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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?

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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?

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