The bizarre legal case surrounding Green Day and ‘American Idiot’
Once an artist enjoys the pleasantries of a successful record in the contemporary world, there’s a chance a lawsuit will follow soon afterwards. It’s a pattern that Green Day found as ‘American Idiot’ emerged as a smash hit. The trio is not the first band to face this unwanted predicament and will certainly not be the last.
After years spent in the relative wilderness, Green Day’s 2004 album parachuted the band back into the big-time and relaunched their career. It was the first time they topped the Billboard 100 and went to number one in another 18 territories. To date, American Idiot has sold over 16 million copies worldwide, which made it one of the best-selling albums of the decade.
The album was a cash cow for Green Day, and Paul McPike from Oregon wanted a piece of the pie. In 2006, McPike astonishingly claimed to be the creator of the titular track. Despite never releasing a version of ‘American Idiot’, McPike was adamant that Billie Joe Armstrong had stolen his creation.
McPike boldly claimed that he wrote the lyrics and melodies to the hit in 1992, 12 years before Green Day’s release. Therefore, it would have somehow had to have been secretly recorded as a bootleg and found its way to Armstrong, who decided to sit on it for over a decade before finally releasing his own version.
The Oregon local filed a two-page complaint in the US District Court. For his evidence, McPike claimed the words Armstrong sings on the album don’t match those printed in the liner notes. Unsurprisingly, the judge dismissed the case and asked McPike to return with more research, which predictably didn’t occur.
In an interview with Oregon’s Mail Tribune paper, McPike was devastated by the outcome and revealed: “It was just disbelief every time I heard it on the radio.”
Thankfully, Green Day were spared having to attend court and facing a long, drawn-out process, but others haven’t been as lucky. Earlier this year, Ed Sheeran and his co-writers, Snow Patrol’s John McDaid and producer Steve McCutcheon, faced similar accusations that they had stolen ‘Shape Of You’ from the Sami Chokri and Ross O’Donoghue song ‘Oh Why’.
Sheeran and his team were eventually found to have made no wrongdoing after Mr Justice Zacaroli concluded that Sheeran “neither deliberately nor subconsciously” copied a phrase from ‘Oh Why’.
Following the judgement, Sheeran said: “There are only so many notes and very few chords used in pop music and coincidences are bound to happen if 60,000 songs are being released a day on Spotify, that is 22m songs a year, and there are only 12 notes that are available.”
He added: “Claims like this are way too common now and have become a culture where a claim is made with the idea that a settlement will be cheaper than taking it to court, even if there is no basis for the claim, and it’s really damaging to the songwriting industry.”
While some legitimate claims are made about plagiarism in the music industry, that is only in the minority of cases. More often than not, it’s an artist trying to capitalise upon somebody else’s success and seeking a settlement outside of court, even though they are both aware no conscious plagiarism occurred.
