Plagiarism vs. Inspiration: When Do Musicians (And Their Listeners) Draw the Line?

Ever since Olivia Rodrigo released her critically acclaimed debut album SOUR, she’s attracted millions of followers, fans, and praise—but that hasn’t stopped the plagiarism and copycat claims for her images and songs including from grunge queen Courtney Love and, most recently, fans of iconic artists Elvis Costello, Taylor Swift, and Paramore. 

In fact, Rodrigo made headlines this week when she retroactively added lead vocalist Hayley Williams and former guitarist Josh Farro to the songwriting credits on her hit pop-rock single, “good 4 u” after it seemed that she interpolated (re-recorded the melody rather than sampled directly from the song) Paramore’s arguably most famous song “Misery Business” as part of her chorus. Back in July, she also decided to add Swift, Jack Antonoff, and St. Vincent, the writers of “Cruel Summer”, to the songwriting credits of “deja vu” for their influence on the song’s bridge. In both cases, fans were convinced that outside pressure had something to do with the changes, despite talks between the artists’ representatives even before SOUR’s release.

But that hasn’t even been Rodrigo’s biggest plagiarism scandal this year. 

As early as June, she was accused of plagiarism due to the eerie similarity between the iconic guitar riff in SOUR’s opening track “brutal” and Elvis Costello’s 1978 hit “Pump It Up.” Honestly, it’s hard to differentiate the two songs but the most interesting part of the situation was Costello’s reaction: “It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did,” effectively brushing off the claims and supporting Rodrigo’s creative process, regardless of whether or not she overstepped a creative line. 

He even referenced two songs he himself had been inspired by when writing his hit track: Bob Dylan’s “Subterranean Homesick Blues” (1965) and Chuck Berry’s “Too Much Monkey Business” (1956). Notably, neither one appears in “Pump It Up”’s writing or production credits. 

And all that got me thinking a lot recently about the difference between plagiarism and inspiration, even beyond Rodrigo and SOUR. She’s been open about her music influences, both in real life and in her music through interpolation and song credits, but most plagiarism cases in recent years have been claims of direct theft of music elements. 

While plagiarism claims have perpetuated the industry since the 60s with the lawsuit between The Supremes and Len Barry over his 1965 song “1-2-3,” Robin Thicke and Pharrell William’s “Blurred Lines” (2013) was really the first song that changed the game for twenty-first-century copyright lawsuits after Marvin Gaye’s estate noted its similar “feel” and “sound” to the late musician’s song “Got to Give it Up” (1977). Even now, after a multi-million dollar settlement and a songwriting credit to Gaye, the case continues to garner controversy among artists, largely in part because it all started over both songs’ background chatter and percussion that are popular and well-replicated elements of production—not even the actual composition. 

Within the last year, one of the most bizarre plagiarism claims involved Justin Bieber and singer-songwriter Asher Monroe, who both happened to use the same royalty-free sample by producer Laxcity for their songs “Running Over” and “Synergy”, respectively. While these types of samples avoid licensing and copyright issues, Monroe somehow still sparked a Twitter debate among fans of both artists over originality and ownership in music—after all, even Shazam couldn’t always tell the difference between his song and Bieber’s. In reality, the only possible victim here was Laxcity, whose free samples can be used without proper attribution to his work, at least until Bieber included him on “Running Over”’s production credits. 

But if you don’t have at least one plagiarism lawsuit, claim, or accusation under your belt, you likely haven’t been in the music game for long enough. Everyone from Sam Smith to Janet Jackson has been under fire for copying previous songs, and Ed Sheeran alone has had three plagiarism suits throughout his career, one of which has yet to be settled; from beginning the end, the legal process can take years, even decades. 

Because you have limited choices to make unique chords, chord progressions, and other basic components of music, plagiarism can legitimately be accidental and therefore hard to prove in court when done purposefully. And unless it’s an extremely popular song, it’s also hard to prove that the guilty party has heard it before. Still, rather than drag the case on, most artists will agree to settlements, retroactive credits, and, possibly but rarely, royalty shares. 

Creativity is such a finicky, personal thing that even for the artists themselves, it can be difficult to tell where influence ends and originality begins. And after all this time, it’s tricky to argue if true originality still exists in artistic creation. In the meantime, I’m all for crediting past musicians when we can and being open to the idea of sharing song credits in the appropriate circumstances. Above everything else, music is meant to be shared between listeners, between the people who make it with each new decade. And I, for one, see credits as yet another way to connect us through time, if only were willing to do it.