Stealing from one source is plagiarism.
Stealing from multiple sources is research.
Here are three songs from long ago.
What do they have in common?
Here are three songs from less long ago.
They were Top 40 hits by Elvis Presley.
Love Me Tender . . . It's Now Or Never . . . Surrender
These were pop adaptations (with new lyrics) of the above three songs.
| original song |
writers |
year |
|
adaptation |
"writers" |
year |
| Aura Lee |
George R. Poulton & W. W. Fosdick |
1861 |
= |
Love Me Tender |
Elvis Presley & Vera Matson |
1956 |
| O Sole Mio |
Giovanni Capurro & Eduardo di Capua |
1898 |
= |
It's Now Or Never |
Aaron Schroeder & Wally Gold |
1960 |
| Come Back To Sorrento |
Ernesto de Curtis & Claude Aveling |
1904 |
= |
Surrender |
Doc Pomus & Mort Shuman |
1961 |
~ FURTHER READING ~
One famous (or perhaps infamous) lawsuit in rock and roll history came about in this way:
George Harrison, formerly of the Beatles, searched in various places for some sort of spirituality. One time he tried chanting "Hare Krishna" to a simple motif, and then chanted "Hallelujah" to the same motif. ("Hare Krishna" is a mantra involving a Hindu deity, while "Hallelujah" is an expression of praise to the one God of the Hebrews.) He then wrote a song called "My Sweet Lord," using those chants as backup figures. He believed he was "inspired" by a public domain hymn, "Oh Happy Day."
As soon as the song hit the airwaves, Bright Tunes Music Corporation offered a different opinion on the inspiration for the tune. They claimed it was plagiarized from "He's So Fine," written by Ronnie Mack and recorded by the Chiffons, so they sued. Many years and much expert testimony later, a judge ruled that the new song was indeed a copyright infringement, and Harrison was required to pay a percentage of the royalties he had made in the meantime.
That story probably constitutes a cautionary tale, although I haven't figured out how to prevent it from happening to someone else!