I've always had the belief that there are only so many ideas out there. With the amount of musicians out there in the world, someone is bound to plagiarize something sooner or later. Whether or not that is accidental depends on the individual cases. It's one of the ways influence works too. Many bands and artists start out sounding like the sum of various influences, and carry on as such, albeit with their own established voice contributing as well.
In my LSD period I often espoused the belief that all artistic ideas already existed as part of some collective consciousness, and individual musicians were merely acting as conduits during the creative process, filtering those things through their own idiosyncrasies. I haven't touched psychedelics for a long time, however I still think that is a theory worthy of consideration.
Of course, some similarities are more blatant than others. Case in point, Killing Joke's "Eighties" (1984) vs. Nirvana's "Come As You Are" (1991) (add The Damned's "Life Goes on" to that, which came first in 1982). Too similar to be a coincidence. Agreed that chord progressions cannot be considered as intellectual property.
In my LSD period I often espoused the belief that all artistic ideas already existed as part of some collective consciousness, and individual musicians were merely acting as conduits during the creative process, filtering those things through their own idiosyncrasies. I haven't touched psychedelics for a long time, however I still think that is a theory worthy of consideration.
Of course, some similarities are more blatant than others. Case in point, Killing Joke's "Eighties" (1984) vs. Nirvana's "Come As You Are" (1991) (add The Damned's "Life Goes on" to that, which came first in 1982). Too similar to be a coincidence. Agreed that chord progressions cannot be considered as intellectual property.
"As wolves among sheep we have wandered"