Musicology

Of course Campaigns that put music to picture do carry intellectual property risk, and when infringement cases involving Taylor Swift, Led Zeppelin, or Ed Sheeran make the news, it certainly raises awareness and concern around copyright, plagiarism, and infringement. So it’s no surprise that advertisers, creative agencies, music supervisors, and composers want preemptive and preventative …

Bad Bunny is being sued by BM Records, which controls the rights to a bunch of mixtapes from the 1990’s by DJ Playero. BM Records and DJ Playero get a lot of credit for the development of reggaeton. (Thanks a lot for that, by the way.) And they claim Bad Bunny’s hit Safaera contains material …

The biggest record in the world, Olivia Rodrigo’s “Sour” has been under constant fire since it came out at the beginning of summer. Early on, she gave Taylor Swift a songwriting credit for “deja vu,” Sour’s third track? After that it was pretty much open season. Next, the promotional art was too much like a …

** Update: 3/20/23, this case was settled a few days ago. We don’t know the terms and can’t read too much into it. The Weeknd has excellent counsel, as you would expect, so although I think everything I outlined in this analysis a couple of years ago makes perfect sense, we don’t get to know …

Olivia Rodrigo’s debut record was about as big a deal in my house as any release in a long time. Drivers License had worn out its welcome, and Good 4 You, which was 10x better in every way, was all I heard for a week. Then I thought about the Paramore song and imagined, “I’ll …

TMZ reports there’s a lawsuit out there today because a couple of songwriters heard Jake Owens’s “Made For You” and its “Do, Mi, Re… Do” melody along with the lyric, “I was made for you.” They rightly thought it was very similar to the cadence in their own “Made For You” song. And THEN they …

Jay-Z and Timbaland still have to deal with Ernie Hines after all. If there is no settlement, and I really hope there is not, this case is way more interesting than it at first appears; a lot to look at. How’s it likely to end? We’ll get to that. First though, let’s look at the …

This is an actual email I received from an artist scared to put their own work out into the world for fear it would be copied, plagiarized, infringed upon, otherwise ripped off: “I’m a producer and songwriter. I’d love to show my stuff to producers and artists, but I’m afraid they’ll steal it. Should I …

Got time for a quick story? Just last week my daughter all of the sudden wanted to learn acoustic guitar. Specifically, Paul McCartney’s “Blackbird.” Two days later, with a little help from me and a little from the internet, pretty much never having touched a guitar prior, she could play Blackbird. (Thanks to some youtube …

A forensic musicologist applies musical expertise to illuminate the relevant truths in matters of civil law and there are four or five common situations in which they get a call. 1. Someone is suing you for copyright infringement. An accusation has been made that you copied another’s work, and although you’re sure their mistaken, you …