Patrick Goold

Imagine you are Olivia Rodrigo. This may be harder for some of us than others, but bear with me. You have just released your new single Brutal. Your new song has been called brilliant and one of the best songs of the year by critics. But then the phone rings with the bad news: your song contains a riff that is very similar to the famous guitar riff in Elvis Costello’s Pump It Up and you are being sued for copyright infringement.[1] Rats! As a responsible creator, you try to avoid copying material from others. You even have people in your record company who check your songs prior to release to avoid incidents like this. But alas, sometimes accidents still happen.

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