# How do you know if you stole a riff?



## Xtremevillan (Jul 23, 2008)

I was playing and out comes this riff out of nowhere that I immediately played again and wrote down. It sounds so familiar that I think I stole it, it's miles better than the other shit I've wrote.

However, I can't place where it could be from...and if it's one thing I hate, it's stealing other's ideas...anyone been in here?


----------



## auxioluck (Jul 23, 2008)

Actually yes, I wrote a little break in a song I was working on, and when I played it again, I went...."That's from somewhere..." All my bandmates were going, "No, we've never heard it..." Come to find out a week later (after listening to all my CD's to find out where it was from) that it's the exact riff from a Limp Bizkit song....

....Thankfully, I stopped listening to them when I was 16...

Anyway, yeah, I totally understand.


----------



## soldierkahn (Jul 23, 2008)

i sometimes find myself at this point, but unless everyone around you is telling you you stole it, i wouldnt worry too much. After listening to the shit ton of metal bands out now, i hear identical riffs all the time.


----------



## giannifive (Jul 23, 2008)

Usually I find that if the riff comes out really easily, seemingly from nowhere, and sounds great, it's something I've already heard before.


----------



## The Dark Wolf (Jul 23, 2008)

How do you know?

The corporate lawyer looks you up.


----------



## Crucified (Jul 23, 2008)

almost everything has been written. i mean, look at the 50's back then every song was nearly the same chord progression just in a different key. screw it, as long as its not the entire song from start to finish, it's yours.


----------



## metalfiend666 (Jul 23, 2008)

Following on from Crucified's post, if you write music you've probably used a riff or progression that someone else has used. The modern Western music system has been in use for hundreds of years, so someone somewhere probably had the same ideal as you a long time ago. Of course, they might have been using it on a harpsichord rather than a screaming distorted guitar, but we only have 12 different notes to play with. It's all about how you arrange them.


----------



## Xtremevillan (Jul 23, 2008)

I mean, this isn't like a true and classic Reign in Blood riff, this is kind of like..."Why did I play this? It's not my usual style and it's MUCH better than what I usually come up with..."


----------



## stuz719 (Jul 23, 2008)

You can tell:

a) if it's good Tony Iommi or Jimmy Page has probably used it
b) if it's not good it's probably on "St. Anger"


----------



## BigBaldIan (Jul 23, 2008)

metalfiend666 said:


> .....but we only have 12 different notes to play with. It's all about how you arrange them.



QFT. Pretty much word for word what my old man used to say.


----------



## budda (Jul 23, 2008)

how do you know? well, you hear it elsewhere.

i took a riff from amon amarth, changed it a little bit, and wrote most of a song around it. no one in my band new (and 3 other members listen to AA), and the other guitarist didnt know until i played the song i took the idea from .

if you change it enough, its yours.


----------



## ZeroSignal (Jul 23, 2008)

Xtremevillan said:


> I mean, this isn't like a true and classic Reign in Blood riff, this is kind of like..."Why did I play this? It's not my usual style and it's MUCH better than what I usually come up with..."



Dude, have you heard MY music? (it's in my sig btw) It sounds NOTHING like Fear Factory!


----------



## wannabguitarist (Jul 23, 2008)

When someone that's not a musician/doesn't listen to that style of music tells you it's a ripoff.

A while back I had a jam band with a few friends and I came up with this simple little riff that we all thought was pretty cool. A few days later my brother walked into my room when I was playing it and was like "dude you're learning to play that Trivium song? Awesome!"

I hadn't listen to Trivium in months so I went and looked up the tabs after he showed me the song and it turns out that the riff I can up with was almost note for note the same as the part in "Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr" before the solo, mine just had pinch harmonics

I wouldn't worry about it


----------



## Stealthdjentstic (Jul 23, 2008)

Xtremevillan said:


> I was playing and out comes this riff out of nowhere that I immediately played again and wrote down. It sounds so familiar that I think I stole it, it's miles better than the other shit I've wrote.
> 
> However, I can't place where it could be from...and if it's one thing I hate, it's stealing other's ideas...anyone been in here?



yes this happens to me frequently, when it does i just change the rythem completly and throw in some other notes or start the riff somewhere else.


----------



## Celiak (Jul 23, 2008)

I've had people tell me I stole a riff when I made it up completely from scratch. I found it incredibly annoying that even though they couldn't name the song and I knew for a fact that I thought up the riff on my own they accused me of stealing it verbatim. It turned out later that it was similar in style to some Led Zeppelin song they hadn't listened to in years and when they went back and listened to the song it wasn't really like that.

Things are bound to be similar to something there is no avoiding that even if you try. Just don't purposely rip people off and try your best to innovate unique riffs.


----------



## Leec (Jul 23, 2008)

When you're in Coldplay 

or when you're a member of ss.org and you ripped off meshuggah


----------



## dougsteele (Jul 23, 2008)

Try www.riffripoff.com

Upload your mp3, and they tell you instantly what riffs come from what songs. There's even a riff generator.


----------



## kung_fu (Jul 23, 2008)

Riff generator. What can't the internet do?


----------



## AxelKay (Jul 24, 2008)

kung_fu said:


> Riff generator. What can't the internet do?



Well as far as I know it can't make coffee or tea....yet 


But seriously.....this riff stealing.......it happens to all of us :S
and there's nothing worse than spending time in creating a song which sounds AWESOME to your ears and then realize that it's 90% or 100% taken from a published track.
/cry


----------



## Nick (Jul 24, 2008)

The Dark Wolf said:


> How do you know?
> 
> The corporate lawyer looks you up.



lol was going to be my answer


----------



## petereanima (Jul 24, 2008)

AxelKay said:


> But seriously.....this riff stealing.......it happens to all of us :S
> and there's nothing worse than spending time in creating a song which sounds AWESOME to your ears and then realize that it's 90% or 100% taken from a published track.
> /cry



yeah, thats the most frustrating moments in songwriting.


----------



## nocturnous (Jul 24, 2008)

Well you can't steal a riff because you can't copyright a progression or a rhythm. Just the full song. And even if the copyrighted song has one chord and one beat over and over again, that person could not sue every who used that chord in other songs. 

If you have a problem with being unoriginal change up the rhythm , move it to another key if it bothers you. Obviously if you take lets say the opening to symphony of destruction , you are going to get called out on something that is really uniquely familiar and popular. 

But don't beat yourself up , if you have something you came up with on your own and somebody else put it in a song, you can still use it exactly as is and not be sued. It's yours , you liked it you made it, it's a real expression of your creative process.


----------



## Ancestor (Jul 24, 2008)

Crucified said:


> almost everything has been written. i mean, look at the 50's back then every song was nearly the same chord progression just in a different key. screw it, as long as its not the entire song from start to finish, it's yours.



I agree. And remember that good musicians are influenced by people who inspire them but great musicians flat out steal. ha, joking... but seriously, there's a difference between integrating ideas and making a conscious decision to dick someone out of their shit. 

Record the riff so we can hear it!


----------



## TonalArchitect (Jul 24, 2008)

Leec said:


> When you're in Coldplay
> 
> or when you're a member of ss.org and you ripped off meshuggah






This is perhaps my greatest fear when composing, for I would NEVER intentionally steal from another artist. But yes, many riffs are the same, but I think there are there are often two possibilities: 1.) the riff is generic and used by everyone or 2.) completely orignial but remotely similar to another riff which will cause everyone to call it a rip-off. 

As stated before, change it make it your own, or use it differently than they. I believe that context may be the most important feature of music.


----------



## Slayer89 (Jul 24, 2008)

I recently came up with a riff I loved. But then I realized I was taking "heavy inspiration" in writing it. I mean, my riff is in a different key with different notes, just a VERY similiar rhythm and pattern. But then I realized none of my friends knew what song I had taken the inspiration, but they all thought a part of it sounded kinda similar to a LoG song .... haha.


----------



## B36arin (Jul 26, 2008)

A bandmate of mine sent me a guitar pro file that he had been working on for ages, 16 hours straight or something like that. The first thing that I thought of was "Holy shit, this is a minor scale version of Enemies of Reality". Exactly the same rhythms and same "progressions"(I don't know if that's the correct word), only difference was that it was a normal minor scale instead of dim.


----------



## daybean (Jul 26, 2008)

i think when we write a riff or something we have so many influences and subconsciencely play something similiar sometimes. i dont think we can ever escape from this, some people of course are just jackasses and do it knowing they are ripping somebody off. like that guy in here one time that stole that idea/riff from bulb.


----------



## Zepp88 (Jul 26, 2008)

Laibach (band) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I like Laibachs view on copy-cats.


----------



## MF_Kitten (Jul 26, 2008)

i once made a riff that was exactly like a LOG riff, and i once did the same with an American Head Charge song. i always throw these ideas away when i discover it.

on my band´s new song, we discovered it sounded like gojira, without actually being gojira. there´s a clean tapping intro that somehow sounds like the intro of gojira´s Global Warming. it´s not the same tempo, not the same key, not the same chords, and not the same style though.

i´ve made a couple of riffs where people have gone "aw, dude, that´s a *insert band* song!", and we´ve found out that it´s just so close to the same style and feel that it sounds like the other band made it. 

right now i´m influenced by such diverse artists that i think you can´t pinpoint one specific artist that i sound like. i have the x part of one artist, mixed with the y of another, and someone else´s Z.


----------



## InTheRavensName (Jul 26, 2008)

Nick said:


> lol was going to be my answer


I'm still waiting for a very angry Jon Schaffer to knock on my rhythm guitarist's door


----------



## 7stringfire (Jul 26, 2008)

When I sit down to write, i try to use things never heard before. Create something not familiar... you know' dabble in that "hmm this sounds uncomfortable" un-familiarness.


----------



## MattyCakes (Jul 26, 2008)

good composers are unique, great composers steal


----------



## Luan (Jul 26, 2008)

I wrote recently a song that have some ideas stolen from Pat Metheny, they aren't exactly phrases, but ideas, so I can't really say I'm guilty.


----------



## hide (Jul 28, 2008)

I have been working a tune for about two months, it was my first effing attempt to write something completely by myself (always had someone to work with). I thought it had the best and most "direct" riff I had ever written. Then it turns out it's variation on live wire by motley crue. Damn, I had a listen at too fast for love once 5 years ago (before having even in mind to start playing guitar) and hated it 

Also, Stuck mojo have a similiar one.

I since changed the riff, but the new one hasn't got the groove of the first one. I don't know what to do, if I am to restore the previous or keep the one it's in now. Actually it's not identical, it's executed differently, guitar is tuned differently, the rests of the song is totally another thing (lol I have a slap guitar part after that riff), but still, TAAA-T-T-T-T-T-TAAA-T-T-T-T-T-TAAA-T-T-T-T-T-T-TATA-T-T-TATA-T is so much a recognizable pattern.

What shall I do?


----------



## Seedawakener (Jul 28, 2008)

I wrote a riff once... A year later the exact same rythm came up on Nevermores TGE. I had literally written something Jeff Loomis would write. Made me happy!  (the rythm in the verse of this godless endeavor if anyone wants to know).


----------



## ire_works (Jul 30, 2008)

I could play you every song i've composed and tell you what band I stole each riff from. Its all about becoming inspired. Just sitting around playing guitar listening to music , and you hear a cool riff and you try to play it and instead of figuring it out , try to play it how "you" would play it. And POOF , you have a neat new riff.

Nevertheless , if you got an ERG playing metal , you're basically playing songs Meshuggah haven't written yet.


----------



## Stealthdjentstic (Jul 30, 2008)

ire_works said:


> Nevertheless , if you got an ERG playing metal , you're basically playing songs Meshuggah haven't written yet.


----------

