Yesterday, it was announced that Hayley Williams and Josh Farro - the writers of Paramore's smash hit "Misery Business" - now had another hit under their belt. No, an old Paramore song isn't climbing up the charts, unfortunately, but Williams and Farro are now credited as co-writers for Olivia Rodrigo's "good 4 u". Never mind that "good 4 u" has already been out for over three months, and has already gone platinum twice. They were retroactively credited, almost certainly to avoid a lawsuit if either of them decided to get litigious.

So, does "good 4 u" sample "Misery Business"? Is there a melodic interpolation at play here? No. It's not like "good 4 u" is an obvious ripoff of "Misery Business" either - they're just two popular pop rock songs with fueled by teenage angst. Sure, there are similarities, but listen to the songs yourself and tell me that "good 4 u" is a blatant Paramore rip.

good 4 u

Misery Business

Sure, I do think "Misery Business" is the superior song - but if our copyright law is at a place where Olivia Rodrigo can genuinely fear a lawsuit from Paramore, there is an issue. This isn't the only song from Olivia Rodrigo's "Sour" album like this either. Two songs from the album are supposedly co-written by Taylor Swift, even though she had nothing to do with the album.

Sure, "1 step forward, 3 steps back" does interpolate a Swift song, but the similarity between "deja vu" and "Cruel Summer" is a lot more tenuous. Again, Swift, alongside co-writers Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent, were credited 3 months after "deja vu"'s release. Why? Because the songs both had an energetic bridge?

deja vu

Cruel Summer

Again, I'm not saying the songs aren't similar. But similarity shouldn't be grounds for a writing credit. And this isn't just a quixotic question of art - as co-writers, Hayley Williams, Taylor Swift, Josh Farro, Jack Antonoff, and St. Vincent all stand to profit from the success of "good 4 u" and "deja vu" despite having nothing to do with the song. Again, if you are directly sampling or interpolating, this makes sense. But a similarity or the same "vibe" should not be grounds for this.

Often, the only thing that can stop this is the good grace of artists, or their legal teams. "brutal", the opener to "Sour", faced a lot of comparisons to Elvis Costello, but Costello himself came out and said that he didn't have an issue with that, because "it’s how rock and roll works".. If he hadn't, should he recieve some of the profit every time "brutal" is streamed, should he recieve a percentage of the profit?

No. Elvis Costello is right. A musical vibe or conceptual similarity should not be copyrightable. Regardless of what you think of Rodrigo's work or success, she should not have to send off the profits to her biggest hits to artists who had nothing to do with it. A lot of the reason for this comes after the ruling by a US court, deeming that "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke violated the copyright of Marvin Gaye's "Got To Give It Up". Why? Because the songs had a similar "feel" and "sound". It was very legally shaky and condemned by hundreds of musicians, including famed Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo.

Even though this legal decision was not made in Australia, it still looms large over Australian artists. If a young Australian musician writes a song and takes inspiration from Selena Gomez, should she have to send off her profits to the United States because her label is worried about a lawsuit? If a band writes a song with a similarity to AC/DC, should they have to wave goodbye to a good chunk of their profits, because a legal case would destroy them?

Australia must legislate the right of artists to create based off other artists' work. No, people should not be able to directly copy, but the fact that we are getting to a point where songs with similar ideas, vague vibes, or concepts are being litigated means that we must step in to liberalise copyright laws to guarantee the right to create.