Is Music Math?

Lately there’s been a blizzard of litigation about violations of song copyright, all based on the melody of pop tunes. I thought the Chiffons had a point when they claimed “My Sweet Lord” infringed “He’s So Fine”— listen to them back to back and I bet you’ll agree— but now there are so many online music platforms, and we’ve seen amateur musicians who’ve uploaded their work to some site or other claiming that major songwriters have infringed their melodies, whether those songwriters have ever...