Is incidental re-creation likely to happen in pop music?

In this study we try to address the question, if independent (re-)creations are likely to happen in pop music. The interest in this topic stems from the fact that the claim of an “independent creation” is a common defense strategy in copyright infringement law suits. We conducted a main experiment in which subjects were asked to invent short, “catchy” pop melodies to a given backing track over a very common chord sequence (I VI IV V). Additionally, we incorporated 5 melodies from hit songs over the same chords in a comparable tempo. The collected melodies were examined for similarities, between participants’ melodies and hit songs on the one hand and in between participants’ songs on the ot…