Beyonces new record Break My Soul has been at the center of a handful of discussions around house music over the past week or two. Something that's been interesting to me however is the credit given to Robin S and a handful of other writers of the hit single Show Me Love. Many of you assume Beyonces record sampled Show Me Love or at the very least reinterprets part of the melody. It actually doesn't and simply just uses the same synth patch on the Kory M1 keyboard. I think that what we're actually seeing is the fallout from the court case around Robin Thicke and Pharrell’s Blurred Lines. Where the Marvin Gaye estate were able to sue them based on the records similarities to Marvins Got to give it up. Previously sample laws were fairly clear. If you sampled a recorded piece of someone's music or replayed or resung part of the lyrics or melody, you’d be liable to give up a percentage of your publishing to the sample artist. The Blurred Lines case was one of the first cases in history where the case was one simply on the record sounding to similar. There were no samples, replayed melodies or lyrics from Marvin’s original song. This set a dangerous precedent because like with any law, ambiguity opens room for interpretation, which often leaves a decision to fall in favor of the most powerful party. While Beyoncé is obviously a powerhouse and is unlikely to be on the losing side of an ambiguous plagiarism case. I do believe she got ahead of the curve and offered a small amount of her publishing to Robin S as a way to avoid any potential lawsuit. Robin S has not been active in recent years and even as little as 5% of the publishing on a Beyoncé lead single is a huge offering that is unlikely to make any noticeable dent to Beyonce's pockets. However with pun fully intended it does continue to blur the line between just and unjust accusations of plagiarism, which is only going to have a negative effect on the creativity of artists moving forward.

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