Table 1
The 40 music copyright infringement cases analyzed, ordered by year of decision. All cases involve vocal songs except the seven underlined instrumental works. Detailed summaries, legal documents, and audio recordings for each case can be found at the MCIR by clicking on the relevant hyperlinks.
| NO. | YEAR | JURISDICTION | CASE | COMPLAINING WORK | DEFENDING WORK | INFRINGEMENT DECISION? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2018 | US | Pharrell Williams, et al. v. Bridgeport Music, et al. | Got to Give it Up | Blurred Lines | Yes |
| 2* | 2018 | JP | Harumaki Gohan v. Mori | Hachigatsu no Rainy [August Rainy] | M.A.K.E. | Yes |
| 3 | 2017 | NZ | Eight Mile Style v. New Zealand National Party | Lose Yourself | Eminem Esque | Yes |
| 4 | 2017 | US | Parker, et al. v. Winwood, et al. | Ain’t That a Lot of Loving | Gimmee Some Lovin | No |
| 5 | 2016 | US | Bowen v. Paisley | Remind Me | Remind Me | No |
| 6 | 2016 | US | Joel McDonald v. Kanye West, et al. | Made in America | Made in America | No |
| 7 | 2014 | US | Rebecca Francescatti v. Stefani Germanotta [aka “Lady Gaga”] | Juda | Judas | No |
| 8 | 2012 | US | Vincent Peters v. Kanye West, et al. | Stronger | Stronger | No |
| 9 | 2010 | US | Currin, et al. v. Arista Records, Inc., et al. | I’m Frontin’ | Frontin | No |
| 10 | 2010 | AU | Larrikin Music Publishing Ltd. v. EMI Songs Australia Plty Ltd. | Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree | Down Under | Yes |
| 11 | 2009 | US | Bridgeport Music, Inc. v. UMG Recordings, Inc. | Atomic Dog | D.O.G. In Me | Yes |
| 12 | 2009 | US | Samuel Steele v. Jon Bongiovi, et al. | Man I Really Love This Team | I Love This Town | No |
| 13 | 2007 | US | Lil’ Joe Wein Music, Inc. v. Jackson | It’s Your Birthday | In Da Club | No |
| 14 | 2007 | TWN | People v. Hu | Liangshan Love Song | Bye Bye My Lover! | Yes |
| 15 | 2005 | US | Vargas v. Pfizer | Bust Dat Groove Without Ride | Advertisement for Celebrex | No |
| 16 | 2005 | US | Positive Black Talk v. Cash Money Records | Back That Ass Up | Back That Azz Up | No |
| 17 | 2005 | PRC | Yong Wang v. Zhengben Zhu | Send My Comrade to Beijing | Farewell to the Red Army | No |
| 18* | 2004 | US | Swirsky v. Carey | One of Those Love Songs | Thank God I Found You | Yes |
| 19 | 2004 | PRC | Apollo Inc. v. Coca Cola (China) Inc. | When the Sun Rises | Sunrise | Yes |
| 20* | 2003 | US | Cottrill v. Spears | What You See is What You Get | What U See is What U Get, Can’t Make You Love Me | No |
| 21* | 2003 | JP | Kobayashi v. Hattori | Dokomademo Ikou [Let’s Go Anywhere] | Kinenju [Memorial Tree] | Yes |
| 22 | 2002 | UK | Malmstedt v. EMI Records | Jenny and I | Sleeping in my Car | No |
| 23* | 2002 | US | Jean et al. v. Bug Music | Hand Clapping Song | My Love is Your Love | No |
| 24* | 2000 | US | Three Boys Music v. Michael Bolton | Love is a Wonderful Thing | Love is a Wonderful Thing | Yes |
| 25* | 1997 | US | Repp v. Webber | Till You | Phantom Song | No |
| 26 | 1996 | US | Santrayll v. Burrell | Uh Oh | Pepsi Ad featuring “Hammer” | No |
| 27* | 1994 | US | Fantasy v. Fogerty | Run Through the Jungle | The Old Man Down the Road | No |
| 28 | 1993 | UK | EMI Music v. Papathanasiou | City of Violets | Theme from “Chariots of Fire” | No |
| 29* | 1991 | US | Grand Upright v. Warner | Alone Again (Naturally) | Alone Again | Yes |
| 30* | 1990 | US | Levine v. McDonald’s Corp. | Life is a Rock (But the Radio Rolled Me) | McDonald’s Menu Song | Yes |
| 31* | 1988 | US | Gaste v. Morris Kaiserman | Pour Toi | Feelings | Yes |
| 32* | 1987 | US | Baxter v. MCA, Inc. | Joy | Theme from ‘E.T.’ | No |
| 33* | 1984 | US | Selle v. Gibb | Let It End | How Deep is Your Love | No |
| 34* | 1978 | JP | Harry v. Suzuki | The Boulevard of Broken Dreams | One Rainy Night in Tokyo | No |
| 35* | 1978 | US | Herald Square Music v. Living Music | Day by Day | Theme for N.B.C.’s “Today Show” | Yes |
| 36 | 1976 | US | MCA Music v. Earl Wilson | Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy | The Cunnilingus Champion of Co. C | Yes |
| 37* | 1976 | US | Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music | He’s So Fine | My Sweet Lord | Yes |
| 38* | 1976 | US | Granite Music v. United Artists | Tiny Bubbles | Hiding the Wine | No |
| 39 | 1964 | US | Nom Music, Inc. v. Kaslin | A Thousand Miles Away | Daddy’s Home | Yes |
| 40 | 1915 | US | Boosey v. Empire Music | I Hear You Calling Me | Tennessee, I Hear You Calling Me | Yes |
[i] *Included in preliminary study (Yuan et al., 2020). Jurisdiction: AU = Australia; JP = Japan; NZ = New Zealand; PRC = People’s Republic of China; US = United States of America; TW = Taiwan (Republic of China).
Figure 1
A) Accuracy of perceptual judgment for each of the 40 court cases, as measured by the percentage of the 51 (28 for full-audio, 23 for melody-only and lyrics-only) participants whose judgments of music copyright infringement matched court decisions. B) The same data plotted with the 51 participants as units averaged across court cases instead of vice-versa. Music experience of the participants is indicated by the filling color of dots; blue = self-reported musician; green = non-musician.
Figure 2
Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves for predicting copyright case decisions for the 40 cases based on mean perceived similarity (left column) and proportion perceived infringement (right column) for the three experimental conditions. AUC = Area Under Curve.
Figure 3
The Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves for predicting copyright case decisions for the 40 cases based on A) Percent Melodic Identity (PMI); and B) Musly’s audio similarity algorithm.
Figure 4
Mean perceptual similarity vs. automatically calculated for full-audio, melody-only, and lyrics-only conditions for the 40 cases for: A) melodic similarity (PMI); and B) audio similarity (Musly).
Table 2
Logistic regression model after variable selection using stepwise AIC procedure. (For alternative models using different samples, variables, and/or Bayesian frameworks, see Supplementary Material Tables S1–5).
| COEFFICIENTS: | ESTIMATE | STANDARD ERROR | Z-VALUE | p (>|z|) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| (Intercept) | –8.2 | 2.8 | –2.92 | .003 |
| Perceived audio similarity | 1.8 | 0.9 | 2.02 | .042 |
| Algorithmic melodic similarity | 0.04 | 0.02 | 1.99 | .047 |
| Algorithmic audio similarity | 2.9 | 1.5 | 1.90 | .057 |
Figure 5
Scatterplot of the best-performing predictors of past copyright infringement for perceptual data (perceptual similarity with full audio: x-axis; 1-5 scale) and automated algorithms (Percent Melodic Identity [PMI] measure of melodic similarity: y-axis; 0-100% scale). Cases judged to infringe copyright are plotted in red, with non-infringing cases plotted in blue. Optimal cutoffs from the Receiver Operating Characteristic (ROC) curves (cf. Figures 2, 3) are shown using dashed lines. Example cases representing extreme/interesting dynamics are highlighted with arrows and discussed in the main text.
Figure 6
A comparison of the chorus melodies of “Hachigatsu no Rainy” (top, plaintiff) and “M.A.K.E.” (bottom, defendant) shows they are 100% identical. Here and throughout this article, melodies (plaintiff top, defendant bottom) are transposed to the common tonic of C to enhance comparability, and identical notes are coloured in red.
Figure 7
A comparison of excerpts of the choruses of “Juda” (top, plaintiff) and “Judas” (bottom, defendant). This case showed some of the lowest similarity ratings for full audio, melody, and lyrics.
Figure 8
The openings of “He’s So Fine” (top, plaintiff) and “My Sweet Lord” (bottom, defendant) show high levels of melodic similarity. The judge concluded that they were “the very same song…with different words”. (Notation has been edited slightly from the version posted at the MCIR to match the audio recording.)
Figure 9
“Bust Dat Groove Without Ride” (top, plaintiff) and Pfizer’s background music in their commercial for “Celebrex” (bottom, defendant) use similar drum patterns, but this was not judged as infringing due to their non-original nature.
Figure 10
Comparison of the “signature phrases” of “Got to Give it Up” (top, plaintiff) and “Blurred Lines” (bottom, defendant) shows medium-low levels of similarity.