Right. I remember a lawsuit from one of my favourite guitar players (Joe Satriani) vs Coldplay because of some part of the melody of a song... I thought that was so stupid. Both are great artists and composers. What if someone took a piece of your song and used it to inspire something new? That's called progress...
Plus, theres like only so much you can do with western music, and pop music in particular loves to lean on the same motifs over and over and over again. There is and will be compositional overlap. That anyone thinks they own anything in that space is absurd.
If you can't protect the trade secret with secrecy, then it doesn't deserve to be secret. Legal protections have shown, time and time again, that they fuck over inventors, creatives, and artists, in favor of encumbents seeking to consolidate power.
The current environment strangles remix culture nearly to death. To say nothing of greedy artists claiming ownership of a concept of notes. I thought you couldn't copyright an idea?
There is a reason patents are limited, and that public display of an invention pre-patent can be prior art. The reality is that once ideas are out in the world the creator is no longer in control (which is why we have to create systems of control via laws).
“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lites his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.” --Thomas Jefferson
This is a philosophical argument depending in your stance regarding ideas being something that can be owned or not. Machines or music doesn't really make any difference.
Once the artsy thing you did is out there, it is no longer yours. Period.