In light of the courtroom victory for Marvin Gaye’s family about Pharrell Williams and Robin Thicke plagiarizing “Got To Give It Up” for their song “Blurred Lines,” my colleague Frank O. Pinion played this video on his KTRS show yesterday. It’s full of examples of other musical ripoffs through the years:
My favorite of those is #5, in which John Fogerty was accused of stealing his own riffs.
In that vein, here’s one that’s not on the list because there was never legal action, but it’s clear that Steve Miller copied a guitar riff from his own 1969 song “My Dark Hour” (which Paul McCartney played on, but was never a hit) when he wrote “Fly Like An Eagle,” which was a smash in 1976…