[bfsg]

There is no such thing as creating an original. Everyone and everything is inspired in some or many ways. You consciously or unconsciously select your source(s) of inspiration. The guitarist of Radiohead is not playing some never played before stuff, it's the basic guitar thing millions of guitarists play. Everybody is copying everybody, changing only slight bits.

The whole music industry is stolen. And the worse part of this issue is that Radiohead is not making a dollar less because of Lana Del Rey, instead they just want to make some more of of her.

For some reason most people in this world want to own too many things they never should own in the first place. Intellectual property should only come into play if it really harms the 'original' authors revenue because of a straight copy.

[Applejinx]

There's another twist. I'm a guitar player: I can play a guitar note literally fifty different ways (on a single guitar/amp combination, no effects), if 'different' means 'every one can be ABX tested against every other one using a typical normal person as listener'.

Anybody who's ever been into blues in any form knows it's how you play it. Folks who have been into blues have been some of the most successful musicians ever (see: Fleetwood Mac, pre Buckingham Nicks)

If you say 'love' or 'hate' in sincerity, does it matter that you've not come up with an innovative way to spell it? It's part of an expression of your intention.

Copyright seems a way to try and protect these intangible things by tying them to a more abstracted 'key', and there's the problem.

I've recently listened to the Pixies' 'Brick Is Red', off Surfer Rosa. If you defined their vocal melodies in terms of Hz rather than quantizing them to nearest chromatic note and sixteenth-note timing, you'd find the vocalizations were really REALLY distinct (and next to impossible to reproduce!)

Hanson are on record as saying that their hit 'Mmmbop' is never covered properly. They're absolutely right. The chorus words go into a really fast triplet feel that's not a straight subdivision of the beat, a triplet feel that's not doubled by other instruments, and to screw up that timing means you're screwing up something very fundamental to the hit quality of the song.

One of the basic problems here is boiling stuff down to abstractions that serve as 'keys'. 'Mmmbop' in sixteenth notes is not 'Mmmbop'. 'Brick Is Red' in MIDI is not 'Brick Is Red'.