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Comment by IAmGraydon | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. Harmonic progression is probably the most important part of this, as it imparts context on the melody. The same melody over I-V-IV-vi and vi-V-IV-V is not the same thing.

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Courts don't care about harmony. Most US courts follow a guideline that the copyrightable parts of a composition are melody and lyrics. Nobody has ever successfully sued for stolen chord progression.

But a melody over one chord progression, versus the same melody over another chord progression, is surely a different song.

Not according to the US court system. American case law defines chord progressions as insufficiently creative for copyright purposes. Usually rhythms are too. The only copyrightable parts of a composition in precedential cases of most US courts are the melody and lyrics.

And apparently arpeggios, because the US District Court of California ruled in Flame vs Katy Perry that arpeggios are "melodic enough" for copyright protection.

Melodies are insufficient on their own in my opinion, the court rules differently I guess. Melodies are just as likely to be formulaic, and are built using similar foundational knowledge as a chord progression (only a subset of notes works in a given progression for example, and conventions lead you toward certain notes of that subset).

A combination of chords, melody, rhythm are I think the only reasonable measure that a song has been copied.

It matters a lot to the sound of the song, but does it matter to the court?

If I take the entire melody of a Beatles song, including the verse and chorus, but set it to an entirely different chord progression, would the court recognize that as an original song? What if I lifted all of the lyrics as well?

Lyrics and melody? I think that's reasonable to consider that an infringement. Melody over a new chord progression? I do think that should be considered a new work, just to limit the scope of copyright. Even if it's clear you copied the melody, I think melody alone is insufficient to call a song. Unless the original song was entirely melody. A melody is using all the same musical building blocks as the chord progressions did, why does it get special treatment?

It is from the courts' point of view.

From what I recall, it's exclusively melody and words which can be copyrighted in terms of songwriting. Harmony isn't copyrightable.

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