ABSTRACT

Expert evidence has figured prominently in music lawsuits. A classic case being in plagiarism disputes where a copyright holder claims royalties from unauthorized use. The very idea of 'expert' evidence is problematic giving rise to the kind of difficulty a car owner faces when paying for a repair. The dominant culture of evaluating evidence is the scientific paradigm. In social sciences, such as economics, the majority of work is carried out in the domain of 'classical statistics' where one formulates a hypothesis and tests it using a model which does not incorporate any prior information from the researcher's beliefs. Two things can be improved in terms of evidence. These are the quality of data and the capacity of individuals to interpret it. The various music 'charts' and 'hit parades' may be seen as the central scientific evidence site in analysing specific product performance.