How badly did the Stones rip the Beatles off?

By November of 1963, the Beatles had already conquered jolly ole 

Stones manager with Beatles manager

England and were starting to have their songs played on American radio.  Meanwhile, the Rolling Stones weren't even able to get their songs played on radios in their own homeland.  Until... one day the Stones manager (Andrew Loog Oldham - who had previously worked for the Beatles) ran into John Lennon and Paul McCartney on the streets of London.  Oldham explained how badly the Stones needed a top 20 hit to crack the British airwaves.  Since the Beatles were the ones who directed Oldham to the Stones in the first place, they felt bad for him, so Lennon and McCartney told Oldham that they would meet him and the Stones at a recording session at De Lane Lea Studio and then write the Stones a hit song.  When Lennon and McCartney arrived shortly afterward, they quickly worked out a song called "I want to be your man" and gave it to the Stones to record -  and within days the Rolling Stones had gone from just another struggling local Rock and Roll group to a nationally known band with a #12 hit that became very accustomed to riding on the coat tails of the Beatles.

 The Stones signed with Decca Records after Decca had taken a lot of flack for previously passing on the Beatles.  Decca was eager to save face and wanted to start fighting for a share of the new young record buying market that the Beatles ruled supreme over.  But Oldham quickly realized that no band could compete with the Beatles, so he devised a brilliant plan that would get the Stones mentioned alongside the Beatles as much as possible.  The plan was to market the Stones as the anti-Beatles.  Whereas the Beatles manager Brian Epstein went to great lengths to clean the Beatles up and make them respectable, Oldham would do just the opposite with the Stones.  He would take this group of middle-class kids and dress them up to look tough, dangerous, sloppy, raunchy.  Soon, with Oldham's encouragement, press releases were asking the question: "Would you let a Rolling Stone date your daughter". 

Oldham also encouraged Keith and Mick to follow in Lennon and McCartney's footsteps by writing their OWN material.  But that soon proved to be a skill that did come as easy to them as it did to Lennon-McCartney, so they continued to record songs written by others - usually American blues artists.  Still though, in 1964, after the Beatles conquered America and the British Invasion was in full swing, again the Stones followed in the Beatles footsteps and headed to the US for a tour that included a number of TV

appearances along the way.  The results were disasterous and after just a couple weeks the Stones limped back to their homeland, publicly mocked by lounge singer Dean Martin and upstaged by the Godfather of Soul James Brown.  The Stones were down, but not out - for as they visited Chess records in Chicago and met with the legendary Muddy Waters, they had a transformational experience.  The Stones recorded their next album there at Chess and everything changed for them from that point on.  For the next two years the Stones went on a streak of hit records that rivaled the Beatles.  And it was at that point that a fabricated Beatles-Stones rivalry became common

fodder for Rock audiences all over the world.

The Beatles rarely even acknowledged this rivalry, but the Stones played it to the max.  One classic example was in 1967 after the Beatles re-defined the Rock landscape with their historic Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club band album.  Sgt. Peppers was in tune with the psychedelic sound of the time as it struck a chord with a generation of new music critics and fans alike - being touted as a "concept" album.  It was so huge and influential that everything in its wake was in its shadow.  So when the Stones were ready to make their next album they decided to stick with their formula of copying the Beatles.  Not only did they fill their next album with psychedelic songs, but they hired Michael Cooper (the artist who photographed Sgt. Pepper cover art) to create a 3D photo for their own album which they titled Their Satanic Majesties Request.  The result was a cover that ripped off the covers of both of the Beatles 1967 releases in Sgt Pepper and Magical Mystery Tour:

Their Satanic Majesties Request was not as well-received as Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band, but the copycatting would continue by the Stones.  In 1968, the Beatles released their eclectic self-titled album, commonly referred to as the White Album.  The White Album mixed folk, radio hall, pop, blues, rock, experimental sound collage, and even a country-flavored tune or two into a double album.  The Stones followed later in the year with their own eclectic offering of county and blues songs, Beggar's Banquet.  Most striking though, was how the Stones copied the Beatles cover art for the album:                      

Next, the Stones, still trying to ride on the Beatles coat tails, began plans to shoot an ad hoc film called The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus with hopes of having it air on the BBC.  Filming came exactly one year after the BBC aired a Beatles ad hoc film titled

The Magical Mystery Tour.  Interestingly enough, Beatle John Lennon even directly participated in this copycat endeavor by fronting and performing with a one-off supergroup called the Dirty Mac with the Stones Keith Richards on guitar.  Dirty Mac performed the Lennon song "Yer Blues" which he had previously recorded with the Beatles for The White Album.       

Lennon's participation in the Rock and Roll Circus hints that the Stones imitating the Beatles was all in good fun.  The Stones and Beatles were good friends after all.  Still though, the Stones imitating the Beatles became so blatant that Lennon decided to call them out for it in his song "Dig A Pony" when he sings:

I roll a stoney.
Well you can imitate everyone you know.
Yes, you can imitate everyone you know.
I told you so!

This did not deter the Stones however.  One month after the filming of The Rolling Stones Rock and Roll Circus, the Beatles recorded the song "Let it Be" which also eventually became the title of the album they were recording.  The Stones then followed suit by naming their next album Let it Bleed in December of 1969.  But that finally seemed as if it would be the last time the Stones would get to copy the Beatles, for in 1970 the Beatles famously broke up.  

But then again... after a mid decade slump during the 1970's, the Stones made a comeback in 1977 by making them selves up as whores (fittingly enough) on their Some Girls album cover, which is a colorful, but obvious copycat of the Beatles' A Hard Day's Night:

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