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Copyright Case-Study #0

Beach Boys vs Chuck Verry

There’s no arguing here; “Surfin’ USA” is the same song as “Sweet Little Sixteen”, alright. But The Beach Boys aren’t the only ones to blame. Too many artists have ripped off Chuck Berry over the years, especially his melody for “Johnny B. Goode”, which wouldn’t you know it actually dates back to 1946 with Louis Jordan’s “Ain’t That Just Like a Woman”. Is there nothing original in music? At least The Beach Boys fessed up, giving Berry songwriting credits on every release of “Surfin’ USA” post-1966. Years later, Berry even told the late Carl Wilson he loved their song. Isn’t that nice? –Michael Roffman (1)

  1. Source: https://consequence.net/2018/01/10-famous-instances-of-alleged-music-plagiarism/

Song 1 - Surfin' USA

Song 2 - Sweet Little Sixteen

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How similar do you think these two songs are (from "Not similar at all" to "Exactly the Same")

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