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Comment by bruna597 | Hacker News Reader

I think this is stupid. "Feelings" aren't copyrightble.

Let's step back a little. The story is clearly written to trigger outrage -- really, meant to trigger your precise response. So, let's spend a google seeing if there are elements of this story that were left out due to not fitting the narrative (note: this isn't to say the decision wasn't stupid, or that you are wrong in any factual sense).

Okay, so first that that pops up is that the children of Marvin Gaye were the ones being sued. It's also revealed that Williams describes the issue in such a way that makes it sound like he wrote Blurred Lines in an hour while this Marvin Gaye song was playing in the room (just to be clear, for a typical length pop song, writing it in an hour is _remarkably, exceptionally fast_).

Now, surely this is enough to have us step back and be slightly more circumspect about this -- whatever the facts are, they are neither simple nor provided in the article. Honestly, I'd wait for a legal analysis. Lawyers are not so exceedingly stupid as to think feelings are copyrightable, and neither is the judge who issued the fines.

> (just to be clear, for a typical length pop song, writing it in an hour is _remarkably, exceptionally fast_).

I think you'd find that the vast majority of pop hits are written fairly quickly. Yes producing, recording, finishing a pop song, adding everything that makes a pop song.. pop... can take a long time. But the actual writing is literally just

1. Get an idea

2. put it into the standard pop song structure

Especially for someone like Pharrell who has probably written a hundred songs or so.

It's by no means _remarkably, exceptionally fast_.

Edit:

Look at the way Notch writes code. Yes okay, we could call it remarkably fast. But he does it consistently. It's not a surprise when he finishes a game during a game jam.

Just as I do not find it surprising that one of the most accomplished songwriters of his generation writes a song in an hour

Sia supposedly wrote Rihanna's Diamonds in 14 minutes.

also Nickelback - How You Remind Me was written in 15

Okay, at some point this counts as improvised. We're talking about lyrics, percussion, bass guitar and other instruments (at least in the case of Blurred Lines, where the writing of the lyrics and instrumental tracks were what was in question). Assuming you have only two hands/ears with which to write/play with the sound of, that's writing at nearly 1/2 the speed it is performed (and could be considered near-live writing if you aren't da Vinci'ing it).

He doesn't write the chorus four times :P

This and parent form a pretty backhanded compliment to 15 minute songwriting!

Depending on your feelings about the songs, of course.

Diamonds makes me cringe.

You may underestimate him, Pharell's probably written well over a thousand songs. He has 59 songs with wikipedia pages!

You're absolutely right about people writing fast though. Even Bob Dylan wrote some of his songs in under 20 minutes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Pharrell_Williams_song...

Thank you! Oh if you could only package that in an app. For every article I see, I get a notation "Story elements left out that didn't fit the narrative".

Are you doing submarine PR for genius.com?

Yeah, I'm a lawyer and the law is clear when it says what are the copyrightable things. A song that "reminds" of another isn't enough to be considered as a copy. If that were true, than we wouldn't have western movies or movies where a hero kills the villain to rescue an innocent girl. So, yeah, this is stupid.

> Lawyers are not so exceedingly stupid as to think feelings are copyrightable, and neither is the judge who issued the fines.

What about the jury? This was a jury case.

You seem to be leaving out the original lawsuit was filed for a declaration of non-infringement since there were inquiries as to why they didn't pay up to license the previous song. If they felt they didn't infringe then I see nothing wrong with such a preemptive lawsuit to avoid lots of legal paperwork arguing back-and-forth, which only helps the lawyers involved. Such an inquiry would most likely lead to a lawsuit anyway. Might as well roll the dice and go straight to court to get it settled. They simply lost. There's no reason to think nefarious reasons for the first lawsuit not being filed by the children.

Plus, unless you've worked with the person, I'm not sure you have a place in suggesting how long it takes them to accomplish a task.

Finally, there are stupid outcomes to legal cases all the time. Logic and justice do not always prevail in a court of law.

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