Andrew Oldham settled out of court whilst Alan Klein (who was savvy enough to take an ‘pecuniary’ – that is… economic – interest in ALL of the Rolling Stones’ songs during the 1960′s) originally agreed a 50/50 split of royalties. Having seen the song steadily gain in popularity (due in part to the hard work of the Virgin Records Group) he rescinded that “offer” and announced that he’d take 100%.

The track was not ‘copied note for note’ – that would be ridiculous and no band setting out to take a whole song in that way would bother to secure rights for a sample of part of it.

This case unfortunately demonstrates how Copyright law is often enacted, not to support or incentivise artistic production (to benefit the artist), but instead to further economic concerns and interests of plutocrats. This is not good for society.

Nobody would want to see work stolen from an author and yet the irony is that The Verve fell foul (stupidly) of Copyright infringement and paid a hefty price – they lost their work almost in its entirety (they held some moral rights). This makes it increasingly difficult for artists to be influenced and rekindle past works for creative purposes. It also denies a society access to its heritage.

God forbid an artist like the Verve get creative with a short string melody, write some amazing lyrics and a great vocal melody to it and end up creating one of the best pop songs of the 90s. At least one person was able to make that terrible song interesting and catchy.