too late. But if you're live with us here on YouTube, stick around. We have two more episodes to record after this. That's right. If you're listening on Wednesday, come back.

Oh, sorry. Oh, I like what you were going with this. Let me try that again. No edits, though, Andrew. We never edit. If you're listening on Wednesday, you'll hear it.