Musicology

It’s not so much that anyone even knew, much less cared, that there was a copyright infringement case involving “You Raise Me Up,” by Josh Groban and Westlife. It’s more that now that the case has been dismissed it joins recent judgments on famous infringement cases around “Stairway To Heaven” and “Dark Horse” to collectively …

Protection for a combination of unprotected elements. Musically, the “Led Zeppelin Stairway v Spirit Taurus” trial was at best an abstraction. Legally though? — it’s awesome and informs the starting point from which to look at the second half of the Dark Horse ruling’s consideration of “protection of a combination of unprotected elements.” The Dark …

Ed Sheeran is waiting for his day in court, facing Ed Townsend’s charge that megahit “Thinking Out Loud” infringes on “Let’s Get It On,” another megahit by Marvin Gaye. (Townsend co-wrote it.) And while the case doesn’t get to court for months, Sheeran’s case probably got a boost from the recent Dark Horse ruling and …

Wound up in an okay place, but the means are highly suspect. So much press lauding these decisions. They should read them with a different eye, Dark Horse especially. “Dark Horse,” “Stairway,” and “Blurred Lines” collectively had composers paralyzed with fear, right? Plenty of other big songs found their way to litigation in the past …

Pleased? Yes, I am. Satisfied? Not till I read the whole decision. Which so far looks dicey. Check back. Meantime, there are other articles on this site that look at Dark Horse. This first most recent one — Copyright infringement and the Climate Of Fear — covers the idea that a few bad verdicts shouldn’t …

As musicology case law goes, this ain’t much of anything. But it’s The Big Bang Theory, so we can give it a few minutes, can’t we? Like Friends had “Smelly Cat,” so The Big Bang Theory has “Soft Kitty,” a little ditty that gets sung periodically to soothe a character who’s feeling sick. Big Bang’s …

First off, this isn’t headed anywhere, because Billy Idol is credited on The Strokes recent single “Bad Decisions.” Still interested in hypothesizing about how that came about, and the appropriateness of it, and looking forward to the Strokes maybe one day telling the story. First, in case you’ve not heard it, here’s “Bad Decisions” by …

For about five years there’s been a steady stream of infringement cases in the world of pop music. We’ve seen Katy Perry, Robin Thicke, Justin Timberlake, Lizzo, Juice WRLD, Carrie Underwood, Justin Bieber, Ed Sheeran (repeatedly), Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus, and Childish Gambino, off the top of my head, all in the news facing infringement …

About a year ago, October, 2018, hip hop artist M.O.S. complained that the Migos hit single, “Walk It, Talk It,” is a rip-off of his 2007 track “Walk It Like I Talk It.” I’m a bit surprised. I kinda think this went away a bit too easily. U.S. District Judge Analisa Nadine’s ruling is that …

(This article discusses a case involving Juice WRLD, who since I wrote the article tragically passed away. ) It’s similarity, right? Both are important, sure, but where there’s tremendous significant similarity between two works, you can somewhat assume access. Less so the other way around. Similarity is paramount, isn’t it? Lately though, I’m noticing that …