Plagiarism | Joe Bennett Music Services

Writ Parade: Why American songwriters are suing each other

by admin | Jun 4, 2021 | Copyright, Forensic Musicology, Plagiarism, Popular Music, Songwriting

The case against Childish Gambino is the latest in a run of copyright claims Article + interview with Joe Bennett. Words: Tom Wainwright. Originally published in The Economist, 15 May 2021. “You motherfuckers owe me!” raps Donald Glover, better known as...

Did Childish Gambino plagiarize in “This Is America”? [answer: no]

by Joe Bennett | May 19, 2021 | Copyright, Forensic Musicology, musicology, Plagiarism, Popular Music, Songwriting

Betteridge’s law famously states that “Any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no”. And so, in the spirit of good blogging and the avoidance of cheap clickbait, I have answered my own question in the title of this post....

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...