Get ready for a musical journey through the most notorious song ripoffs in history! We're diving into tracks that sound suspiciously similar, exploring the legal battles, shocking similarities, and the musicians who pushed the boundaries of musical inspiration.
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00:00Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for songs that sound so similar
00:10that in one way or another, they triggered some sort of legal action.
00:20Number 30. Flame featuring Lecrae and John Reilly,
00:23Joyful Noise, versus Katy Perry featuring Juicy J, Dark Horse.
00:28Pop artist Katy Perry drew inspiration from the occult for her hit Dark Horse.
00:39Her inspiration was too much for Christian rapper Flame, who not only took issue with
00:43supposed pagan themes in the song, but also claimed it ripped off his song Joyful Noise.
00:52He filed a lawsuit for copyright infringement, resulting in a judgment in his favor,
00:57and he was awarded $2.78 million. However, after an appeal, that decision was overturned in 2020.
01:04The case went to the Ninth Circuit, and the decision to overturn the case was upheld as
01:09it was determined that the elements Flame claimed copyright over were too common to
01:13warrant such a protection.
01:20Number 29. Article's sound system, Live Your Life, versus Dua Lipa,
01:25Levitating. We're sure Dua Lipa was levitating after the success of her
01:29fifth single off her album Future Nostalgia.
01:38However, in March of 2022, the band Article's sound system filed a copyright infringement
01:43accusing the singer of using the hook from their 2017 song Live Your Life.
01:47While the band claimed that the producers of Levitating had prior knowledge of their song,
01:52they eventually dropped their suit after a judge ruled that they had no evidence to back up their
01:56claim. Lipa was hit with another lawsuit in the same month from songwriters Elle Russell-Brown
02:00and Sandy Linzer, who claimed the melody for Levitating is taken from Wiggle and Giggle
02:05All Night by the band Dr. Buzzard's original Savannah Band.
02:17That case is still pending.
02:20Number 28. Bruno Mars' When I Was Your Man versus Miley Cyrus' Flowers.
02:24Flowers was a huge hit for Miley Cyrus in 2023.
02:34It was the best-selling single worldwide for that year. In September of 2024, however,
02:40a lawsuit was filed by Tempo Music Investments claiming that the song took unauthorized elements
02:45from Bruno Mars' When I Was Your Man.
02:53When Flowers was first released, many noted similarities around the songs,
02:57especially those present in the chorus. It remains to be seen what the result of this
03:02case will be, but Tempo Music is seeking to stop Cyrus from reproducing,
03:06distributing, and publicly performing the song.
03:09Number 27. Sammy Switch, O.Y. versus Ed Sheeran, Shape of You.
03:14Shape of You had already been recognized for its interpolation of the TLC classic No Scrubs.
03:25But discussions for usage had been ongoing before the song's release.
03:29Conversely, Ed Sheeran went to court to combat a claim made by
03:32Sammy Chakri and Ross O'Donoghue that he had lifted parts of their song, O.Y.
03:36In April of 2022, the case was ruled in Sheeran's favor, with the judge finding that while there
03:49were similarities between the tracks, the use of the phrase O.Y. was too general for there to be
03:54infringement.
03:54Number 26. The Turtles, You Showed Me, versus De La Soul, Transmitting Live From Mars.
04:08On their debut album Three Feet High and Rising,
04:10hip-hop group De La Soul included the interlude track, Transmitting Live From Mars.
04:15It includes a 12-second sample of the song You Showed Me by The Turtles.
04:27At the time, sampling was a relatively new technique, and De La Soul didn't seek permission.
04:40Mark Volman and Howard Kalin of The Turtles took exception to the unauthorized use and
04:44filed litigation against De La Soul. The matter was settled out of court,
04:48with an apparent $1.7 million going to Volman and Kalin as a result.
04:53Number 25. David Bowie, Boys Keep Swinging, versus Blur, Middle Of The Road.
04:58It's no secret that David Bowie is a big influence on Blur,
05:02and in this case, perhaps too much of an influence.
05:05On their fifth album, the band recorded the song,
05:08which uses the same chord progression as Bowie's Boys Keep Swinging.
05:18Appearing on Bowie's 1979 album Lodge, he took an experimental approach to recording,
05:23where the same chord progression would be reused among different songs.
05:26Blur decided to extend that process to Middle Of The Road,
05:30and after legal intervention, Bowie and co-writer Brian Eno were added on as songwriters.
05:37Number 24. Roy Orbison, Oh Pretty Woman, versus 2 Live Crew, Pretty Woman.
05:47As nasty as they wanna be, the third album from 2 Live Crew was very controversial upon release.
05:52It was ruled to be legally obscene, although that would be later overturned.
05:57The group had also released a clean version of their album,
06:00appropriately titled As Clean As They Wanna Be.
06:08One track found on this album not present on the explicit version
06:14is a parody of Roy Orbison's Oh Pretty Woman.
06:16The song's publisher, Ake of Rose Music,
06:18filed a lawsuit claiming that the group's song wasn't protected by fair use.
06:30The case went all the way to the Supreme Court,
06:32where it found 2 Live Crew's Pretty Woman did fall under fair use.
06:36Number 23. Gilbert O'Sullivan, Alone Again Naturally, versus Biz Marquis, Alone Again.
06:42In the golden age of hip-hop, sampling was a commonly used technique for song composition.
06:54As it was a relatively new method, it was a bit of a gray area legally,
06:57as it was common to not pay or credit the artist of a sampled work.
07:01That all changed when rapper Biz Marquis released his third album, I Need a Haircut.
07:06It contained the song Alone Again,
07:08which sampled Gilbert O'Sullivan's Alone Again Naturally.
07:18O'Sullivan took Marquis to court over the matter.
07:21This court case changed how sampling worked,
07:23as its use without permission was copyright infringement,
07:26thereby needing approval from the copyright holder.
07:29Number 22. Spirit, Taurus, versus Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven.
07:34Stairway is one of the defining songs of rock music.
07:45Some have noticed its distinctive slow-paced opening consisting of arpeggios on acoustic
07:49guitar sounds similar to the opening of the 1968 song Taurus by rock band Spirit.
07:59In 2014, the band's bassist filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against Led Zeppelin
08:07as a way to get Spirit guitarist Randy California a writing credit on Stairway
08:11and be entitled to future earnings from the song.
08:14After a lot of back and forth in the courts,
08:16it wasn't until March of 2020 that the 9th Circuit Appeals Court found in favor of Led Zeppelin,
08:22meaning they didn't infringe on Taurus's copyright.
08:30Number 21. 3LW, Play As Gon' Play, versus Taylor Swift, Shake It Off.
08:35The reality of having a massively successful song is that legal action may be incurred against you.
08:41That's what happened to Taylor Swift following the release of Shake It Off.
08:45In 2017, a lawsuit was filed against Swift by Sean Hall and Nate Butler,
08:49alleging that she took from their 2001 song Play As Gon' Play, written for the group 3LW.
08:59They claimed that Swift's use of Play As Gon' Play was a way to get money from the band.
09:04But Taylor Swift's claim that the song was a way to get money from the band
09:07was a way to get money from the band.
09:10They claimed that Swift's use of Play As Gon' Play and Haters Gon' Hate
09:15was too similar to lyrics they had written.
09:17It wasn't until 2022 that the lawsuit was dropped
09:20after an agreement was reached by both parties, although no details were given.
09:25Number 20. The Kinks, All Day And All Of The Night, versus The Doors, Hello I Love You.
09:31Although The Doors guitarist Robby Krieger denied that his band copied the chord-driven main riff
09:36of the 1964 Kinks track, the Kinks music publishers found that these two singles
09:40were just a bit too similar.
09:46Turns out, UK courts agreed.
09:48So a deal was eventually struck,
09:50entitling the Kinks to a large share of Hello I Love You's British royalties.
10:01The Doors' song credits remain unchanged, but in 2014,
10:09Kinks lead singer and main songwriter Ray Davies suggested to Rolling Stone
10:13that an out-of-court settlement had been reached.
10:19Number 19. Tom Petty, I Won't Back Down, versus Sam Smith, Stay With Me.
10:24Traditionally, when songs popped up that sounded a bit Tom Petty,
10:28the late Heartbreakers frontman let it slide, but this time things played out differently.
10:40Although the band leader expressed no hard feelings and deemed the similarities between
10:44the chorus to his I Won't Back Down and Smith's Stay With Me to be, quote,
10:48a musical accident, his publishing company entered the fray all the same.
10:59Perhaps it was because, unlike American Girl and Mary Jane's Last Dance,
11:05the TP track in question had a co-writer, fellow traveling Wilbury and ELO songwriter Jeff Lynne.
11:12In the end, Petty and Lynne ended up getting their due credit,
11:15along with 12.5% of the Stay With Me royalties.
11:19Number 18. Joe Satriani, If I Could Fly, versus Coldplay, Viva La Vida.
11:24Take notes on this one. You're gonna need them.
11:28First up, Brooklyn-based indie alternative band Creaky Board suggested that Coldplay
11:37had ripped off their ironically titled The Songs I Didn't Write. However, the British
11:42rockers had recorded a demo of Viva prior to that song's first performance.
11:47Then, Joe Satriani stepped up, lawsuit in hand,
11:51claiming that Chris Martin and crew borrowed from his If I Could Fly.
12:02Things got even more complicated when Yusuf Islam, formerly Cat Stevens, joined in on the fun,
12:07pointing out that all of these songs sounded like his Foreigner Suite.
12:11Satriani's songwriting team, however,
12:14Number 17. The New Seekers, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing in Perfect Harmony,
12:19versus Oasis Shakermaker. Oasis has never tried to hide their reverence for the past when it
12:24comes to their own musical style. But this is one case where Noel Gallagher may have
12:28borrowed a bit too much.
12:44The song, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing in Perfect Harmony,
12:47began its life as a Coca-Cola jingle, before being fleshed out and recorded by the New Seekers,
12:58and ultimately having its melody and some lyrics woven into the fabric of Oasis's Shakermaker.
13:09Most sources claim that Gallagher was forced to change the offending
13:12I'd Like to Teach the World line, alter a few notes, and cough up $500,000.
13:17Upon losing the aforementioned lawsuit, Gallagher quipped,
13:20quote,
13:21We drink Pepsi now.
13:22Number 16. Muddy Waters, You Need Love, versus Led Zeppelin, Whole Lotta Love.
13:27By cranking the tempo and volume of the blues,
13:30Led Zepp helped pioneer hard rock and heavy metal.
13:38But sometimes they stuck just a bit too close to their roots.
13:42While it took them a long time to get caught, the rock icons were finally sued in 1985
13:51for Whole Lotta Love's Whole Lotta Similarities to the Willie Dixon-penned Muddy Waters classic,
13:56You Need Love.
14:02Though things were eventually settled out of court,
14:05it obviously wasn't the only time the British rockers were accused of borrowing material.
14:09Number 15. The Rubinoos, I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend, versus Avril Lavigne, Girlfriend.
14:17When the Rubinoos stepped up claiming Avril Lavigne had plagiarized them,
14:20Avril said,
14:21Rubin who?
14:22But aside from claiming she'd never heard of the band or their song,
14:25she and her team chose a risky defense.
14:34They said Girlfriend was actually closer to the Rolling Stones' Get Off of My Cloud.
14:39Or Mickey.
14:40But wait a minute.
14:41What about the Ramones' song, I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend?
14:43Had the Rubinoos themselves plagiarized?
14:46Ultimately, a musicologist decided the Rubinoos' track and Avril's song were completely different
14:51based on science,
14:52and the case was settled out of court when Avril's manager decided it was cheaper than paying lawyers.
14:57Number 14. The Kinks' Picture Book, versus The Other Garden,
15:01Never Got the Chance, versus Green Day, Warning.
15:04And now, how not to file a lawsuit.
15:10In 2001, Colin Mary, songwriter for an obscure English band called The Other Garden,
15:22sued Green Day, claiming that Warning was a copy of his song, Never Got the Chance.
15:32The band's lawyer threatened to sue the punk rockers for as much as $100,000.
15:36Despite the fact that Mary admitted both his and Green Day's songs
15:39had the same distinct riff as Picture Book by The Kinks.
15:48Needless to say, the lawsuit was eventually dropped.
15:52Number 13. Lyric and Music's Kookaburra, versus Men at Work, Down Under.
15:56Down Under, a backhanded anthem of all things Ozzy and a monster hit in the early 1980s,
16:02became a source of legal trouble in the 2000s.
16:07Originally, the band's flautist, Greg Hamm, borrowed a two-bar motif from Kookaburra,
16:14an Australian children's song.
16:16Years went by without incident,
16:18until the connection between the two tunes was mentioned on the game show Spix and Spex in 2007.
16:24That's when the right holders to Kookaburra, Lyric and Music, came knocking,
16:29demanding 60% of Down Under's royalties dating back to 1981.
16:34In July 2010, they instead were granted 5%, backdated to 2002.
16:40Sadly, Hamm passed away in 2012 at the age of 58,
16:44and bandmate Colin Hay cites stress from the court case as a contributing factor.
16:57Number 12. Huey Lewis and the News' I Want a New Drug, versus Ray Parker Jr., Ghostbusters.
17:03Who you gonna call? A lawyer if you're Huey Lewis.
17:10Lewis was actually asked to write a theme for Ghostbusters,
17:13but passed on it to write music for Back to the Future.
17:22So, when Ray Parker Jr.'s theme for the supernatural comedy came out
17:26sounding suspiciously like Huey's I Want a New Drug, Lewis cited plagiarism.
17:33In your neighborhood, who you gonna call? Ghostbusters!
17:38It was settled out of court almost a decade later,
17:41and when the News frontman spilled the beans on the confidential settlement on TV,
17:45Ray Parker Jr. turned the tables and sued Lewis right back in 2001.
17:54Number 11. Sleigh Bells, Infinity Guitars, versus Demi Lovato, Stars.
18:03Typically, only lyrics and melody are considered copyrightable.
18:07For New York band Sleigh Bells, Demi Lovato's Stars sounded, quote,
18:11virtually identical to their Infinity Guitars, with a little bit of riot rhythm mixed in.
18:17But it was chiefly the hand claps and bass drum counter rhythm that were cited.
18:27It was on this basis that the duo laid a case against Lovato,
18:30UMG Recordings, and producers and co-writers Carl Falk and Rami Yacoub.
18:35The problem was, Falk and Yacoub claimed no samples were used in the song,
18:39and that Demi only wrote one line. The matter was settled in April 2017,
18:44and Lovato's team maintained there was no deliberate infringement.
18:53Number 10. Creedence Clearwater Revival, Run Through the Jungle,
18:56versus John Fogerty, The Old Man Down the Road.
18:59In a very odd move, John Fogerty was sued for sounding like himself.
19:10Fogerty was once the lead vocalist, lead guitarist, and primary songwriter
19:15of Creedence Clearwater Revival. But after the band broke up,
19:18he relinquished his rights to CCR songs to get out of contractual commitments.
19:22So when Fogerty released the solo track, The Old Man Down the Road,
19:26Fantasy Records, owner of CCR's song catalog and his label during his Creedence days,
19:30claimed it ripped off Run Through the Jungle.
19:39The swamp rocker beat the case by bringing a guitar to the stand,
19:42and demonstrating that the two songs were, in fact, quite different.
19:46And that you can't actually plagiarize yourself. Well played, Fogerty.
19:50My songs tend to sound like my songs, right?
19:53Number 9. Gordon Jenkins' Crescent City Blues,
19:56versus Johnny Cash, Folsom Prison Blues.
19:59In the annals of song plagiarism, there have been cases of subconscious plagiarism,
20:04outright plagiarism, uncleared samples, and downright sneakiness.
20:08This is a case of self-amusement gone awry. While stationed in West Germany in 1953,
20:14Johnny Cash wrote new lyrics to the melody of Crescent City Blues,
20:18inspired by the film Inside the Walls of Folsom Prison.
20:25Flash forward a few years, and Cash is now a recording artist short on material.
20:30So he offered up his Folsom Prison Blues to producer Sam Phillips,
20:34who told Cash not to worry about the legalities.
20:42Fifteen years later, the Men in Black would pay out $75,000 in retribution.
20:47Number 8. The Rolling Stones' The Last Time, versus The Verve, Bittersweet Symphony.
20:53This 90s Britpop anthem was at the center of a lengthy and contentious plagiarism case.
21:02The Verve did obtain the rights to sample part of the Andrew Oldham orchestral version
21:06of the classic Stones song. The issue was how much the band used.
21:09And according to former Stones manager and rights holder of the song, Alan Klein,
21:14it was way too much.
21:18So, 100% of the royalties went to Klein,
21:26and songwriting credit went to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
21:36That's when Oldham himself demanded recompense for the specific version of the song they had used.
21:41Though it took many years, this story does have a relatively happy ending,
21:45with the Stones backing off by 2019,
21:48and granting all future royalties to Verve lead singer Richard Ashcroft.
22:01Number 7. Chuck Berry, You Can't Catch Me, versus The Beatles, Come Together.
22:09The story starts simply enough. John Lennon used an old Chuck Berry song as a starting point for
22:14a new song. But this similarity triggered legal issues with Berry's publisher,
22:19the controversial Morris Levy.
22:27As repayment, Lennon agreed to record three songs owned by Levy,
22:30and attempted to do so during his rock and roll album sessions,
22:34until producer Phil Spector stole the tapes and went into hiding.
22:38When the tapes were recovered, Lennon tried reassuring Levy that he was upholding his
22:42end of the deal by sharing a rough mix of his progress, which Levy released himself
22:47and chased with a $42 million breach of contract lawsuit.
22:51Lennon, EMI, and Capitol Records countersued, with Levy being awarded a nominal $6,795,
22:58while having to pay out somewhere in the ballpark of $150,000.
23:03Number 6. The Chiffons, He's So Fine, versus George Harrison, My Sweet Lord.
23:08Soon after releasing his solo hit, the first number one single by a former Beatle,
23:13George Harrison found himself at the center of a copyright infringement lawsuit,
23:17filed by Bright Tunes.
23:24Harrison was accused of plagiarizing the Ronnie Mac pen song, He's So Fine.
23:28The courts ruled that he had subconsciously copied the Chiffons smash,
23:32and would owe nearly $1.6 million in damages.
23:38But the story doesn't end there.
23:44After Harrison fired his manager, the previously mentioned Alan Klein, during the trial,
23:49Klein seized the opportunity to buy the copyright to He's So Fine.
23:55The courts ultimately decided that Harrison would only have to pay Klein's Abco Industries
23:59$587,000, and he ended up with the song's rights.
24:04Number 5. The Hollies, The Air That I Breathe, versus Radiohead, Creep.
24:09This case is so open and shut it's almost dull.
24:20While writing Creep, Ed O'Brien pointed out to Tom Yorke that the song's bridge
24:24had the same chords as The Air That I Breathe.
24:27So Yorke decided to grab the song's melody too.
24:30That song's authors, Albert Hammond and Mike Hazlewood, then sued,
24:34but were impressed by the band's honesty, and settled for credits and a cut of the Creep royalties.
24:40It's a sharp contrast to 2018, when Lana Del Rey would allege that Radiohead's team
24:45noticed passing similarities to Creep in her song, Get Free, and demanded 100% of her royalties.
24:59Number 4. Marvin Gaye, Gotta Give It Up, versus Robin Thicke,
25:10featuring T.I. and Pharrell Williams, Blurred Lines.
25:21In one of many controversies that plagued this summer hit,
25:24Robin Thicke actually sued Marvin Gaye's family
25:27for alleging the singer had plagiarized the late soul artist.
25:36While Thicke admitted he was inspired by Gotta Give It Up, he and co-writer Pharrell Williams
25:41contended that despite their similar vibe, they were essentially not the same,
25:45citing different chords, keys, and more.
25:48Bridgeport Music also became involved, due to claims that Blurred Lines sampled Funkadelic's
25:58Sexy Ways. Despite lots of support from music industry heavyweights who did not believe you
26:08could copyright a feeling, in 2018, a judge ordered Thicke and Williams to pay nearly
26:14$5 million to Marvin Gaye's estate.
26:19Number 3. Chuck Berry, Sweet Little Sixteen, versus The Beach Boys, Surfin' USA.
26:29Here's an instance where the artist openly and knowingly used the tune to an existing
26:33song for his new composition. Brian Wilson wanted to write a song about surfing,
26:40and felt Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen was the perfect setting for his surf-themed lyrics.
26:45However, he neglected to credit Berry upon its recording and release.
26:55Although Surfin' USA was meant to be viewed as a tribute, Berry's publishing company was
27:00unimpressed, and forced Wilson's manager to surrender copyright to the Rock and Roll
27:04Pioneer's publisher, Arc Music.
27:12Number 2. Multiple Artists, versus Mark Ronson, Uptown Funk.
27:19We guess it takes a village to write a hit song, too. Before the monster hit that is
27:23Uptown Funk was even released, Ronson and company offered some credit to Trinidad James.
27:28After it was released, The Gap Band came knocking, claiming similarities to their
27:34Oops Upside Your Head, followed by the sequence, collage, and finally zap in September of 2017.
27:45Additionally, Serbian artist Victoria has alleged that the song lifts elements from
27:49one of her songs. By 2018, 17% of the track's royalties were transferred to The Gap Band,
27:56while the credits have ballooned from Ronson, Bruno Mars, Jeff Basker, and Philip Lawrence
28:00to include six additional songwriters from their respective groups.
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28:23It takes about seven notes to recognize Ice Ice Baby for what it is.
28:31While the signature bassline amounts to a sample, Vanilla Ice never sought permission to use it,
28:36and instead said his tinkering with the riff and adding one note made it original.
28:40But in the face of legal action, the rapper caved and granted David Bowie,
28:45as well as all four members of Queen, due credit… and royalties.
28:57In 2013, Ice claimed the rights to the song, but in a statement to Vanilla Ice,
29:02he said that he was not aware of the song's existence.
29:10to have bought under pressure outright. However, the song's publishing info shows that it's co-owned
29:15by companies representing Queen, Bowie, and EMI Music, making Ice's claim a bit dubious.
29:26What song do you think is the biggest rip-off? Let us know in the comments.
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