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Comment by _fat_santa | Hacker News Reader

The problem as I see it, when you get that famous, you look like a piggy bank to some people. Say you were walking down the street and tripped over someones foot, most likely you apologize and move on. But if Ed was walking down the street and tripped over the wrong persons foot, that person would quickly turn it into "I'm suing", "you hurt my foot", "I will need therapy", "I think I need to go the hospital". Now none of those things may be true but they are all in service of one goal: "I just had an interaction with someone super famous and super rich, let me see how much I can extract from them for my own gain".

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You’re acting like the equivalent of patent trolls were trying to shake him down. But that’s not the case: it was other singer-songwriters. And if it really is a coincidence it’s quite the coincidence: https://youtu.be/8OrT52ZToUk

(Ignore the title of that video and just listen/watch the content).

Now there are obviously many common chord progressions in pop music, but that is a bit different than a much longer melody. Enough so that the courts agreed. You also have to wonder if the success of that melody was already imprinted on his subconscious.

What I don’t know is if him having original thought versus attempting to copy matters. If I publish a poem, and then you try to publish the same words even if you didn’t intend it to be a copy, then you’re still committing a copyright violation regardless of intent.

> What I don’t know is if him having original thought versus attempting to copy matters. If I publish a poem, and then you try to publish the same words even if you didn’t intend it to be a copy, then you’re still committing a copyright violation regardless of intent.

That's the case for, e.g., patents, but it is explicitly not how copyright works. Clean-room reproductions are valid defenses.

I'm unsure "clean-room defense" can apply to a melody from a top 10 song.

The court just has to weigh all the evidence. A lot of people have heard top-10 songs, so it would be hard to prove true independence. At an extreme though, if you could prove that somebody was perfectly isolated (e.g., if they had video evidence of not being exposed since that top-10 song was produced), a clean-room implementation from that individual would satisfy copyright law (mostly, give or take the as-of-yet mostly legally untouched minefield of deep-fakes). The only real question is where courts would draw a line between that kind of conclusive evidence and some random Joe pinky-swearing they produced the latest Taylor Swift hit in their garage and that it's accidentally kind of similar.

> Clean-room reproductions are valid defenses

No such defense exists. If you tried making your own Mickey Mouse cartoon, Disney would pursue a copyright infringement case against you and would almost certainly prevail. (There are some fair-use defenses permitted like parody, but mere “clean room reproduction” is not one of them.)

(IAAL but this is not legal advice. Consult a licensed attorney if you want legal advice - most definitely NOT HN.)

Which isn't to say that clean-room isn't a valid defense, but rather that it's unlikely that somebody would (or could) independently produce something very similar to Mickey Mouse -- especially since nearly everyone had seen Mickey Mouse, so such an implementation would probably be tainted. If you can prove that you independently created that idea then it's still a valid _copyright_ defense (not a lawyer, yada yada).

There's a lot of necessary legal analysis missing here, and independent creation of an idea plays no part in it. Copyright protects creative expressions (i.e., artistic works), not mere ideas.

I think what you’re trying to say is that independent creation would be a basis to deny a prima facie copyright infringement claim: there is no infringement because no copy has occurred. But that’s a different thing than an affirmative defense. A defense is something you raise after admitting the truth of the claim: you’re basically saying, “yes, I did it, but I’m justified because XYZ.”

> And if it really is a coincidence it’s quite the coincidence: > https://youtu.be/8OrT52ZToUk

Obviously these things are subjective, but I heard no resemblance at all. in that video. Until the second song played I had no idea what it was going to be, even though it was a hit when I was young and I know it well.

It's in a different key or something, and has different instrumentation, so it sounds different, despite the basic melody.

So we have a suit over two things that sound different because they sound similar? Hmm.

If you watch the video you'll see the two song samples in the latter half are in the same key and instrument.

That seems really far fetched. The original versions sound nothing alike to me. They don't have the same vibe at all either and don't give the same emotion.

The two passages are not, in my opinion, similar enough to insinuate copyright infringement. The only similarities are the general melodic contour and some (not all) of the chords. Even though the overall shape of the melodies is similar, they do have many differences, to the point where I would not say it is 'copied'. The chord progression under them is different, but most clearly the groove and delivery are not at all alike between the two pieces. Even though both Shape of You and No Scrubs are hit songs, I had never noticed the similarity until this. If this standard was enough to find copyright infringement, you could nail every third song on the charts somehow.

I’m a musician, composer, and occasional songwriter. I agree with this. I’d testify in court that this is not plagiarism or infringement in my opinion. Unfortunately people are suggestible. Tell them the melodies are the same, then play them, and people hear them as more similar than they are. It reminds me of that illusion where you play muttered speech with a caption and people “hear” the words in the caption.

That's because the US (and many other 'westernized' locales) have this shitty ideology where the individual matters more than other individuals or the collective.

It's why the US has so many scammers and fraudsters.

Edit: this is from my perspective living in the US. I'm not saying that the US has more scammers than other places, just a ton due to this western ideology. My comment about the ideology includes places such as Europe and possibly even China now

Both ideologies have their pros and cons. Take a look at Shanghai right now to see the downsides of when the collective matters more than the individual.

The ideology in China has become arguably 'westernized'

I agree with US has so many scammers and fraudsters part.

But don't agree with the reason. There are tons of scammers and fraudsters in Japan too. Look at those new religions, elderly scammers, the copyright situation in Japan is not any better. It doesn't matter whether the society is collective or individualistic.

I have lived and visited urban areas all over. The only place I was repeatedly robbed was in the Netherlands. I don’t really buy that there are more scammers in the US than anyplace else.

I take it you mean Amsterdam.

Haarlem.

>have this shitty ideology where the individual matters more than ... the collective

You do realize that the 20th century gave us very good reason to feel this way right?

The collective is not the same thing as an all-powerful state.

Two things:

1) An all powerful state is the logical conclusion of anyone who believes the collective is more important than the individual.

2) There were many benevolent all powerful states during the 20th century, but every single powerful state that believed in collectivism turned into a murdering hell hole filled with poverty and suffering where the poorest people risked their lives to flee to countries that believed the individual is more important than the collective.

>1) An all powerful state is the logical conclusion of anyone who believes the collective is more important than the individual.

That is an absolutely massive assumption not based in reality. Its possible to care about the system as a whole without thinking that there needs to be a centralized authority.

Indeed, caring for the society more than the individual and all-powerful governments are at best orthogonal, at worst inversely correlated.

Take Hong Kong for example. Citizens are mindful and care about the collective a lot, while having individual business to take care of. In daily life they are conscious about following the rules not because they are forced to but because if they didn’t the dense city would come to standstill within minutes. HK was never under a communist dictatorship.

Similar with Japan and Korea, which are not dictatorships and thus the case for an all-powerful government is very tough to make (a government that is democratically elected to enforce the will of the people is hardly an all-powerful government—it’s the people who are all-powerful in that scenario).

Meanwhile, over in the mainland China you get selfish drivers speeding through red lights, giant interchanges full of cars at standstill (presumably, due to such behavior), organized scam mafia employing trafficked children to “sell flowers” on subway stations, etc.

I’d argue that all-powerful government is in fact the supreme (but hidden) example of individualism where power-hungry individuals on top do everything to ensure they reign forever and cannot be replaced, everybody else be damned; and the rest of the country (whether consciously realizing it or not) follows the example set by their leaders.

A factor that might correlate with societies being less individualistic is ethnical homogeneity. I hope there are examples to the contrary, though.

You really think US has so many scammers and fraudsters? You obviously have no idea how rotten outwardly-civilized societies such as South Korea are. The scale of investment frauds and various other scamming operations taking place there are a constant plague, and the regulators are comically unprepared to deal with it time after time. South Korea is also a notoriously group minded society built on Confucius ideals and a strong sense of nationalism / ethnocentrism. I've no idea how you arrived at your theory, but it just sounds incredibly adsurd to me.

Whataboutism is poor form

How has South Korea changed in terms of culture and ideology over the last 100-200 years? Most places are adapting 'westernized' ideas because they appear profitable economically

My post is not whataboutism. It's pointing out the absolute dearth of evidence linking higher scamming rates to societies that value individualism.

A more proper name for this would be a "counter example", and it's something you should absolutely expect as a response when you put forth statements online.

Your "counter example" does nothing to address the westernization of business and corporate operations in SK

I see where the disconnect is. I have a hard time placing your bar for being considered "westernized". Can you cite me the names of some nations that you regard as falling below the threshold?

That's a good question. Many nations have been taking up these ideologies. Many indigenous communities on the other hand would likely qualify as 'nonwesternized' but in terms of entire nations? Possibly Saudi Arabia?

Once one asserts that the plural precedes the singluar, fresh vistas of tyranny open to whoever is in control.

And we experience tyranny of the individual at the expense of everyone else currently. This is why businesses destroy the environment, to save individuals money (corporations are individuals as well in this context). This is just one example and not all-inclusive

Balance is what's needed, not extremism

Strong concur. Questions:

1) Which is the greater danger: the group, or the individual? (In the long run, clearly the former.)

2) What is the difference between a public sector group and a private sector group?

3) How is the balance maintained?

1: I don't know if either are a greater danger necessarily. Numerous laws or regulations that are overall harmful could be enacted on the behalf if individuals the same as the group although one could assume that the group has greater power in their numbers. But on the same hand, there are a same number if individuals so that seems difficult to judge to me

2: the more I think about this, the less I know how to answer

3: Currently in the US, the balance seems to be derived through voting and lobbying but large groups seem to have more power in that case, although it could be said that many of these groups aren't working for the greater good (what I refer to as the society or collective) but instead serve individual or private interests of a few

It seems that we need more robust mechanisms to ensure balance in society from my perspective

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