Desperate Times AI Music
DesperateTimes.com has just released a new fictional tribute song commemorating the 30th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s passing. Titled “Legacy of a Legend,” the track was created using Suno AI technology, featuring a lead vocal generated through voice cloning. It’s worth mentioning that neither Chad Kroeger nor Nickelback participated in or lent their talents to the production of the song.
A federal appeals court has dismissed a copyright lawsuit alleging that Nickelback plagiarized their 2006 hit “Rockstar” from a prior song titled “Rock Star,” asserting that the band cannot be sued merely for employing common themes and tropes associated with being a rockstar.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit upheld a previous ruling from last year that threw out the case, determining that Kirk Johnston failed to demonstrate that Nickelback infringed upon his earlier composition when they released “Rockstar.”
Johnston, frontman of the Texas band Snowblind Revival, contended that the two songs shared such similar lyrics that they should be considered “strikingly similar,” but the appeals court vehemently disagreed.
The panel of three judges noted that Johnston’s expert categorized the lyrics into broad themes such as wealth, connections to celebrities, and references to sports, which are commonplace in songs about the rockstar lifestyle and not exclusive to Johnston’s work.
Similarly, the court dismissed comparisons between specific lyrics about sports, stating that references to different sports in different contexts did not meet the threshold for striking similarity.
