by Gopher 21 Replies latest watchtower scandals
Hope4,
I think the majority of the "Kingdom songs" were composed originally by Witnesses and sent to the Society for their use. A few are rip-offs or closely parallel non-JW songs.
The majority of these songs are quite boring and regular, nothing too inspirational about them.
Every once in a while you come across a memorable one. "From House to House" was written in a Chinese prison by a certain imprisoned "Brother King", and "Forward You Witnesses" was written in a Nazi concentration camp.
Go! Go! Gopher!
You don't have to be making money to violate copyright. Copyright is just that, the right to copy, regardless of who is doing it or why. It can be a $250,000 fine.
Copyrights now last 90 years.
The majority of these songs are quite boring and regular, nothing too inspirational about them.
I agree with that, I recall the ones that were to high to sing to or just did not fit to singing...they were quite dreadful.
h4o
There's a similarity, but it's not close enough to determine if the JW's have even heard this song. Just a coincidence methinks.
Wow, Gopher, playing piano at the Hall! That brings back memories.
Wouldn't it be ironic? The big rewrite to root out all the "immoral" influences from secular composers, only to have a delightful reference to one of the world's premier bisexuals?
I'm sorry to say I don't quite agree with the song comparison, though...
The similarities are obvious, but the chords are not a direct match and the melody - while in the same "swing" rhythm - only bears a resemblence. The development of the B portion of the verse in particular is similar in pattern but quite different in specifics.
Both are inspired by music hall forms that have a common root with turn of the century hymnals.
The song could possibly be regarded as a pastiche of Lazing, but in the absence of such intent or preexisting context it isn't likely that a lawsuit can be sustained.
As ingrained as some of the old tunes are in me, I didn't really enjoy performing them - as far as I can tell, the old songs were not transcribed for piano accompaniment but rather for vocal performance. At least they seemed to me to be written for SATB. I had lost interest in playing before the big songbook rewrite.
-Void (of the piano slave class)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=11MeMj668DY
Les Baxter: Wake the Town and Tell the People
I, too, played at the KH and knew this as the above before I had even heard of Freddie (not Franz).
CoCo
Now that one's creepy similar Co Co.
Queen has no case for copyright infringement. At all. The first line is similar, not the same, and after that it's not even close. Both chords and melody are different.
The Les Baxter one is eerily similar through the entire verse. May be a case there.
I played both songs for my sister yesterday. She left the JW's before the 1984 songbook was published, and didn't know either the Queen song or Kingdom Song #72.
She took music lessons and even taught piano, and so understands the basics of music theory.
Anyhow when I played these songs back to back, she said "they're the same song!"
I know there is some variation in the middle where the Queen song briefly goes into an area that song #72 didn't. However, that's not enough to say one song isn't a copy of the other.
As to whether song 72 is merely a "pastiche" based on the earlier one, that is a matter of judgment.
When George Harrison was sued over "My Sweet Lord" (and to whether it was stolen from "He's So Fine"), the judge allowed that it may have been George's subconscious mind at work. However, he still owed the profits to the original authors.
