Opinion

(Update: Weeknd was granted summary judgment. See note at bottom of this month old post.) For The Weeknd, one much-publicized lawsuit went away, but another comes back around to take its place. The band, “Yeasayer” had claimed The Weeknd’s “Pray For Me” (a collaboration with Kendrick Lamar that appeared in the Black Panther soundtrack) sampled …

Alt title: “All the presumable arguments in Sheerans case that could possibly arise.” As you may have read already there’s a new case against Thinking Out Loud, claiming (as does at least two other cases) that it infringes upon “Let’s Get It On.” This time there are additional defendants and a new registration of the …

There are now no fewer than three lawsuits arguing that Ed Sheeran’s super mega hit “Thinking Out Loud” infringes upon Marvin Gaye and Ed Townsend’s “Let’s Get It On;” two of them from the same plaintiff. SAS (Structured Asset Sales), which acquired partial rights to “Let’s Get It On” from one of Mr. Townsend’s successors, …

Let’s not be too sure that “Music Copyright Infringement Is Beginning To Make Sense Again,” as this Forbes article says. According to Bloomberg Law, Nickelback just got sued because their hit “Rockstar,” according to a musician named Kirk Johnston, sounds too much like his own “Rock Star” track, which as you might’ve guessed is similar …

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 …

I’ll keep this one brief. Because there’s nothing to get into here. And I’m gonna predict that Miley Cyrus, Mike WiLL Made-It and Wiz Khalifa will swat this one aside in short order. Still, it’s interesting. It’s interesting that someone filed the complaint. This is the sort of thing where Musicologize might employ a Politifct …

Katy Perry’s Dark Horse case appears to be going to court. In 2015 a Christian rap artist named Flame claimed Katy Perry’s “Dark Horse” infringed upon his track “Joyful Noise.” A few years later, the case hasn’t settled and according to latest reports is indeed going to trial. Anything to see here? Well, the judge himself just called this “…an extremely close …

I doubt it. Today I read an interesting article by Christopher J. Buccafusco, Professor of Law at Yeshiva University, entitled The Blurred Lines of Copyright Law Are Limiting Musical Creativity. Buccafusco argues or perhaps thinks manifest that the “innovation space” of music is dwindling naturally because, first, the field is increasingly full of the protected intellectual …

Don’t hold your breath waiting for Radiohead to sue Sam Smith over “Midnight Train.”   Back in 2014, when Sam Smith’s had his mega-hit with “Stay With Me” (which won him four Grammy’s including the two biggies, SOTY and ROTY, and made Smith a star) it was widely observed that “Stay With Me” sounded a …

Jesse Braham, who is suing Taylor Swift for 40 million, surely believes that he has a fair point. He used a phrase that he thinks was pretty unique in his track, “Haters Gone Hate” and Taylor Swift, a few years later, used the same expression. And of course, here’s Taylor’s megahit. The two songs have …