Photo Credit: Olivia Rodrigo by Raph_PH / CC by 2.0
Robbie Williams issues a statement on copyright infringement allegations, specifically coming to Olivia Rodrigo’s defense over her new holiday single.
Olivia Rodrigo and Taylor Swift have had a long and sordid history over the last five years. The former was a fan of the latter, but things quickly soured between the two after allegations that Rodrigo had infringed on Swift’s work. In September, tensions have only escalated in that department, as some tracks from Rodrigo’s debut album, Sour, have retroactively received credits to other artists. Rodrigo is now facing criticism over her holiday single, “Take Me Home (4 Christmas),” which led to Britpop icon Robbie Williams coming to her defense.
Rodrigo released her first holiday single this past weekend, but critics were quick to accuse her of ripping off the 1981 song “Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses. But even Chris Butler, who wrote “Christmas Wrapping,” denied that any plagiarism had occurred. Major publications have said that Rodrigo’s song is in the spirit of the Waitresses’ hit, but there are no notable similarities.
Afterward, Robbie Williams tweeted acknowledgement to Rodrigo, writing, “Happy Christmas, @oliviarodrigo x,” leading to speculation that he was signaling that Rodrigo’s new song is actually ripping off his 2012 track “Candy.”
On Monday morning, Williams took to Instagram to issue a lengthy statement defending Rodrigo and calling out artists who exploit younger stars by alleging copyright infringement where there may be none, leading to frivolous lawsuits.
“There are only so many notes. Only so many chords. Only so many ways of putting them together before you inevitably find yourself somewhere somebody else has been. Music has been around for a very long time. We’re all going to bump into each other eventually,” Williams wrote.
“Which brings me to Olivia Rodrigo,” he continued, noting how much he loves her music. “It sounds to me as though she may have accidentally stumbled across a musical echo of mine in one of her new songs. And do you know what? I couldn’t care less. I don’t know whether there’s technically a publishing issue, a copyright issue, or no issue whatsoever. And I don’t want to know. I’m not going after her. Because I think at some point, some fucking sanity has to prevail.”
“I appreciate I’m in a position in my career where I can afford to take that view. Not everybody is. And genuine theft is genuine theft. Artists deserve to be protected. But there’s a difference between protecting your work and treating every vaguely familiar sequence of notes as a winning lottery ticket. Some of this stuff has become ambulance chasing. And I think it’s disgusting,” Williams said.
“We all stand on the shoulders of people who came before us. Sometimes consciously. Sometimes without even knowing it. That’s how music works,” he wrote. “If we keep punishing people for accidentally arriving somewhere somebody else has already been, eventually we’re going to frighten the creativity out of everyone.”
