In the September 2015 issue of Intellectual Property Magazine, Staff Editor Max Isaacs (’17) (with co-author David Munkittrick) explores the disconnect between courts’ reliance on expert musicologists in music copyright cases and application of the “lay listener” test, which “leaves it to the fact-finder’s ears to determine musical similarity.” Munkittrick and Issacs argue that expert testimony serves an important role in analyzing “technical musical elements,” but it “cannot completely displace the lay listener” test.
Read Issacs’s full piece here.
