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\n\tTaylor Swift<\/a> released her 12th album The Life of a Showgirl<\/a><\/em> last week \u2014 and before it was even out for a full day, listeners were already pointing out similarities between her new songs and existing tracks by other artists. The comparisons were harmless, at first, but some of them escalated into full-blown accusations of musical plagiarism.\u00a0Some of the songs in question include the album\u2019s title track, the buzzy<\/a> diss track \u201cActually Romantic,\u201d and the Travis Kelce-inspired \u201cWood.\u201d <\/p>\n \n\t\u201cThe internet loves to sleuth, doesn\u2019t it,\u201d forensic musicologist and professor at Berklee College of Music Dr. Joe Bennett <\/a>tells Rolling Stone<\/em>. \u201cBut similarity alone is not evidence of influence, still less copyright infringement. Coincidental partial similarity is way more common than many people think \u2014 but songwriters actually copying from each other is way less<\/em> common than many people think.\u201d<\/p>\n \n\tDr. Bennett points out that popular music is a \u201cconstrained art form\u201d where most songs have a \u201cfixed tempo, limited topline pitch range, stay with in the home key, and are based on looping chord progressions,\u201d he explains. \u201cOf course, you\u2019re going to get slight overlaps from time to time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tFollowing the rush to point out sonic similarities between Swift\u2019s new songs and some older ones, some people on the internet were quick to call for legal action to defend artists they believed had been ripped off. (A rep for Swift declined to comment.) But Dr. Bennett thinks there is not much of a case there for any of the most popular melody comparisons. Here, he breaks down why.<\/p>\n\n\t\t\u201cThe Life of a Showgirl\u201d vs. Jonas Brothers<\/a>\u2019 \u201cCool\u201d<\/strong>\t<\/h2>\n