Is "Oooh Oooh Oooh" Copyrightable?

Pop singer Justin Bieber is embroiled in a lawsuit brought by indie singer White Hinderland, who claims Bieber and his producer Skrillex ripped off a vocal sequence from "Ring the Bell" for the song "Sorry." Bieber claims that the highly-processed vocal work you can hear at the beginning of this song is actually his own voice modified by Skrillex. Hinderland claims that "the refrain" in Bieber's "Sorry" is the same as the one in Ring the Bell," and therefore is copyright infringement. Assume that's true: "Oooh Oooh Oooh" is copyrightable. Heaven only knows what will happen to "Ah" and variants thereof. Grunts might possibly yield royalties if they're distinctive enough, you never know.

Read more: http://fortune.com/2016/06/01/bieber-copyright/