Everything we do will be influenced by someone else’s previous work and nothing can ever be completely original.
At the other end of the sliding scale, every plagiarism or ‘cover’ will be have differences to the original.
I guess public opinion (the media, social platforms) and of course, the courts are the arbitrary adjudicators of where and when we set and shift that line (I remember when ‘sampling’ was the big debate).
Something I hadn’t thought about before:
Is it worse to ‘plagiarise’ someone’s work knowing that you are doing it, than ‘subconsciously’?
For my part, I wallow in ‘borrowing’ whatever I wish, knowing that if I’m lucky, it will sound similar to the original in parts 
(I do point to sources when I’m aware of them)
The most interesting aspect of this to me was the sheer amount (volume?) of music being shared every minute.
True art lies in recognising it 
