Alicia Keys has recently been targeted in a copyright lawsuit involving her new song, “Girl On Fire.” It is claimed to have included a mere “two seconds” of material from the Eddie Holman’s song entitled, “Hey There Lonely Girl.” To me, this is absurd as the two songs sound nothing alike. If so many artists can get away with using the same chord sequence (mentioned in my previous blog post), how is Alicia Keys at fault?

This case seems to go along with what Vaidhyanathan was arguing for in the epilogue we read for class today. He claims, “Isn’t copyright supposed to encourage art?…Instead, copyright protection seems to be squelching beauty, impeding exposure, stifling creativity” (Vaidhyanathan 185). Even though the song that Keys has produced is completely different from Holman’s song, it seems to be on the chopping block due to copyright laws. Having listened to these two songs, being aware of this copyright case, I have tried to find evidence for Holman’s case. However, I couldn’t make any connections. I would never have guessed that these two songs were related had I not become aware of this through reading the above article. Thus, in this case, copyright seems to be overstepping its bounds.