Musicology

I’ve been paying attention to this case while waiting for significant shoes to drop in a bunch of others. This court is making decisions that will turn into raised points in the others. An amicus by Bryan Frye (my friend, let me divulge) throws a friendly wrench into this one. And I think it’s important. …

Vince Vance was wrong to sue Mariah Carey. So, why am I sympathizing now? Last week, a judge dismissed what is almost certainly the last of Vince Vance’s misguided “All I Want For Christmas Is You” lawsuits. No surprise there. I’ve explained multiple times why the case was fundamentally flawed from the outset. The dismissal …

Delighted to be on with the BBC to discuss, fortunately, not one of the more nuanced cases out there. And especially pleased and grateful to the host and producers for not letting me sound silly after what had gone something like: 8:30am: RING. “Hi. It’s BBC News. Can you jump on in 45 minutes to …

I’m not the one to ask. But I’m not sure who is. A forensic musicologist is bound to be asked about AI. Q: “How do artificial intelligence-based tools affect my process?” A: I’m using AI more and more, certainly not for assessing substantial similarity, but cool stuff like stem separation, for example — very helpful …

But The Plaintiff’s Musicological Argument Still Falls Flat. Music copyright stuff happened yesterday, a little bit. As reported by Rolling Stone and Billboard this morning, the Miley Cyrus’s Flowers vs. Bruno Mars’ When I Was Your Man case can’t stop, won’t stop—following an interesting attempt at dismissal that stood no reasonable chance. Flowers, of course, …

I was reading an academic paper the other day, and it began: You are just as qualified as any expert to make a judgment and have a feeling or a response to any work of art. – Bill Viola And I’m like, “No, you aren’t. Sure, for certain kinds of judgments, but not any judgment. …

Whatever the record is around here for the quickest complete dismissal of an infringement claim, I expect to challenge it today. The accused work, “Dare To Know,” by Yes, whom I’ll disclose I listened to constantly in my youth, does not infringe on a cue from the movie “A Winter Rose,” which I don’t plan …

Last week, Plies sued Megan Thee, GloRilla, Cardi, and Soulja Boy for copyright infringement. The complaint is here, if you’d like to read it. Plies’s twisty claim seems to be that Soulja Boy’s “Pretty Boy Swag” (2010) infringes on Plies’s “Me & My Goons” (2008), and then Megan Thee Stallion, GloRilla, and Cardi B’s “Wanna …

One for the lawyers. Something good should come from this. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed the ruling (one of a couple of em) that Ed Sheeran’s “Thinking Out Loud” does not infringe on Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On. The plaintiff here was neither Marvin Gaye’s estate, nor co-writer Robert …

Drake and Chris Brown’s familiar track is titled “No Guidance,” but I admit I think of it a little bit as “You Got It,” and it occurs to me that this isn’t even my first time looking at this track. “No Guidance” faced another separate infringement claim in 2022. Musicologize looked and found no merit. …