Dear community,
We have a lot of music that sound very similar to each other, and I think this could be ugly when it comes to legal issue. But I don't have knowledge in law in this regard, so I want someone to assist me in this.
I would like to discuss about legal issue in similarity in music. When would it be ok and not ok to have similar music? Listen to the following songs:
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In these 4 music, there are some similarities one way or another.
1.
and
Notice the similar introduction?
2.
and
The airship theme sounds quite similar to Mars: The Bringer Of War, and even more similar in Super Mario Galaxy.
3.
and
These also sound fairly very similar.
4.
and
While the melodies are all different, the structure of these two music here are similar.
5.
from Sonic 3 And Knuckles is pretty much a 16-bit version of
These two... sound so identical.
Here are sites that provide even more examples:
tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/SuspiciouslySimilarSong/VideoGames provides hundreds of similarities in video game music to other media.
soundsjustlike.com/2710/taylor-swift-sounds-like-coldplay
Also relevant: Will We Ever Run Out of New Music? youtube.com/watch
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Now, given all the links above, when do we consider a piece of music to be an inspiration of another music and not a ripoff? For me, if the composer has shown that it's not a blatant ripoff, and he/she did really rearrange the components, that is good enough for me, even it sounds similar to another music. But when it comes to law, how do we do this? When will it be possible for one to accuse another if something in the music is too similar? Or perhaps a better question might be when will someone raise hell on you?
Or am I approaching this problem incorrectly? I got several music in my game, and I see that some parts of a few of them sound similar to some other songs I've heard, so this makes me feel worried. It's not a blatant ripoff, but they got some similar elements one way or another (like those links given above).
Any advise is appreciated.