Music lawsuits can be based on about as much information as they're conveying. I think that's their point, too. I don't believe they were trying to be satirical, they wanted to prove a point about the nature of music itself that could be used in defending musicians against lawsuits.
One of the items they were trying to point out, often abused in lawsuits for pop music, is the idea of "Access". If you came up with an idea all by yourself, but a similar song exists that is popular enough, the court argues that just by there being the possibility that you heard it, you therefore definitely heard it and then copied it.
If this music set exists, and is freely available, shouldn't it be considered that you had reasonable access to it and therefore stole it? No, of course not, that would be a ridiculous assumption and so is the current outlook of a song being popular being enough proof that you stole the idea.
Not to mention, music is extremely formulaic. Chord progressions have a natural tendency to certain forms, with centuries of prior art, rhythm within genres of music is often the same, even melodies have a trend toward particular combinations (leading tones over chord progressions bring about lots of similar sounding solos).
Any musician trying to claim copyright for their music should remember that their song only exists on the back of centuries of musical exploration. Consider how much of the song you can say is truly novel, it's going to be nearly nothing.
The combination of lyrics + chords + melody is in my opinion, the absolute minimum you need to claim a song has been copied. Lyrics are derivative, melodies are derivative, chord progressions are derivative, but together they have the chance to be a unique combination.
>I don't believe they were trying to be satirical, they wanted to prove a point about the nature of music itself that could be used in defending musicians against lawsuits.
Sufficiently advanced “proving a point via absurdity to make a more general argument” is indistinguishable from satire.
One of the items they were trying to point out, often abused in lawsuits for pop music, is the idea of "Access". If you came up with an idea all by yourself, but a similar song exists that is popular enough, the court argues that just by there being the possibility that you heard it, you therefore definitely heard it and then copied it.
If this music set exists, and is freely available, shouldn't it be considered that you had reasonable access to it and therefore stole it? No, of course not, that would be a ridiculous assumption and so is the current outlook of a song being popular being enough proof that you stole the idea.
Not to mention, music is extremely formulaic. Chord progressions have a natural tendency to certain forms, with centuries of prior art, rhythm within genres of music is often the same, even melodies have a trend toward particular combinations (leading tones over chord progressions bring about lots of similar sounding solos).
Any musician trying to claim copyright for their music should remember that their song only exists on the back of centuries of musical exploration. Consider how much of the song you can say is truly novel, it's going to be nearly nothing.
The combination of lyrics + chords + melody is in my opinion, the absolute minimum you need to claim a song has been copied. Lyrics are derivative, melodies are derivative, chord progressions are derivative, but together they have the chance to be a unique combination.