A composition's more than a melody and a progression. It's about the arrangement, the rhythm, even the words. If two songs share a lot of the same elements, the

A composition's more than a melody and a progression. It's about the arrangement, the rhythm, even the words. If two songs share a lot of the same elements, they can sound similar. But sharing just two elements isn't the same as swiping a song. Stay With Me has the same chords as Won't Back Down, and it has a similar 6 note sequence in the Melody. But the rest of the melody is very different. And the tempo, voicing, arrangement, words, all contribute to make Stay With Me an original composition. Nobody confused the two songs until Petty's lawyers pointed it out. I was using the blues as an easily available example of musical borrowing. You seem to think different rules should apply to blues songs than to "compositions." Blues songs are compositions. They have melodies. Their chord progression is just as common the one used in Stay With Me. You're incorrect about Blurred Lines. The song did NOT take the progression and melody from the Marvin Gaye song. They have different progressions and melodies. What Blurred Lines took from Marvin Gaye was the drum beat. As a drummer, I can tell you thousands of songs use the exact same drum beat. Granted, this beat is pretty unique. But so is the Purdie shuffle, and to my knowledge, Bernard Purdie never sued John Bonham for Fool in the Rain. Here's where you're right: It is foolish to say "Music is in danger." But what I said was that it will be harder for music to thrive. Look what patent trolls are doing to the tech industry. If we agree that having the same drumbeat is plagiarism, the same thing could happen to music.