Richard wrote a song called "College Days." He copyrighted the composition and had it professionally printed. A couple years later, he was attending a business meeting about 1,500 miles from his home. While sitting in a nightclub, he heard a small local band perform a song called "College Memories." The music and words were extremely similar to his song. The composer of "College Memories" claims he never heard of Richard's song and that she is offended he would accuse her of stealing his work. If Richard wishes to sue for copyright infringement, he must prove what ?

Richard would need to prove that his work was the original, that the local band had previous access to his work, and that both songs are basically the same.

In today's world, this is fairly easy to prove, as most original material gets posted online, and there are exact records about when, where and who posted it, so any posterior copies can be easily identified.

If the material was not widely spread, then the copyright holder would have to prove with an exact date that he created the content.