(sorry if this thread creep is too much for anyone in particular)

On a related note, I recently wrote a song. It was about a particular news topic that had been getting some nation wide, if not world wide, coverage. While I had not heard of any others writing a similar song at the time I put my fingers to the keyboard, I guess I wasn't surprised when, later, I spied a song apparently about the same topic (by the title) being performed by popular country singer. I haven't heard that country singer's song yet, I just noticed it's title and assume it's a similar idea, but what did surprise me is what happened one day whilst stumbling about on the www. I ran across a site associated with some college in Europe that had been archiving political songs. The site had a name something like that too, The Archive of Political Song. I'm sorry I can't remember the link. While perusing the songs there I noticed, once again, yet another song with a similar title. Now, given the coverage this particular topic received, I wasn't really surprised to see yet another song posted at the site. The idea of creating a song about this particular event was political in nature. I checked the lyrics to the song archived there. What I found made me suspect that someone had stolen several ideas directly from my composition. What I found was kind of a stipped down and poorly thought out reconstruction of my song with several key ideas that I believe were taken directly from my composition. I vaguely remember performing the song at one of those Paltalk sessions. I guess they could have picked up the skeletal structure of my composition from catching that performance.

I wasn't so offended by the discovery as surprised by having stumbled across it just randomly poking about. I didn't notice that they gave credit at the archive to anyone. I'm not saying that the specific ideas and references in my song couldn't possibly have been simultaneously thought of by another writer, even halfway across the planet. I suppose that stranger things have happened. It just kind of makes ya go hmmm. Know what I mean? There are just some things, in this modern age of lighting fast global communications, that are so coincidental as to make one suspect. Am I just being paranoid? Hmmm

BTW I love that Hunter S. Thompson quote.