kenneth:

Yep...very common practice in the commercial pop world especially in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

Wasn't "Killing Me Softly" recorded by its original writer [[a kind of female folk singer, as I recall) before Roberta Flack's version? .....
As I understand it Roberta Flack released her version of this song a couple of years after the composer first released her version. IWO Roberta Flack rescued an overlooked and otherwise forgotten song. Nothing scuzzy there and not comparable to what Vickki Carr & Co. were trying to pull off with AIN'T NO MOUNTAIN .

I think incidences of song stealing can be cited here and there, but I'd hardly call it common practice . Yes in the fifties, early sixties, when pop music was still a bit like the wild west, there was a more competitive attitude about scoring a hit version first by any means possible. I think that era was more conducive to it for a number of reasons and partly because there were so many small [[ legally defenseless) labels/acts that were easy to raid and also the phenomena of regional hits , where an act or producer might hear a record that was breaking say in Texas by some local artist and then they'd rush back to New York and cut a version to compete in a different market . "Spotting" hit songs was as important as having a roster of stars for up and coming labels . But by the mid sixties I think a lot of that attitude had changed and there were more laws and lawyers in place. I think those earlier examples could be many. But again by the mid-sixties , not so much . A thread listing instances of record stealing after that time might be very interesting. Maybe there are many more than I'm aware of. I certainly didn't know about the Vikki Carr situation and I'm still befuddled as to why they thought it a good idea to try to steal the reworked version from Diana Ross and Motown right down to the new spoken word content . Scuzzy , shameless , whatever the right word is.

As far as Motown goes, did they ever practice this , intentionally wrestle away songs from other acts and labels before they could release/ break the songs themselves? ? Even once?