The Art of Musical Borrowing: A Composers Guide to the Current Copyright Regime Five Years on from Larrikin

In an age of musical collaboration, borrowing and remix, the law is unable to meet the needs of composers in a contemporary context. This paper examines the intersection between the precedents set in recent Australian Copyright Cases and notions of ownership, originality and contemporary compositional practice. In particular, it discusses the 2010 judgement in Larrikin Music Publishing Pty Ltd v EMI Songs Australia Pty Ltd (Larrikin) and its potential impact on two out of three novel case studies. The paper provides an uncomplicated yet effective framework within which composers can assess whether or not their work is likely to be deemed a substantial reproduction of another work.