Musicology

As a forensic musicologist, I’m asked about AI, of course. “How do artificial intelligence-based tools affect my process?” and “What do I think about training models on copyrighted musical works?” To the first question, yes, I’m using AI more and more, certainly not for assessing substantial similarity, but cool stuff like stem separation, for example …

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. …

This could get interesting. In fact, I think it might be the first of its kind. Give me a little rope. In a recently filed lawsuit, the estate of Barry White claims that “Everlasting Bass,” released in 1986, infringes Barry White’s 1973 song “I’m Gonna Love You Just a Little More Baby.” Awwww yeeah, Baby. …

This one will be fun—huge records by huge stars. “Flowers” and “When I Was Your Man” were both number-one hits and Grammy winners. “Flowers” was Record of the Year! Two super well-known songs, and nobody is completely shocked at this filing. (Which, by the way, is not Bruno Mars but Tempo Music Investments, LLC, which …

(Getting a lot of use lately out of this artificial intelligence-generated “Scale of Music Copyright Justice” image we prompted, aren’t we?) After nearly four years, Trump finally lost the Eddy Grant “Electric Avenue” case, as we said he would. That case now moves to its damages phase. And we might take a somewhat wild guess …