Strict adherence to Arnstein is inefficient and potentially corrupting. Arnstein v. Porter (That’s Cole Porter) put in place the two-pronged test for infringement. The idea is that we first ask if someone copied a work from a pre-existing work, and then, secondly and separately, whether that copying constitutes improper appropriation, which is comprised of substantial …

Marshall Jefferson is suing Ye because Jefferson’s iconic 1986 track, “Move Your Body,” was allegedly sampled without permission on Kanye’s Donda 2’s “Flowers” and to make things potentially more complicated, Kanye’s song and therefore “Flowers” samples are distributed on a hardware device that allows remixing the stems. (The maker of the player, Alex Klein, is …

I like this song; the other one; not Mariah Carey’s; no, I mean the plaintiff’s. “All I Want for Christmas Is You” by Vince Vance & The Valiants is a nice little holiday track. Not so much in June, no, but a week before Christmas when I’ve heard the Mariah Carey version a hundred times, …

It’s that “Standing Outside The Fire” by Garth Brooks sounds a ton like “Conviction Of The Heart” by Kenny Loggins. And this conflict came to a supposedly “amicable” settlement many years ago. But Loggins put out a memoir recently and brought up the whole thing again and it sounds a bit less amicable. Settlements don’t …

Go big or go home, I guess? Songwriter and performer Andy Stone is suing Mariah Carey and a co-writer for $20 Million because he might actually believe “All I Want For Christmas Is You” is an infringement of his own song by the same title released a few years prior. I know, nobody wants to …

One for my lawyer friends. My expertise is musical, not legal, but of course, I think about music through a legal lens pertaining to copyright law. And I’ll get frustrated with the way things are handled, legally, from time to time. This is one of those times. The last time I tried to be so …

Headlines galore: “Ed Sheeran blasts the culture of copyright cases!” and “Ed Sheeran will video his songwriting sessions from now on!” As has become the drill, reporting on these cases is about putting the latest high-profile lawsuit du jour in context with Blurred Lines and the copyright infringement cases that have followed. And I suppose …

Making time for a hot take on a Friday, because news popped today that the jazz gospel a cappella group Take 6 has evidently (I’m not certain) filed an infringement suit because the Grammy-nominated H.E.R. (featuring Bryson Tiller) track “Could’ve Been” sure sounds like it relies heavily on a sample from Take 6’s “Come Unto …

Two songs that sound a lot alike. Is it copying or coincidence? Anyone remember a Seinfeld episode in which Elaine and a visiting character, Zara, argued about whether some coincidences are bigger than others, or all coincidences just 100% coincidences? If you agree with Elaine, that there are degrees of coincidences, which is about perception …

This popped yesterday and it took a few hours for me to spot it, so I dont have a thoughtful take on it yet. But give me a few more hours and I’ll get after it. I can’t wait, really. I can give a not so thoughtful take right now though, and it’s that at …