CC Petty vs Smith Case Study Type of Intellectual Property Discussion

Assignment

First, Readthe description of the Sam Smith v Tom Petty Case Download Sam Smith v Tom Petty Case, and Listento the

Smith v. Petty Clip Links to an external site.

below.

Second, using your own words, Respondto the following questions.

Which, of the four types of Intellectual Property, is this case about?

Do you think Sam Smith stole Tom Petty’s Intellectual Property?

Do you think the settlement was fair?

Petty, et al v. Smith, et al.
Shortly after Sam Smith’s single came out in April, 2014, listeners noticed a similarity between Stay With
Me and Tom Petty’s 1989 hit I Won’t Back Down. The publishers for I Won’t Back Down, written by Tom Petty,
contacted the publishers for Stay With Me, written by Sam Smith, about similarities heard in the melodies of the
choruses of the two compositions. The writers of Stay With Me listened to I Won’t Back Down and
acknowledged the similarity.
Michael Harrington, a professional musicologist, also heard the similarity when a friend played him Smith’s
record. “It got to the chorus, and I just started smiling,” Harrington says. “I said, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s I Won’t Back
Down.’ That’s pretty close, just the slightest differences. According to Harrington, the two songs have a
sequence of almost identical phrases in Smith’s chorus and Petty’s verses. “If you took just the first phrase of
the two songs and compared them, I would say, ‘So what, says Harrington, a professor at Berklee College. “The
fact that it keeps going and going: there are several phrases, and the rhythms are the same or extremely close to
being the same. At some point, the similarity goes on too long.”
Smith said that he wasn’t familiar with I Won’t Back Down when he wrote Stay With Me but acknowledged a
coincidental likeness when he heard the Petty song. All involved came to an amicable agreement in which Tom
Petty is now credited as a co-writer of Stay With Me. Part of the settlement included a 25% share of
songwriting royalties of Smith’s song, which is nominated for song of the year at the 2014 Grammy Awards.