The Theft of Creativity

After sixty years as a creator of all manner of arts-related projects, one of my pet peeves is other people taking credit for what I have created, or for what I have played a big role in helping others to create. It is a lot more common than you might think.

For example, I once played a big part in the filming of a short movie called Pasarella Ruso. The producer and director asked me if I knew anybody else we could use in the film and I suggested somebody who I considered a friend. Said friend accepted the part and did a good job. However, right in front of me, he told some attractive woman he was trying to impress that he had invited me to take part in a film he had made! Absolute bare-faced lie. Needless to say, he is not a friend anymore, especially since it was, in fact, just one of a great many lies he told about me.

Many years ago yet another close friend got up on stage to perform a very nice song I had written and told the audience it was a song he had composed! I let that one go as it was the only time he has made such a gaff.

Sometimes people lie, not by what they say so much as by what they do not say. It is called lying by omission. I once helped a young singer for a whole year as a producer. He came to my apartment every week, sometimes twice a week. I helped him with his guitar playing, vocal phrasing, his English pronunciation, and his general delivery of a song. I also gifted him a microphone and a guitar cover. And, I even paid for the repair of his guitar after he placed it badly against my sofa, causing it to fall on the floor and break the neck.

Later on, I invited him up on stage to perform at one of my own professional gigs, and I gave him the proceeds of another performance of mine to help him and his family out. There was also a time when I loaned him my amplifier, microphone and cables, to do a gig that was impossible for him to do with just his acoustic guitar and unamplified voice. And, to cap it all, I paid for a day in a professional recording studio to help him become accustomed to a professional recording environment.

Later on, without me knowing, the boy got himself on a Tv talent show and did well for himself. What upset me was when he was asked by the Tv Production company how he got started, he made not the slightest mention of me and all I had freely given him. It was all over the newspapers and tv about how he had simply done it all by himself! I did challenge him about his omission of the part I played and he claimed that he had told the Tv company, but they weren't interested to know. I was not convinced. I guess it's true what they say, no favor goes unpunished.

Of course, as a music producer, your problems are not only to do with the artist, but also to do with their overbearing parents. I signed up three or four young kids who I thought had enough talent to go all the way to the top. That was until the parents got involved.

I had one young lady who was just fifteen years old and showed a lot of promise. I got on with her father, even though he wanted to play far too big a role in what went on. He told me that due to her age, she could not sign a contract with me, it had to be him. I refused on the basis that if I signed him all I had was a fifty four year old man who could not sing for toffee. That would leave the girl free to swan off with any other producer after I had mortgaged my house to get her to the top. Eventually, he agreed and my solicitor drew up the contract.

The girl's father then insisted I give him my solicitor's address so that he could check him out. I gave him the address and really wished I had not bothered. Behind my back, the father went directly to my solicitor to demand changes to the contract. At that point, I really should have seen the writing on the wall and should have bailed out. Anyway, we got over it. The changes were not investment-threatening, so I let it go.

The next thing we did was shoot a video of the girl miming to the recording we had made. Suddenly, mid-action, the father turned up on set and demanded we stop filming because he wanted to speak with his daughter. Apparently, she had not gone home the night before and Dad wanted to tear a strip off his offspring. Eventually, the shoot was completed and all we had to do was finish mastering the song and edit the video. Sadly, father and daughter were in cahoots to basically hijack the project from me and my co-producer, Lance Quinn.

The girl had asked for a pre-master copy of the song, just to listen to in the comfort of her own home. Lance and I complied with her request, and then she and her father went and did the unthinkable.

Father and daughter made their own video at home, being sure to include some images of paintings her father had badly painted. They then put the unmastered, copyright-unprotected song and video up on Youtube! Lance and I went absolutely apeshit.

I called the father immediately after his stupid daughter had emailed me with a Youtube link to the video, with the gleeful message "Hey, look what we did! What do you think? Isn't it great?" I went straight to her father and demanded to know what the hell they thought they were playing at. The coward threw his daughter under a bus saying it was all her doing. He accused me of overreacting, like what he had done was no big deal. At any point, anybody could have claimed copyright for that song, potentially costing us millions!

The girl did as I demanded and took the video down. Then Lance set about mastering the song, after which, I could edit the video. We finally reached a presentable product and this time allowed the girl to put it back on Youtube.

I then asked the girl to go into the studio to record another song. She told me that since she was going to be a big star, I would now have to pay her big bucks for any further recording sessions!

She said that she was now performing with the best bass player in Holland, so she deserved a big paycheque! Can you believe this shit? More like she was getting laid by the bass player who blew lots of smoke up her ass about how good she was. What they did not know was that that is not the way things work in the music business. We had one song in the can, and it cost a small fortune to get it over the line.

By this time both Lance and I had had enough of this precocious girl and her pumped-up father and boyfriend and dumped her. It was a shame, but Lance and I knew other excellent girl singers who would appreciate the opportunity being offered.

My next message to the girl was to remove the video we had allowed her to put up on Youtube, and she point-blank refused, claiming that it was her song to do with what she wanted! Are you kidding? Lady, you cannot just steal somebody's song like that and claim ownership just because you sang it on Youtube! Try that with an Elton John song and see how far it gets you, baby.

Anyway, the girl refused to take the video down even if I sued her for megabucks. So I had no other option than to contact Youtube and threaten them with a multi-million dollar lawsuit if they did not take the video down. It came down within a matter of two hours.

A bit of a long story, I know, but you see where it ended up, huh? Some young teen girl trying to take credit for something I spent a great deal of time and money creating with a top-end music producer.

We did find another young lady to cover the song, but that too hit a roadblock, nothing to do with the singer, and the song has never since seen the light of day. I do hope to one day rescue it from the shelf and see if I can get it out there.

And finally, a young man with quite an amazing voice. Again, I signed him up to an exclusive contract, and again, some third party tried to get in on the act and ruined it for all of us. The owner of the studio I used was also a producer in his own right. On having heard the boy sing, this man decided to muscle in and persuade the young lad to break his contract with me. We had two songs in the can and suddenly the boy was making himself unavailable for more recording sessions. I found out quite by chance the boy was unavailable because he was recording behind my back with the studio owner.

Lance told me to go to the boy and simply rip the contract up and throw the pieces in the boy's face. I didn't do that, but I did fall out with him and the other producer and didn't speak to either of them for about a year. However, I am not one for bearing long-time grudges and did eventually makeup with them. In part, I didn't blame the boy, the problem was the other producer. And this was not the first, nor last, time that guy stitched me up.

Well, I could regale you with all manner of other attempts to take credit for my work or try to get a work in progress off me. However, I think you get the idea. You just have to take care of who you deal with.

The only other point I would make is how surprising it is when young kids, when presented with an amazing, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, totally blow it all apart by being uppity. Nobody worth their salt wants to work with an arrogant, demanding, right pain in the ass.

I suppose it is human nature to want what somebody else has got, be it a car, money, a woman, or even a creative project. And in a way, it is sort of paying the owner of whatever it is that is being stolen a compliment. My lovely wife says I should just let things go, and I think in some ways she is right. And yet, it always leaves a sour taste in the mouth, which makes me want to do something about it, like write about it for example, as I have right here. There, I feel better already, now that I have set the record straight. Have a nice day.