Why are original songwriters sometimes not credited when their melodies are used in new songs? 11

“… unless they just don’t care.”

Nailed it, right there.

Thank you Mr. Beato, for speaking about this topic and your wonderful interviews. Here our composers association has a technical board that's is responsible of the evaluation of incoming copyright claims from the authors. If there is no claim the association will not act on behalf of the author. In the cases you exposed the authors should write a claim to their composers association and they have to investigate. This cases are very easy ones because the amount of used musical phrases is clearly a lot. I was the chair of our composers associations technical board for two periods. We had monthly meetings to evaluate the incoming claims. Our statements would not change the legal status of the registration but the intellectual property court would evaluate them. So the author should first contact the composers association, try to create a compromise with the support of the association, if it doesn't create a solution open a court case. Copyrights are only protected if the right holder protects them. All my best wishes from Istanbul

A friend of mine had free time in a studio (owned by Daniel Lanois and run by his brother) and was throwing down some song ideas to work on at another time. When he went back to pick up the master tapes, they couldn't find them. They only had a copy on cassette. The engineer had moved to LA and took some masters with him for his portfolio. Fast forward 2 years, and my friend was driving and his girlfriend noticed the song on the radio and asked, isn't this your song? It was his song, without changing a thing. It was Christina Aguilera's Beautiful. My friend went to a lawyer with the cassette copy, and the lawyer said, yup, absolutely, that is your song. The problem is that the record companies have millions of dollars to drag it out in court forever till you go broke. Plus, he would have to prove that Linda Perry heard that master tape somewhere and that it wasn't just a coincidence.

I’m going with Option B - “they just don’t care” (because they’re betting they’ll make more from the song than it will cost them to fight about in court)

And the sad part is, Rick will get a copyright strike for playing these samples.

Have you read the recent interview with Rita Coolidge where they discuss how Eric Clapton stole Rita’s composition for the piano coda for the song Layla? Half the song that just lifted her piano melody from the song Time (that was recorded by Booker T and Priscilla Jones). Fascinating story and infuriating that she was never credited or compensated for it. According to her account, on a phone call, Robert Stigwood basically told her ‘Too bad. What are you going to do about it? You can’t afford the legal fees to fight us.’ I guess it was just “interpolated”.

INXS' Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss are credited as writers on the song "Break My Heart". Thus, the interpolation appears to be cleared from a legal perspective.

Additionally, as per ASCAP, Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss do receive publishing and songwriting royalties. As per ASCAP, Michael Hutchence and Andrew Farriss each receive 11.3% of the royalties (publishing and songwriting) that the song generates. This split assumes that the combined writing and publisher royalties under ASCAP's domain for the song, which totals 45.33%, is equally divided among Dua Lipa, Stefan Johnson of the production duo The Monsters and Strangerz (who co-produced the song, along with Andrew Watt), and the aforementioned members of INXS. The remaining 54.67% of songwriting and publishing royalties appear to be divided among Ali Tamposi (co-writer of the lyrics alongside Dua Lipa), Jordan Johnson (other part of the production duo The Monsterz and Strangers), and Andrew Watt.

However, the trend of interpolating old songs may even become more prevalent, especially as artists are selling their catalog to investment firms. To this end, these firms and/or their associated publishers are holding writing camps/sessions where the explicit aim is for songwriters and/or producers to interpolate a certain song in their catalog. This may be applicable to Dua Lipa's case, as the Monsters and Strangerz and Andrew Watt are affiliated with Hipgnosis, one of the bigger firms that are involved in acquiring music rights.

I am not sure why "Prisoner" or "Physical" do not have Kipner and Shaddick credited, especially when Doja Cat and SZA did so for their duet "Kiss Me More". While I think the latter borrows less from Newton-John's "Physical", it apparently came down to how much melodic phrasing was taken from the song? (This is as per a Billboard article entitled "Forever No. 1: Olivia Newton-John's Physical"). Additionally, Dua Lupa said that "Physical" was not based on the Newton-John song (At least, its conception was not based on it). She, however, acknowledges the similarity between the two songs (as per NPR interview in March 2020).

not all melodies are copy writable. Esp considering the limited number that can be created.
I think its good that just because you were the first to come up with a simple melody in 1960, you can monopolize it for the next 100 years.

When Keith Richards daughter pointed out that inadvertently the melody of Has Anybody Seen My Baby sounded like Constant Craving they immediately updated the songwriting credits to include KD Lang and Ben Mink. It's a matter of honesty and integrity.

I happened to read an interview posted yesterday with Rita Coolidge. You know the coda section of “Layla” that begins with piano? Rita tells a pretty compelling story about how SHE wrote it, then heard it on the radio a year later. When she finally got in to see the label boss, Robert Stigwood, he said, “You’re just a girl…you can’t afford a lawyer to fight this…just let it go…”