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Will You Be There Lawsuit!

smoothcriminal12

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Does anyone know about this lawsuit? How this guy, Albano Carrisi sued Michael for stealing the melody of will you be there from his song, I Cigni Di Balaka? Who won, what happened? Any audio clips of both songs mushed together? Please help me!
 
Initially, the judge ruled in favor of the plaintiff because the songs sounded similar but only ordered Michael to pay legal fees (rather than the $3 million the other guy wanted). However, in a follow-up case some months later, the Court of Appeals of Milan ruled in favor of Michael and Sony and rejected the claim, stating that neither song was copied from another and that both have similarities to even older songs. Michael admitted that there were similarities, but that they were completely coincidental.

More details:

http://mjjr.net/content94.html

http://mjjr.net/content98.html

And, you can hear Michael's and the other at:

http://www.youtube.com/v/xvBhHwp84Xk
 
This is so weird--every single song is going to sound similar to another. There are only so many notes/pitches/melodies, and no one has the ownership to any of them.

Sheesh, every single song will sound (even SLIGHTLY) similar to SOME song out there!
 
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this is crrrazy! OBVIOUSLY Michael wouldn't steal people's songs because things like this will happen! If he liked someone else's song, I'm sure he'd ask for permission! He doesn't only sing his own songs!!
 
I think these songs are very similar. If it were the other way round (Will you be there first so MJ suing Albano Carrisi), then I suspect that some of your responses would be somewhat different...

Anyway, even if songs were to be copied, I doubt it would have been deliberate. One may have heard the song just once, and then forgotten about it... when he is working, the melody may then "come" to him. Is that plagiarism? Yes. But it doesn't mean anyone intended to copy the song if that makes a difference to anyone...
 
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There's a slight similarity between the two songs, but not enough for me to think that Michael stole the melody from Albano Carrisi. It seems more likely that the similarities were unintentional.
 
Only the beginning of the songs verses are similar to one another, the rest of it sounds nothing alike. It's highly likely that it was coincidental.
 
The only reason the court ruled against Michael to begin with was because he failed to show up to court. Only the first few bars sound similar, which simply chalks up to coinsidence. There are millions and millions of notes written every year, and the chances of a similarity happening are better then most realize. Besides, I'm sure a music theorist would find that the cord progression and such isn't the same and that the songs go in a completely different direction after the first few bars.
 
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You can easily be influenced by songs you've heard in the past and not realize it. I've done it before also.
 
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