2024/10/01 by Katherine M. Leo · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · #Diverse Musicological Studies #Music History and Culture #Musicology and Musical Analysis
paper · doi:10.1080/01411896.2024.2443513
openalex publication_date 2024/10/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/13
Recent copyright infringement litigation has revealed ambiguity in the scope of legal protection for musical works. Courts have especially struggled to distinguish between unprotectable, foundational musical ideas and copyrightable expressions of them. This article advocates for increased application of the legal doctrine of scènes à faire—which permits the exclusion of indispensable ideas when proving infringement—to contextualize more acutely similarities identified in a lawsuit according to evolving creative practices and repertories that are essential to genre communities. In so doing, this article furthers methodological discourse in forensic musicology to promote future case outcomes attuned to musical genre practices.