Plagiarism and music

Dr Daniel Müllensiefen (Musicologist at Goldsmiths’ Computing Department, and academic consultant on plagiarism) on the BBC World Service’s The Forum, demonstrating software which detects similarities between pieces of music which may indicate plagiarism. Daniel introduces some historical incidents and, with the guests, discusses stylistic constraints on originality, whether there is a limit in the number of original popular music tunes which can be written, and how to gauge whether these are incidental. And the inevitable discussion about intellectual property, litigation and profit.