Recently, The Los Angeles Times posted an article about Brittany Spears' new song "Hold It Against Me." The article addressed the Bellamy Brothers complaints that the song's lyrics were copied from their song "If I Said You Had A Beautiful Body, Would You Hold It Against Me." After reading the brothers argument, it was clear that they indeed had no argument. They were upset that Brittany copied the phrase,""If I said I wanted your body,would you hold it against me." However, they admittedly copied the same phrase from Groucho Marx's TV show "You Bet Your Life" Firstly, they're being completely hypocritical. Secondly, do they really expect every singer/songwriter to not use phrases previously used in other songs? It's as if they expect segments of lyrics to be copyrighted. That's like announcing to the world that after Whitney Houston said,"I will always love you,", no one could ever again you that phrase in a song. Silly? I think so. Although the phrases are very similar, the songs sound nothing alike, and there are also no other similar lyrics between the two songs. I honestly believe that the Bellamy Brothers are just acting like fame seekers. They haven't written a popular song in over 20 years. This "dilemma" was simply a means of gaining publicity for their newer and much less successful songs.
Artists constantly borrow lyrics from other artists, it's been happening forever and will continue to happen forever. Perhaps they weren't really so angry that she borrowed their line so much as they were embarrassed that the two songs would now be associated because they will inevitably. I think that's fair. But I wouldn't call it means for a lawsuit.
ReplyDeleteNot that I have anything against Britney Spears, she's pretty inoffensive.
I agree. A lawsuit would be pretty pointless, but I don't really think anyone would have ever associated the two songs together if they hadn't pointed out the similarity. Their song is like a mellow country song, and her song is a upbeat, pop/techno song. They really are nothing alike.
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