Plagiarism | Joe Bennett Music Services

Did Lana Del Rey copy Radiohead?

by Joe Bennett | Jan 9, 2018 | Copyright, musicology, Plagiarism, Popular Music, Songwriting

This week, Lana Del Rey stated that she is being sued for copying Radiohead’s 1992 song Creep in her 2017 release, Get Free. It’s true about the lawsuit. Although I know my song wasn’t inspired by Creep, Radiohead feel it was and want 100% of the publishing...

Close to the Edge: investigating songwriting's ‘plagiarism threshold’

by Joe Bennett | Jun 26, 2017 | Copyright, IASPM, musicology, Plagiarism, Research, Songwriting

Joe Bennett, Boston Conservatory at Berklee [Presented at IASPM 2017, 26 June 2017] Here is the abstract, with references, for the academic paper I presented at the IASPM 2017 conference in Kassel, Germany. At the moment it’s just abstract, slides and...

Wayfair, you've got just the soundalikes I need

by Joe Bennett | Jun 23, 2017 | Copyright, musicology, Plagiarism, Research, Songwriting

Friends, musicians and soundmen (and women) – lend me your ears. Here are some Wayfair TV commercials in a playlist – let me know (Twitter @joebennettmusic) what songs you think they’re using as a template for the music. Disclosure – this is...

[ABSTRACT] Appropriation and Copyrightability in Music Copyright

by Joe Bennett | Feb 7, 2017 | Copyright, Plagiarism, Popular Music, Research

I Hate These Blurred Lines: Wrongful Appropriation and Copyrightability in Music Copyright Academic/copyright post: here’s an abstract (pdf) of a paper that I’ll be presenting with Prof Wendy Gordon next week at Boston University Law School. This is based...

What exactly did 'Stairway to Heaven' copy from 'Taurus'?

by Joe Bennett | Apr 14, 2016 | Copyright, musicology, Plagiarism, Popular Music, Songwriting

As mentioned in a previous post, the question of whether Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven (1971) copies a part of Spirit’s Taurus (1968) may soon be settled. Representatives of the late Randy Wolfe (aka Randy California) are claiming that the four-bar...

Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven

by Joe Bennett | Apr 13, 2016 | Copyright, Plagiarism, Popular Music, Research, Songwriting

So the Stairway to Heaven / Taurus controversy was back in the news yesterday, due to the fact that the dispute is to go to a jury in the US in May this year. I participated in a panel discussion about this a couple of years back for a Russian radio station. In the...