melody

Try and program in a preconceived, sensible melody and you'll be tearing out hair out.

There's no way the melody would fall under the mechanical license for the lyrics.

So if he had been able to argue that his song was a parody, he could have copyrighted the melody.

If his melody is original, it seems like this has to be a violation of copyright.

The original song really didn't have a melody, and Coulton's version clearly does.

Did yours have this at the end?At so many points in this album, the music breaks into this melody, and it's glorious — I mean, glorious.

The JC version has a distinct melody/arrangement, so qualifies as an original work.

Basically they argue that the melody dates to at least 1893, first copyrighted in 1896, and that this copyright expired in 1921.

And the original version of the song isn't "half a song", as in everything but a melody - not legally speaking.

From the wikipedia page, it gives the right to rearrange the work but not to change the melody or fundamental character of the work.

Imagine some folks clanging away at 10 bells in a church tower for hours on end, never repeating, and never developing a melody.

I'm not sure what Glee's position is, maybe they claim they are covering Sir-mix-a-lot and happened to make the same arrangement and write the same melody that Coulton did.

You can also take a song with a melody, and completely alter the melody into something entirely different, but it doesn't mean that you get a songwriter credit on the new version.

And given that Coulton's artistic choice was limited to putting a nice melody on top of a rap tune, I doubt that would hold up in court, because it would set a hell of a precedent to all the other rap tunes out there.

The present and future of jazz is hip-hop and club music, built of improvised rhythm and rhyme instead of improvised melody and harmony, and of sampled recordings instead of sampled melodies and progressions.

Anyone who's experienced with this area of the law care to comment?Does he hold the copyright to the original melody he composed for this song?Does that fact that he released a karaoke version without the vocals affect anything?Is his melody considered an "arrangement" of the original considering the original had no melody?If I write an original instrumental song, do I lose the copyright to the instrumental by releasing a version that includes someone else's lyrics?