Top 10 Rip Off Songs That Are More Popular Than The Original

“He’s So Fine” (1963)

Ex-Beatle George Harrison scored himself a #1 hit — the first by a former member of the Fab Four — with “My Sweet Lord.” He didn’t have much time to celebrate, however, before he was hit with a copyright infringement lawsuit! It was alleged that Harrison’s song contained overt similarities to the 1963 Ronnie Mack-written hit single “He’s So Fine” by New York girl group The Chiffons. Ultimately, the court decided that he had subconciously plagiarized the song and Harrison nearly had to pay $1.6 million to Bright Tunes Music Corporation. This amount was reduced after the court ruled that Harrison’s ex-manager Allen Klein’s actions dutring the suit had been improper.

Plagiarism accusations are not uncommon, but verifying their legitimacy can sometimes be difficult. Anti-folk duo Creaky Boards once accused British rock band Coldplay of plagiarizing their track “The Songs I Didn’t Write” for their hit song “Viva La Vida.” Lead singer Andrew Hoepfner even went so far as accusing the band of hearing it at one of their concerts! Hoepfner retracted the claims however, coming to the conclusion that both bands were influenced by Nintendo’s “The Legend of Zelda” series of computer games. We guess they didn’t write that song after all!

There was something of an uproar in 2013 when pop superstar Katy Perry was accused of plagiarizing the less popular singer and actress Sara Bareilles. Not only does Perry’s song “Roar” and Bareilles’ “Brave” hit the ear in a similar way, they share a similarly uplifting message about the power of believing in oneself. Some have even produced mashups to prove the overlap between the two tracks! Unlike with Taylor Swift and Perry, there doesn’t seem to be any “bad blood” between these two, with Bareilles tweeting “All love, everybody. All love.”

It seems pretty undeniable that The Beatles cribbed from the legendary Chuck Berry — also known as the "Father of Rock and Roll" — for their song “Come Together,” especially with the “flat top” line. It was alleged that the two songs were musically similar as well. This caused legal woes for John Lennon due to Berry’s controversial publisher Morris Levy. However, as a direct result of the rampant Beatlemania of the time, the solution to this problem was less costly than you might think. As repayment, Lennon agreed to record three songs owned by Levy, which were released on his 1975 solo album “Rock ‘n’ Roll.”

Nirvana riffed pretty heavily on “Eighties” by U.K. band Killing Joke for “Come as You Are” — seriously, listen to the riffs on these two tracks. “Come as You Are” is driven by a slowed down variant of the riff from the Killing Joke song. Tragically, Kurt Cobain passed away before the two bands could collaborate. Perhaps unsurprisingly then, the hero of this story is Dave Grohl. The former Nirvana drummer and current Foo Fighters frontman paid the group back in 2003 by playing drums for their album “Killing Joke 2003.”

“Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” was a huge hit for British singer Rod Stewart in 1978. Brazilian musician Jorge Ben’s answer to the titular question seems obvious, as he presumably didn’t find anything sexy about Stewart’s alleged plagiarism of his song “Taj Mahal.” A settlement was reached out of court, with this being another classic case of an artist admitting “unconscious plagiarism” of a song. In his 2012 autobiography, Stewart said that he had heard the Ben Jor song while at the 1978 Rio Carnival. He didn’t stop there however, also admitting that the song’s synthesizer riff was lifted from Bobby Womack's "(If You Want My Love) Put Something Down On It."

Led Zeppelin is one of the most acclaimed bands of all time. This is due not only to how they trailblazed in heavy metal and hard rock, but to how their many influences manifested in their music — even though this could occasionally get them in trouble. Among those various influences was blues music – including the work of one McKinley Morganfield, known professionally as Muddy Waters. This fact became a little bit too evident when Led Zeppelin were sued in 1985 for the “whole lotta” things in common their track had with Muddy Waters’ 1962 “You Need Love.” Willie Dixon, the song’s writer, reached a settlement that includes listing him as co-writer.

Kevin Parker, aka the one and only member of psychedelic project Tame Impala, may be one of the most influential artists in music today, working with names like Dua Lipa and The Weeknd. So it would make sense for someone with his talent to have wide-ranging taste and influences and for some of that to even subconsciously make its way into his music. However, sometimes a song really is too obscure to believe an artist could be ripping it off. When Chilean music site Rata published the claim that Parker had plagiarized the corny 1989 Pablo Ruiz track “Oceano,” we thought it must be a joke — and they later claimed it was. That didn’t prevent Ruiz from considering legal action, though!

Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ chart-topping single “Uptown Funk” has been the subject of an unusually high number of alleged plagiarism cases. Even before the song was actually released, rapper and songwriter Trinidad James received a writing credit, due to Ronson and Mars borrowing from him for the song’s hook. The Sequence, a lesser known hip hop group from the 70s composed of three women, sued Mars and Ronson for copyright infringement in 2018. They argued “Uptown Funk” had too many compositional similarities to their 1979 single “Funk You Up.” “Funk You Up” had been something of a hit itself when it was released, being only the third rap song in history to chart on Billboard's Top 50 Singles.


Do you know another lesser known track that got aped by a chart-topper? Let us know in the comments!