After I started writing songs in 1959, I kept hearing “imitations” of my material on radio and TV. For a long time, I couldn’t figure out who was behind this harassing kind of mimicry. Finally, after a lot of investigation, it was obvious that I was being targeted by the communists.
I vividly remember writing a song that I titled “Help Me Make It Through The Night”. A short time later, I saw Kris Kristofferson on TV accepting a music award for “Best Song of the Year”. The song Kristofferson was supposed to have written was titled “Help Me Make It Through The Night”, and it had the same words and music as my song. I’m sure this was no kind of coincidence.
On October 12, 2006, I found out that a song I had written and copyrighted was being illegally sold on a web site in England. In an album titled: “45 Kings III” and compiled by Christian McBride at Fat City Recordings in Manchester, England, a recording of my song, “Wanderin’ Soul”, was being pirated and sold. The original recording of my song was made in 1975 and was sung by Gary Atkinson.
|
|
I contacted a copyright lawyer about the infringement. The attorney said it would cost a lot of money just to sue anyone even though I had all the evidence. Since there was no deadline on when damages could be assessed and compensated, I decided to wait until a later time when conditions might be more favorable.
In the past, I had a lot of material stolen from me that had not been copyrighted, and I began collecting and saving more evidence. It was a recklessly brazen act for someone to pirate the actual recording of a song that was copyrighted years earlier.
Recently, I turned the TV on and heard Clint Black singing a song with some of the words and music that was in one of my songs. The song I had written was titled “I’m Still In Love With You”, and it was recorded and copyrighted in 2017. Black’s song was called “America (I’m Still In Love With You)”, and it was stated online that he released it in 2020. I don’t think this “Black Occurrence” was any kind of “Coincidence”.
I believe this information about mimicry and plagiarism should be broadcast so that people everywhere will be more aware of what is going on in the music business. It’s a wakeup call about the criminal element that is controlling the world of entertainment.
--Marlin O. Wallace |
