The sanctity of the song (and the songwriter) has been a subject of considerable discussion recently — from the overheated online debate over Olivia Rodrigo’s retroactively sharing songwriting credit with Paramore for their influence on her hit “Good 4 U,” to Hipgnosis head Merck Mercuriadis sounding off about protecting songwriters in an open letter released on the same day the world biggest music company (and second-biggest music publisher) UMG went public for $55 billion. Scrolling the Wik...

The sanctity of the song (and the songwriter) has been a subject of considerable discussion recently — from the overheated online debate over Olivia Rodrigo’s retroactively sharing songwriting credit with Paramore for their influence on her hit “Good 4 U,” to Hipgnosis head Merck Mercuriadis sounding off about protecting songwriters in an open letter released on the same day the world biggest music company (and second-biggest music publisher) UMG went public for $55 billion. Scrolling the Wik...