Musicology

Tis the season of listicles, so here are the top five copyright cases of the year. Two aren’t even music copyright cases, though one of those does have Prince in it. Know what? Make it six. The first one is a bonus. The bar for the responsible application of music copyright has been raised and …

It’s one of the most famous copyright infringement cases of all time. In 1970, the year of The Beatles’ breakup, George Harrison had a hit song called “My Sweet Lord.” It’s very familiar, obviously. And it certainly sounded very familiar to Bright Tunes Music Corporation, the owner of the copyright to the 1964 song “He’s …

Wow. Roddy Ricch was sued for copyright infringement just last week over “The Box!” I think it’s five days later and he and DaBaby are being sued again for another #1 hit, “Rockstar.” And this news might actually be a day or two old. Juju Beatz (real name Craig Mims) is suing because he thinks …

A quick look at the lawsuit alleging that Roddy Ricch lifted his #1 hit, “The Box” from Greg Perry’s “Come On Down.” What’s it really about? And does it look like a strong case? (no.) First, the super short version: The foremost point of interest seems to be an unprotectable glissando that appears at the …

There’s not much that amuses copyright experts more than seeing non-sensical tags such as “No Copyright Intended” and the like in social media posts that contain popular songs. The posters are aware obviously that the post possibly infringes, but they believe the tag excuses them somehow. “Copyright” is pretty much the right to copy, and …

And how do marketing and advertising agencies employ preventative forensic musicologist services to reduce their music copyright risks preemptively? Let’s start by trying to define what musicologists mean by “preventative or preemptive forensic musicology.” “Preventative forensic musicology” is the application of music research, analysis, and often the comparison of two or more works to illuminate …

Compared to everything else Ye has going on lately — anti-semitic remarks here and there for example, and the backlash that’ll come from that sort of thing — Adidas, Gap (still in business) and Balenciaga disassociating themselves — another copyright infringement lawsuit is table stakes, but it’s the stuff we understand, so… Kanye West is …

Do you remember when Disney got sued because “Let It Go” sounded like “Volar?” No? Me neither, but here we go again. Earlier this week, Daniel E. Grigson, filed a complaint in a Los Angeles court, claiming that “Some Things Never Change” from Disney’s Frozen 2 infringes upon his song “That Girl,” which he wrote …

Advertising and creative agencies take advantage of preventative forensic musicologist services to reduce their music copyright risks preemptively. Anytime we put music to picture, we introduce inherent risks, music for advertising especially. Maybe the music we chose resembles something else. Maybe our music was created with a pre-existing work in mind. Maybe this campaign is …

It sure got people worked up, but it was mostly nonsense. In the few days immediately following the July 29th release of “Renaissance” (Beyoncé’s first album since her 2016 Grammy-winning “Lemonade”) the main story was that it contained a sample from a Kelis track and without permission. Neither of those was ever quite true. There …