You may have seen this, but it’s worth watching again:
Plagiarism and copyright are complicated issues. What happens when two songs share a similar melody? What about an identical phrase? (The last phrase in Softly as in a Morning Sunrise, and in Night in Tunisia comes to mind…) Or, as in the case above, a chord progression?
This chord progression has obviously been used in many songs, but each song is still a new creation. I don’t know whether or not they knew they were taking a pre-existing chord progression, but they each build something new on it. And even if they were taking something they knew was Pachelbel’s , it might be difficult to pay him royalties.
This affects more than just music. As a teacher, I always feel somewhat awkward when I want to use a resource (without a labelled copyright) I have found that has not been directly given me by the author. When I develop a resource (a repertoire list, student self assessment worksheet, etc.) I have no problem sharing it freely, but I know not every teacher feels this way. I have been given handouts by the author that have copyright on the bottom. And they pointed out the copyright to me.
But back to music, one very common way of taking someone else’s material and using it very directly is to use it for comedy. Often words are set to well known melodies, though this can happen for many other reasons. An example would be the Mum Song:
This use of alternate lyrics is also used to parody. Just look at a few of the songs Weird Al is known for, like White and Nerdy. As I understand it, parodies can use copyrighted material because they are using the music and associations therein for satire. I leave you with one of my favourites (by Tim Hawkins not Weird Al):
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