Opinion | In (grudging) defense of Ed Sheeran — and all musicians

Chord progressions are everywhere in music, and rules typically govern how chords are ordered, so of course there’s overlap across an entire industry. To drive the point home, Nelson analogizes music to painting: It’s like saying, “You’ll have to pay to use red. Someone else used it first.”

So imagine Sheeran loses, and now every musician has to use half their creative juices on making sure no one else has ever produced a similar sound, lest they get sued out the wazoo. That, Nelson says, would be a “grotesque step in the direction of madness.”

It sounds like a pretty existential threat. But maybe that’s because everything does these days — not an emergency, not a potential disaster, but an “existential threat.”

Columnist Chuck Lane is tired of the “bombastic e-word,” and he presents a pretty good case for eschewing this particular exaggeration.

“A world without ET would be a world in which consumers of journalism and political speeches would feel slightly less like they are being harangued and slightly more like they are being persuaded,” his argument begins.

Chuck also grants that he’s not the first to make this observation and counts beekeeping expert (and newspaper writer) Bernard Leslie of Kentucky Lake, Tenn., among his allies in this fight.

Let’s just hope Mr. Leslie enjoys the familiar progression — and isn’t too litigious.

Chaser: While the courts figure out how far copyright extends in music, bureaucrats are figuring out its place in artificial intelligence-generated art. Professor Edward Lee says they’re getting it wrong.

Scenes from occupied Mariupol

Journalists are still allowed into the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol. That’s because Russia wants the world to witness how good life can be once it has taken over.

But that’s not what policy expert Leon Aron sees, nor the Russian journalist — unidentified for safety — who provided him photos of the city. It is a “somber and tense” place of guarded people.

Propaganda is inescapable, from never-ending TV chatter to the slogans splashed across every food truck in the city. “Yes, it is only bulls— everywhere!” said 87-year-old Alla Nikolaevna.

But there are signs of resilience — sometimes literally underground, but occasionally in broad daylight, as well. Said 15-year-old Vika, pictured above: “My mother wanted me to hide it, but I always carry the flag with me.”

Explore more photos, interviews and reflections in the rest of Aron’s essay.

From Paul Waldman’s column about the explosion of right-to-repair laws — legislation meant to ensure that companies can’t keep you from trying to fix things yourself when their products go on the fritz. In other words, your car should be a car, not a subscription.

The best part? Support for these laws is super bipartisan. As Paul explains, the issue “appeals to people of almost any ideology, from those who care deeply about individual property rights to those who want to rein in corporate abuse.”

Chaser: Right-to-repair laws have another big (and beloved) backer: Ray Magliozzi of the “Car Talk” radio show, who wrote in favor of them last year.

… and more immigration, please!

Columnist Catherine Rampell writes that if our politicians weren’t so hostile to/terrified of the idea, they could start to solve three big national problems with increased legal immigration. Three? In this economy?

Indeed! And, in fact, said economy would be the first thing to improve, Catherine argues. Wage increases simply aren’t enough to bridge the mismatch of job vacancies and available workers; the country simply needs more people.

Along the way, industrial policy and the entitlements crisis would benefit, too. Catherine’s column explains how.

• George Will (and a new biography) reappraise Gerald Ford, trapped between titanic presidencies.
• Thousands of readers responded to Jennifer Finney Boylan’s essay on gender and brain science. Here’s a sampling of what they said.
• Can President Biden answer tough questions without a cheat sheet? Contributing columnist Jim Geraghty gripes that White House reporters have failed to find out.
• All that panicky investors need to clear out an account these days is the internet. Senior assignment editor Duncan Mavin writes that banks need to find a way to stop lightning-fast digital runs.

It’s a goodbye. It’s a haiku. It’s … The Bye-Ku.

Have your own newsy haiku? Email it to me, along with any questions/comments/ambiguities. See you tomorrow!