The composer Toninho Geraes filed a complaint for plagiarism, believing that “Million Years Ago” (2015) had copied the melody of the title “Mulheres”, a hit performed by the sacred monster of samba Martinho da Vila in an album released twenty years earlier , in 1995. We’ll let you be the judge.
“This is a turning point for Brazilian Music, which, due to the richness of its melodies, its harmony and its rhythms, is often copied to compose international hits,” lawyer Fredimio Trotta, lawyer for the Brazilian composer. According to him, this legal decision should “dissuade” other plagiarism attempts by “parasitic profiteers”. The Brazilian subsidiaries of Sony Music and Universal Music can appeal.
In the complaint for plagiarism currently being analyzed by a court in Rio de Janeiro, Toninho Geraes’ defense is demanding, among other things, one million reais (around 156,000 euros) in damages. Brazil is a signatory to the Berne Convention of 1886 on the international protection of the rights of authors in their works.
A second controversy in Türkiye
Another controversy over the song “Million Years Ago” had already erupted in Turkey, when Internet users said they had identified similarities with the tune of the title “Acilara tutunmak”, by the Kurdish singer Ahmet Kaya, who died in 2000. There too , we’ll let you judge.
A tune from “Yesterday Again” by Aznavour?
When the album from which the British singer’s title came, in 2015, was released, another familiarity was underlined, this time with the melody of the title “Yesterday Again” by Charles Aznavour. A similarity accentuated by the theme of passing time shared by the two songs. From there to accusing the singer of plagiarism… It’s perhaps a little too much. We’ll still let you judge.
