Writ parade

摘要

"YOU MOTHERFUCKERS owe me!" raps Donald Glover, better known as Childish Gambino, in his chart-topper of 2018, "This is America". Yet according to a complaint filed in a New York court on May 6th, it is Mr Glover who is indebted. Erne-like Nwosuocha, a Florida rapper known as Kidd Wes, says "This is America" borrows from his own work of 2016, "Made in America". Mr Glover has not commented.The complaint, which experts consider thin, is the latest in an outbreak of musical copyright claims. Between 1844 and 2014 no more than eight such cases a year were heard in American federal courts, according to George Washington University's law school. The past six years have seen an average of 16, against the likes of Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Drake.One reason is a precedent set in 2015, when a jury found that "Blurred Lines", by Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams, had copied Marvin Gaye's hit of 1977, "Got to Give it Up". The Gaye family's argument that a "constellation of similarities", mostly not individually protected, amounted to copyright infringement was criticised by legal scholars and musicians, 200 of whom filed an amicus brief warning that it would leave artists "with one foot in the recording studio and one foot in the courtroom".