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I always thought it SORT OF sounded like Mars, but is that "sort of" enough to sue someone? Personally, I don't think so. I've heard original compositions with tidbits of what I thought were other pieces. But I wouldn't go and call them a thief. Maybe I'm wrong on this one.

Ralph

TexTuba wrote:is that "sort of" enough to sue someone?

It's more than enough to sue. And lots of people would take it on a contigency basis. Now win? That's another story...

But I say: "You go, Holsts!"

I always thought that the song "Mars" was being played in the background, and not some original work. I guess I was partly right.

I thought that the Planets (in orchestral form) was published in 1921, putting it firmly in the US public domain. This would seem to verify" this:

http://tinyurl.com/l7zr8

Since Holst died in 1934, maybe the basis of the suite is British Copyright Law, which is life+70 (2004) if it was in force in 1988. But the 1911 Act had it as Life+50, which means that the UK copyright would have expired in 1984 and not been eligible for the 1995 extension.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright_ ... ed_Kingdom

Maybe someone can explain this to me...

Chuck(G) wrote:Maybe someone can explain this to me...

I'm sure Cher can...

Chuck(G) wrote:Since Holst died in 1934, maybe the basis of the suite is British Copyright Law, which is life+70 (2004) if it was in force in 1988. But the 1911 Act had it as Life+50, which means that the UK copyright would have expired in 1984 and not been eligible for the 1995 extension.

My understanding is that the suit is under British Copyright law, Life+70 years. Kinda funny that they chose to sue after the work became public domain (though the alleged infringement occured while still under copyright). Maybe they realized that they weren't going to make any more money from the work!

My question is, why did it take this long to figure it out? I'm not going to defend Zimmer, it was almost entirely a rip-off during the openning battle scene.

Funny. My high school marching band did both songs two years ago and they fit surprisingly very well together.

Scott Sutherland wrote:My understanding is that the suit is under British Copyright law, Life+70 years. Kinda funny that they chose to sue after the work became public domain (though the alleged infringement occured while still under copyright). Maybe they realized that they weren't going to make any more money from the work!

So, within the US, where the infringement supposedly took place, there was no copyright issue--only within the UK. So the trust is going to claim that they were deprived of royalties that would have accrued between 2000-2003 by the showing of the film in the UK. Boy, that's pretty thin.

This smells like one of those "just give me $100,000 and I'll go away" legal scuffles.

Zimmer could get his licks in by writing a new score that paraphrased the whole work now that it's in the UK PD. "The Planets" by Hans Zimmer...

But then, "Pirates of the Carribbean" sounds an awful lot like "Gladiator" in spots. Maybe Zimmer should sue Klaus Badelt.

This kind of thing has been going on in the music business for centuries. I'm a big fan of the "Mars" movement and own the "Gladiator" soundtrack and never really heard obvious sections of the Holst piece within it. No more than I hear in other big budget movie scores of other composers and arrangers.

I've always felt the Star Wars track had pretty direct copies of parts of the Mars mov't. In fact, I've seen in a documentary on the movie where John Williams was asked to replicate certain themes of the mov't in the track. I wonder if they had some sort of permission to do this or something is different in the law since it was done in the UK.

Ike

Could someone please post exactly which parts sound like which? (cues, or something)

The only similarity I remember is that they're both played by an orchestra.

Doug "the melody is clearly different, so I'm lost here"

There are other aspects to this theft of musical material, which has always happened.

A good and beneficial (for musicologists at least) sample is J. S. Bach’s rewriting (probably by ear) of Vivaldi’s violin concertos. Bach wrote them as harpsichord concertos. And he wrote out all the embellishments, which an Italian violin player was supposed to add to a sometimes sketchy solo part. This is a great supplement to period theory books.

Personally I have great problems with some “copy-catâ€

Its my opinion, and its only an opinion...


Yes, some money should go to Holst, or his foundation, kids, whatever...

At the very least, some percentage of his ideas went into that soundtrack--to a movie that has made some huge money. Why shouldnt some of that money go where credit is due? No one here can listen to those scenes and not think "Mars."

If its still under copyright, and the studio wanted to use the originial, wouldnt that mean the studio would have to pay to use it in the film?

Yes and listen to the soundtrack from Chocolat (Rachel Portman) and the sountrack from The Terminal (John Williams). They sound almost identical in spots. Hmmm....

Dean wrote:If its still under copyright, and the studio wanted to use the originial, wouldnt that mean the studio would have to pay to use it in the film?

Yes, but the licenses are different. For performance use of a work in a recording, there is a "mechanical license" which is standard fare and usually handled by an agency (e.g. Harry Fox in the US).

Creating a derivative work, as an arrangement, is a whole different matter. Proving that a theme was unique and stolen for a work is pretty difficult and the US courts have been all over the place on this one. Columbia has a great cites on this--from "What the heck, it's pop music, not real music, so the case is just stupid" to "You done it, you pay".

The problem here is that The Planets is PD in the US and has been for a long time. You can copy the darned thing wholesale and put your name down as the author and not break any laws (although you'd have a tough time claiming copyright).

So, in the case of Gladiator, the Holst estate can't claim any infringement in the movie's largest market--the USA; they can only press a claim for those countries where the copyright was still in force in 2000. And, they must show that the two works are similiar beyond the simple test of "sounds sort of like". I suspect this will be settled for a comparatively small amount of cash, given that the UK copyright on The Planets expired in 2004, so there would be no residiuals past that date--although you can never tell with lawyers.

"Sounds like" is a poor test at any rate. How many Baroque Italian concertos can you listen to and identify positively? For my ears, Vivaldi, Tartini, Sammartini, etc. all start to blur after awhile. There was extensive borrowing and cross-fertilization.

And the purpose of copyright is to provide a balance--so that there's sufficient incentive to the author to create a work, but not to the extent that any further progress is stifled.

After all, folks, it's only background music to a film, meant to fill the awful silence that folks increasingly seem to hate to have in their lives.

In the West, Mars is a placeholder for "war" the same way Thunder and Blazes is a placeholder for "the circus" and Pomp and Circumstance is for "academia." Mars (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) is used in dozens of movies.

Many people don't know that a movie often has a temporary score done with source music (i.e. music already in existence) attached to certain scenes even before the movie composer is hired. My guess is that Ridley Scott used Mars behind the battle scene in Gladiator in the temp score, and Zimmer was instructed to provide a "version" of Mars for the movie. That kind of instruction from a director (either express or implied) is common in the movie business. (Go to the Da Vinci Code and listen for a version of the beginning of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.)

As already alluded to, whether a work is “substantially similarâ€

ok... here, I'll give an obnvious rippoff

Holst "marching song"
LOTR soundtrack hobbits theme

up here, dead for 50, free for all.

In defense of composers:

Many who write music had a fine ear at a young age. There may be "sound memory" that they are not even aware of. My contract with my publisher has a statement in it that my works are original material, and I had to sign to that effect.

Well, as far as I know, they ARE original material. However, I remember the beginning few measures of a delightful new piece that I played for my horn teacher a decade or so ago. It turned out to be exactly the beginning of a horn solo in a Mendelssohn piece (in the right key, even)...and yeah had I "completed" the piece it certainly would not have sounded like Mendelssohn, and if I had completed it and then found out I had stolen my opening few bars...I could probably have named it "something-or-other on a theme of Mendelssohn" or whatever.

But...I'm sure it happens that composers think their work is original when in fact it is not. Sometimes having all your friends listen to something while asking "Have you heard this before? ANY of it?" just might not be enough. So far, I hope it has been enough for me. Of course more "famous" composers, whose music is played outside of brass conferences, will be more likely to get sued.

MA

I just pulled out my copy of the Gladiator soundtrack and listened to the piece in question. I still don't hear the similarity. The closest thing I can find comes at ~5:20, and if that's what the suit is talking about then I'm no longer sure what isn't a copyright violation...