circa 1925: A novelty hat with musical notes embroidered on, created for a famous operatic star. (Photo by General Photographic Agency/Getty Images)

Are you one of those people who occasionally hears a song and thinks to yourself, ‘hmmm….that kinda sounds like…’?

Cos I am definitely that person.

Some songs are obvious (John Mellencamp‘s “R.O.C.K. In The USA”, The Romantics‘ “What I Like About You”), while others (the infamous “Stairway to Heaven”, “Taurus” debate), maybe not so cut and dry.

Music is the universal language so I wonder, where does one draw that invisible line between a copy and one’s imagination?

That’s what this article attempts to figure out.

In the meantime, I’m just gonna enjoy the sequence of sounds.

Who owns the building blocks of music?

At the end of July, a federal jury found Katy Perry and her collaborators Juicy J, Dr. Luke, Max Martin, Cirkut, Sarah Hudson, and Capitol Records were liable for $2.8 million in damages for plagiarizing Christian rapper Flame, aka Marcus Gray. At...