Lana Del Rey, Radiohead, and the Difficulty of Making Original Music
As a hobby music producer I just can&#x27;t wrap my head around the logic behind copyright infringement. It&#x27;s so arbitrary. It&#x27;s illegal to steal a melody but sophisticated chord progressions are fine. It&#x27;s illegal to copy the text of even the simplest verse but reverse engineering some complex synthesizer sounds is fine.<p>Although I personally strive for it, I don&#x27;t think originality is a point worth discussing. Music is about expression first and foremost. The difficulty we have today is that you can&#x27;t freely express yourself. Many of the great hip hop records of the 90s, for instance, couldn&#x27;t be produced today because sample clearing would be a nightmare.<p>I do, of course, understand that each work requires, errm, work. So I am fine with some form of protection for the artist. But imho it should be a rather broad protection. That is, releasing a cover without permission or selling someone else work (i.e. 100% of the lyrics or melody or even arrangement...) as your own is not ok. But I think as long as there is any form of creative alteration involved then &quot;copying&quot; should be fair play. Especially when several years or even a decade have past.