A pop ballad banned in Belgium for a 43% melodic coincidence
In short: Michael Jackson's 1995 hit "You Are Not Alone" is more than a sentimental R&B ballad. It is the subject of a bizarre legal saga involving a registered score that was never commercially released, leading to a total broadcast ban and heavy fines in one European nation.
The song was born from a personal exchange between R. Kelly and Michael Jackson. Kelly, seeking to work with his idol, sent a demo tape featuring a vocal performance where he mimicked Jackson's style so closely that Jackson found it amusing. They spent the final week of November 1994 in a Chicago studio refining the track. While Kelly wrote the lyrics, Jackson insisted on a collaborative production, adding a choir and structural climaxes to the original demo, which lacked harmony or modulations.
The track's legacy is marked by a significant legal dispute with brothers Edward and Daniel van Passel. The Belgian Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers (SABAM) received a registration from the siblings for a piece named "If We Can Start All Over" during 1993. When Jackson's hit became a global success, the brothers claimed it was similar to their work. They initially won a 2003 ruling in the Court of Leuven, which found a 43.46% similarity between the melodies. However, the Court of Appeal in Brussels reversed this in 2007, noting that Kelly's evidence of writing the song only dates back to August 1995—21 months after the brothers' registration.
A peculiar cultural prohibition emerged from the legal dispute: the music video and the track itself are forbidden from airing on Belgian television or radio. Vendors caught with copies face fines of €1,000 per copy. Notwithstanding the debate, the track is a financial juggernaut, possessing a Guinness World Record for being the initial US Billboard Hot 100 entry to hit number one, having sold upwards of one million units at home.
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Sources
- Summary by Intellect · source: You Are Not Alone
- Also: Wikidata — You Are Not Alone · CC0
- Also: Wikidata — You Are Not Alone · CC0
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