来源：《经济学人》
刊登日期：2021年5月15日
“You motherfuckers owe me!” raps Donald Glover in his chart-topper of 2018, “This is America”. Yet according to a complaint filed in a New York court, it is Mr Glover who is indebted. Another rapper known as Kidd Wes, says “This is America” borrows from his own work of 2016, “Made in America”. Mr Glover has not commented.
“你们这些混蛋欠我的!”这是唐纳德·格洛弗2018年的排行榜冠军说唱歌曲《这就是美国》里的一句歌词。然而，根据提交给纽约一家法院的一份诉状，格洛弗才是欠债的人。另一位名为基德·韦斯的说唱歌手说，“这就是美国”借用了他自己2016年的作品“美国制造”。格洛弗对此尚未置评。
The complaint is the latest in an outbreak of musical copyright claims. Between 1844 and 2014 no more than eight such cases a year were heard in American federal courts. The past six years have seen an average of 16.
这是音乐版权诉讼案中最新的一起。从1844年到2014年，美国联邦法院每年审理的此类案件不超过8起。而在过去的六年里，这一数字平均为16。
One reason is a precedent set in 2015, when a jury found that “Blurred Lines”, by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, had copied Marvin Gaye’s hit of 1977, “Got to Give it Up”. The Gaye family’s argument that a series of similarities amounted to copyright violation was criticised by legal scholars and musicians. They warned that it would leave artists “with one foot in the recording studio and one foot in the courtroom”.
其中一个原因是2015年的先例，当时陪审团发现罗宾·西克和法瑞尔·威廉姆斯的《模糊的界线》抄袭了马文·盖伊1977年的热门歌曲《不得不放弃》。盖耶家族认为一系列的相似点等同于侵犯版权，这一观点受到了法律学者和音乐家的批评。他们警告说，这会让艺人“一只脚留在录音棚，一只脚留在法庭上”。
Technology has also encouraged more complaints. Now that every track is online, it is harder for artists to use the defence that they had not heard the song they are accused of copying. Similarities are more likely to surface with armies of fans combing YouTube. And the sheer volume of new work means the chance of overlap is higher. As a court observed in 1940, there are many combinations of musical notes, but “only a few are pleasing; and much fewer still suit the infantile demands of the popular ear”.
科技也鼓励了更多的诉讼。现在所有的歌曲在网上都有，艺术家们很难用他们没有听过被指控抄袭的歌曲作为辩护。当大批粉丝搜索YouTube时，相似之处更有可能出现。而且大量的新作品意味着有相似之处的可能性更高。正如1940年法院所观察到的，有很多音符的组合，但“只有少数是悦耳的；能满足流行音乐受众幼稚需求的旋律就更少了。”
Composers are protecting themselves by hiring musicologists to examine their songs before release. Joe Bennett of Berklee College of Music says he is doing more such work since “Blurred Lines”. This month, for instance, he advised one record label to tweak a bar of a dance track that resembled the melody of another.
作曲家们为了保护自己，在歌曲发行前雇佣音乐学家来检查自己的歌曲。伯克利音乐学院的乔·班尼特说，自《模糊界限》案以来，他正在做更多类似的工作。例如，本月，他建议一家唱片公司调整一首舞曲的一小节，因为其与另一首歌的旋律相似。
Despite the rash of legal cases, music is evolving in ways that may make it harder for complaints to succeed. “These days music is less and less about melody, which was traditionally the bedrock of why two songs were judged to be similar,” says James Janowitz, a lawyer, who in 1976 organised a courtroom piano performance to show that George Harrison had copied “My Sweet Lord” from another work. Today, he says, melody takes a back seat to elements such as beat and subject matter, which are harder to claim as original.
尽管这类法律案件层出不穷，但音乐的发展方式可能会让状告更难成功。律师詹姆斯•雅诺维茨在1976年组织了一场法庭钢琴演奏，以证明乔治•哈里森通过从另一首作品中抄袭创作了《我的上帝》。他说：“如今的音乐越来越少关注旋律，而这是两首歌曲被认定为相似的传统基础。”他说，如今，旋律让位于节奏和主题等元素，这些元素更难被称为原创。
The complaint against Mr Glover holds that “This is America” uses the same rhythmic “flow” as “Made in America” and covers the same themes, which include gun violence and racism. The effect on the listener may be that they seem similar. But the “triplet” flow that both employ is not unique. And, as Mr Janowitz points out, “thematic similarity does nothing in terms of copyright violation”.
对Glover先生的控诉认为，《这是美国》使用了和《美国制造》相同的节奏“flow”，并且涉及了同样的主题，包括枪支暴力和种族主义。对听者的影响可能是他们看起来很相似。但是，两人都采用的“三连音”flow并不是独一无二的。而且，正如Janowitz先生指出的那样，“主题相似性在侵犯版权方面毫无作用”。
If more cases stumble, it may be no bad thing for musical creativity.
如果更多这样的案件败诉，对音乐创造力来说也许不是坏事。