If music is supposed to soften morals, it also knows how to fill the courts and brighten up lawyers' ends of the month. Thus, the musicians Gilbert Montagné and Didier Barbelivien have just been convicted on appeal “for plagiarism”; their famous hit We're going to love each other being, it seems, a little too inspired by a ditty which, as a result, comes back from oblivion: A girl from Francecreated in 1976 and performed by the much forgotten Gianni Nazzaro.
When you listen to the “original”, however, this is not what jumps out at the eyes and even less at the ears. Didier Barbelivien, the well-known successful author, even confided to AFP: “ I suggest to anyone who is willing to listen to both works to form their own opinion. If you listen, you'll fall out of the closet. […] Maybe the chorus sounds a bit similar… » After careful listening, it is true that the two refrains in question have some similarities.
Which is, all in all, quite logical, knowing that the same Didier Barbelivien is one of the co-authors ofA girl from Francewith Michel Cywie and Jean-Max Rivière.
Which made Didier Barbelivien say: “ There are no lyrics in common in the two songs, and I am in a good position to know this since I am a co-author of the complaining song. »
The result? Gilbert Montagné should continue to receive performing rights for We're going to love each otherwhile Didier Barbelivien can always continue to claim those ofA girl from France. On the other hand, jointly sentenced to a fine of 30,000 euros, the two artists are appealing to the Court of Cassation, while a new expertise should take place in Italy.
Where it becomes interesting is when we try to define what musical “plagiarism” can be. Didier Barbelivien being one of the authors of “ the complaining song ”, would he have therefore self-plagiarized?
He wouldn't be the first: Indochine has been telling us the same bad song for decades and there are no courts against that. Afterwards, taking the sequence of chords from another song can also be a quote; or simple lack of imagination. In this area, there are legal precedents that have remained famous, such as the lawsuit brought against George Harrison, just out of the Beatles, with his interplanetary hit, My Sweet Lordaccused of being a little too close to He’s So FineLes Chiffons, American female group and number 1 in sales in 1963.
Fabrice Epstein, lawyer at the Paris bar, columnist at Rock & Folk and author of the very erudite Rock’n’Roll Justice (La Manufacture de livres), has the merit of asking the question, during this endless trial between the experts of the two parties involved: “ The audience is technical, pianos, guitars, inverted lyrics, rhythms and melodies, analyzed with the rigor of a dishwasher working in the kitchens of the Ritz. Harrison's experts flinch, he himself admits that he knows the song having listened to it a dozen times in his early youth. » Note that the chord grid, in fa sharp minor, is so unexceptional that we find it, apart from a few trifles, in many other songs. Hence this rather eccentric statement from the judge: “ Harrison knew the combination of sounds would work, because she had already worked for a song that her conscious brain couldn't remember. » And Fabrice Epstein concludes, not without malice: “ Georgethe quiet Beatle, betrayed by his noisy memory. Subconscious plagiarism for lawyers! »
It seems that some people no longer know what to invent to mobilize courts that are more and more overwhelmed every day.
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