Auburn Professor/Composer Accused Indiana Bible College of Copyright Infringement; Now It's Sued Her for Defamation
On June 2, 2025, the Indiana Bible College (“IBC” or “Plaintiff”) filed a Complaint against Fred Bock Music Company, Inc. (“Fred Bock”), Dr. Rosephanye Powell (“Dr. Powell”) and Doe Defendants, (collectively, the “Defendants”) with the United States District Court for the Southern District of Indiana. The Complaint seeks damages for alleged defamation and tortious interference with business relationships, but this blog post will mainly focus on the copyright concerns in the case.
The IBC, a Pentecostal bible college in Indianapolis, works to educate “preachers, missionaries, youth workers and music ministers” (https://www.indianabible.college/home). Their Complaint seeks damages from Fred Bock and Dr. Powell, an Auburn professor and choral composer, in response to accusations of copyright infringement made by the Defendants in late May. The copyright dispute centers around two choral works derived from the same verses of the Bible: the Plaintiff’s work, “John 1,” and the composition of Dr. Powell, “The Word Was God.”
The Plaintiff maintains that the allegations of infringement are false, saying that “John 1” “is original, independently created, and non-infringing as to any protectable elements of ‘The Word Was God’” (4). They acknowledge that their composition “sets the same public-domain text” (2) as Dr. Powell’s, but they argue that “‘John 1’ does not infringe and is not a derivative work” (4).
According to the IBC, the Defendants sent cease-and-desist letters on May 23 and May 29, 2025, in which they “alleg[ed] copyright infringement and threaten[ed] lawsuit” (3). On May 23, Dr. Powell additionally made a public post on Facebook, describing the history of the dispute and saying that the Plaintiff’s composition “is undeniably a derivative of my work” (Facebook). She claims that she initially became aware of alleged infringement by the IBC in January 2024, through a TikTok video in which the IBC Choir performed “an unapproved arrangement of The Word Was God,” which, at that time, they called by the same title as Dr. Powell’s work (Facebook). After requesting the videos and music be removed, the Defendants “believed the matter was resolved,” until becoming aware in the spring of 2025 that the IBC had continued to perform, record, and sell sheet music for their—allegedly derivative—work under the new name, “John 1” (Facebook).
In her post Dr. Powell points out that those “listed as composers of this ‘original’ work ['John 1']” are the same people listed for arranging her song, “The Word Was God,” in 2024 (Facebook). She claims that due to this previous arrangement—as well as other past performances of her work—the credited composers “cannot reasonably claim to have been uninfluenced by [her] work” (Facebook).
Following both this post and other social media posts from the Defendants’ accounts, news outlets and other social media users began to report and comment on the infringement allegations against the Plaintiff. This public response is addressed in the Complaint, which argues that these public posts “encouraged others to renounce John 1 and IBC," and that the Defendants "used Indy Star to publish an article accusing IBC and its writers of unauthorized derivative, copyright infringement, and intellectual dishonesty, among other things” (3). Condemning the Defendants’ accusations as malicious and knowingly false, the Plaintiff filed their Complaint to seek damages for defamation.
In their Complaint the Plaintiff requests a jury trial in order to address the situation. In addition to granting a formal apology, retraction, and compensation for any damage caused by the alleged defamatory statements, the IBC asks the court to defend “John 1” and “[d]eclare that ‘John 1’ does not infringe and is not a derivative work of ‘The Word Was God’” (5).
The Defendants have not filed an answer to the Plaintiff’s Complaint yet, but they filed and were granted a Motion to Appear pro hac vice. The case is still in the early stages, but there is already significant public commentary about the lawsuit on social media, among music communities, and in the news. We will continue to watch the case develop and post updates here on the blog.