This week, I’ve spend much time working on the essay for the first portfolio, with the central theme of the essay being the history of copyright laws. Doing this made me think of an instance involving one of my favorite bands, The Verve. During the mid-90’s, while working on an album, the Verve came to an agreement with Decca Records, the company that deals with the music made by The Rolling Stones. Both parties agreed that for a small fee, the Verve would use a five note sample from a relatively unpopular Rolling Stones song in the composition of one of their own songs, “Bittersweet Symphony”. When the album as released in 1997, “Bittersweet Symphony” became a worldwide hit, bringing The Verve both enormous fame and album sales.
After seeing the success of this song, former Rolling Stone manager Allen Klein filed a lawsuit against The Verve, arguing that they had used “too large of a sample” from the original song. This was an absurd claim, as not only did the Verve use the exact amount they agreed to, but their resulting song was essentially unrecognizable from the song that the five note sample came from. Nevertheless, the case went to court. Facing a difficult legal battle, in which there was the potential to lose much money and still lose the case, The Verve had no choice but to hand over 100 percent of their royalties from the song to the Rolling Stones.
This whole controversy represents a disgusting chapter in copyright history. Allen Klein, fueled by greed, created a false claim and cost The Verve all the money they would have made from a worldwide hit. What makes it even worse is that these are the types of instances that copyright laws are supposed to prevent, but it is arguable that they have created this problem.
http://www.thevervelive.com/2005/05/bitter-sweet-symphony-controversy-and.html
Many copyright laws were enacted in order to protect the publishing or studio through which the author or artist is represented. For example, the Statute of Anne, of 1710, was the first copyright law in the world, and was presented before the Queen of England, not by authors, but by big-time publishers who were afraid of losing their business to smaller printers that were cropping up all over England. They simply wanted to maintain the monopoly they had over printed material, and although their plan was a clever one, it soon backlashed against them with cheap copies of books coming from America and Ireland, where copyright law did not exist. Ultimately, greed lost.