re: Songs that sampled other songs

Like 85% of Hip Hop songs are usually sampling another song or a collection of songs.

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The chord progression and backing vocals are exactly the same.

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A chord progression cannot be copyrighted. Perhaps in some very extreme cases it might be argued they can...but that would be the exception. 99.99% of chord progressions simply cannot be unique enough to be deemed original. Especially in popular music. The chord progression for Dear Future Husband and Runaround Sue are similar but not exact. They are both in D major and go through the same chords but with a different Harmonic Rhythm (each letter below is one 4-beat bar):

DFH: D | D | Bm | Bm | G | A | D | D |
RS: D | D | Bm | Bm | G | G | A | A |

As you can see, similar but not exact. But even if they were the EXACT same, it would not matter. The progression of Runaround Sue is what is known as the "50s Progression". A VERY common progression in music from the early rock era. (When it is in 6/8 time, I call it the Sock Hop Progression). It was used in literally hundreds of songs. Some of the most well known songs that use it are Heart and Soul, Stand By Me (both released before Runaround Sue), Duke of Earl, Crocodile Rock, Don't Dream It's Over, True Blue.

The earliest known use of this progression in popular music is Blue Moon from 1933.

So this instance doesn't even enter the discussion of "borrowing" or sampling (a separate issue all together).

Several genres use the same chords as the basis of their style. Blues (8, 12 and 16 bar blues progressions) and Jazz (ii-V-I progressions or charts built on the the I Got Rhythm progression, I-vi-ii-V which is just a slight variation of the 50s progression above).

Essentially, the main things that can be copyrighted are the melody and the lyrics. This was the case in the Smith/Petty issue. What Smith used as the chorus of his song, is the verse of the Petty song. They have more than a passing similarity both melodically and rhythmically but they are not exact on every note (they are on all stressed notes). What a lot of people don't know is that in infringement suits, there are really no objective measurements. Ther eis no "you can use 3 seconds or 5 notes" etc. This simply is not the case. It just has to be proven to a jury (usually, but sometimes a judge) that the two are substantially similar in material that is copyrightable. Basically, once it gets to s jury, whoever has the better legal team often wins. Of course, with the Blurred Lines case, this.... blurred the lines.

I thought I'd make a separate post to deal with sampling.

Sampling, in this sense, is using the recording of another work, either manipulated or not, to build a new work. In the early days of sampling (a form of digital recording) and hip hop, there were a lot of tracks being created based on snippets of other recordings and it was hard to control such usage. One of the most used samples is a drum break from a James Brown track called Funky Drummer played by Clyde Stubblefield. Reportedly it has been used in about 1500 other tracks. I am not sure who is getting paid for that usage, but it is believed Clyde got little to nothing above his payment for the original session.

At some point, the recording industry created ways to clear samples used in a track. Sometimes they are simply licensed for a flat fee or royalty. Sometimes they are licensed via songwriting credit.

But even today, recordings are sampled and not cleared. This is how Trent Reznor won a Country Music Award. A producer in The Netherlands sampled a NIN track "34 Ghosts IV", added some drums and bass then sold the track online. Lil Nas X bought the track for $30. When the song broke, it was realized that it used a non-cleared sample. Trent was contacted for clearance and given songwriting credit (as was the co-writer on the original NIN track, Atticus Ross).

Zac Brown channeling his inner Pink Floyd in Junkyard. Great song too.

Floyd sample at the 5:40 mark


Junkyard

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To be fair, that is how Hip Hop was started, sampling others songs. It started as DJs at a party taking Disco, or Soul music and looking for a break in the song, usually where there was a good bass line or drum beat, and they would just play that part over and over again. Folks danced to that, eventually someone would start rapping along with the DJ spinning. That's how it all started.

Hell, it's no secret that in the early days. The early big pioneer producers in the Hip Hop field would go to record stores and get as many records of they could find in different genres. All they did was take those records to the studio, chop and screw them in different ways. Then the rapper would come in and drop their verses.

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You can make list of late 80s/early 90s rap/hip-hop and list out the famous artists that were sampled because of what you said above.

Tone-Loc's Wild Thing:Van Halen's Jamie's Cryin'
Vanilla Ice's Ice Ice Baby: Queen's Under Pressure
MC Hammer's Can't Touch This: Rick James's Super Freak
Hammer's Pray: Prince's When Doves Cry