Did Prince really plagiarize an Italian tune?

Prince performing at Coachella, 2008An Italian court has ruled that Prince plagiarized a 1983 Italian disco tune when he wrote his 1995 hit “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World.” The original song by Bruno Bergonzi and Michele Vicino, “Takin’ Me to Paradise,” appeared on a number of dance compilations in the early 80s. But how convincing is the evidence? Are we to really believe that Prince — a prodigiously creative musician who has probably written more music than anyone else alive — stole someone else’s tune?

The evidence hinges on 10 notes, which are the melody in the chorus of the Bergonzi/Vicino song as well as the recurring melodic motif in the Prince song:
Notes of melody

Chorus from “Takin’ Me to Paradise” by Bergonzi and Vicino:

This is such a brief, basic melodic fragment that it is difficult to claim that anyone “owns” it. Its core repetition in Prince’s song, however — basically establishing the structure of the entire song through both verse and chorus, a common R&B trait — ends up defining the song. And that’s what made him vulnerable to the charge of plagiarism.

It’s possible that Prince heard the tune years earlier and it unconsciously resurfaced in his writing. But it’s also possible that the melodic fragment, as simple as it is, was picked up separately by each composer. It’s fairly obvious that “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World” is the better of the two songs, bringing out the latent sensuality in the unaccented downbeats of the melody. But that’s irrelevant from a legal standpoint.

The case has dragged on for at least 15 years (apparently Italian courts are even slower than American courts). While the original court decision in 2003 rejected the plagiarism claim, the case was appealed and resulted in the current ruling. There must still be a third and final hearing for the decision to stand, however, which may take several more years. Under the ruling, Prince must cease distributing the song in Italian territory. He may also be liable for royalties to the Italian duo.

And that’s the gray area of copyright infringement. It’s not as objective as it would seem, and different people can have different perspectives about the same music. If you were a judge in the case against Prince, how would you rule?

[Photo courtesy of Micahmedia, Wikipedia, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license]

3 Comments

  1. I don’t see why a man who wrote a track a day in his bad days would ever consciously plagiarize other composers. Also, I’m from Italy and I’ve never heard the track before the lawsuit. It wasn’t a success over here, at all. So how could Prince ever have listened to it is beyond me.
    The note succession is not very original (although Prince manages to make a beautiful song out of it anyway), it’s no wonder it got used in different songs. There are also parts of “Ebony and Ivory” by Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney which are a bit similar. I think the ruling is bull, but the court’s decision is the relevant one, so legally the Prince estate had to make a settlement to get out of this one and make the song available again.

  2. I didn’t know about the settlement, but have since found a good video on the subject from Prince’s Friend at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3ytgqj8USs. I agree with you, Daniele. The overlap between the two songs, in my opinion, is minor and not enough to qualify as copyright infringement. But courts both in America and Italy have issued some bonkers copyright decisions. The fact that Bergonzi and Vicino were trying after the 2015 ruling to prohibit the song from being sold or played anywhere in the world (not just in Italy) was ridiculous. But their hardball tactics evidently paid off. While we don’t know the terms of the settlement, I’m sure they are receiving a generous share of ongoing profits, and the song is once again publicly available, with The Gold Experience set for re-issue in June 2022.

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