Did Puddle of Mudd rip off Robin Lane and The Chartbusters?

Final Results of the Random Rogue Poll

It has been suggested by a number of people that the guitar riff in Puddle of Mudd's song "She Hates Me" (which came out in 2002) bears a striking resemblence to Robin Lane and The Chartbusters' song "Idiot" (which came out in 1981 on Imitation Life on the Warner Brothers label and has been rerecorded for their CD Piece of Mind).

From mid-February through mid-August 2003 we conducted a poll on this web site to determine peoples opinions on this matter. We presented mp3 clips of the opening guitar riffs of both songs and then allowed visitors to vote.

Presented here are the final results of the poll.

Uncorrected Results	Corrected Results
What do you think about the similarity between the 2 songs?   I don't hear any similarity   3%   I hear a similarity, but it's probably just coincidence   50%   I hear a similarity, and it seems unlikely to be just a coincidence   29%   There is no doubt in my mind that Puddle of Mudd ripped off Robin Lane and The Chartbusters   18%	What do you think about the similarity between the 2 songs?   I don't hear any similarity   3%   I hear a similarity, but it's probably just coincidence   39%   I hear a similarity, and it seems unlikely to be just a coincidence   36%   There is no doubt in my mind that Puddle of Mudd ripped off Robin Lane and The Chartbusters   21%

No claim is made that this is a scientific survey, as no attempt is made to obtain a cross section of the population or to ensure that nobody votes more than once.

OK, that isn't entirely true. And that's where the Corrected Results come from. While it is impossible to tell for sure if someone votes more than once (since different visitors using the same ISP may appear with the same IP address, and the same visitor may appear with different IP addresses on separate visits if an ISP uses dynamic addressing), it is a safe bet that if consecutive votes are cast from the same IP address within a few seconds of each other that they are from the same person. And there were a number of instances of that, including one case where 15 votes were cast in less than 3 minutes from the same IP address. The Corrected Results have adjusted for this, while the Uncorrected Results include all votes.

The use of the short clip of "She Hates Me" for this poll was allowable under the fair use provisions of the copyright law, and the opinions expressed here are those of the anonymous visitors who take the poll. So don't sue us.

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