From: davet@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Dave Tutelman)
Subject: Re: MIDI Songs.....
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs - Lincroft, NJ
Distribution: usa
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1992 13:58:33 GMT
Summary: "My sweet lord" v "He's so fine"

In article <1992Oct3.120324.16297@comp.lancs.ac.uk> davei@comp.lancs.ac.uk (Mr D Ingles) writes:
>
>OK, how about this.  How can anyone tell if a composition is yours, or
>if it has been copied off someone else ? 
>
>If we think about it for a moment, there are very few notes in a musical
>scale.  Also, anybody who has studied music, will probably notice that
>they tend to study other peoples work.  They will also notice that they
>are taught about musical structure etc.  They will probably also note
>that they are being taught in the same manner has a whole load of other
>people.  It is in my opinion that it is perfectly feasible for two
>people to compose the same piece of music.  Also, if you listen to a lot
>of music, you will subliminally store lots of music structures in your
>head which are bound to come out when you are composing. 

Anybody remember the copyright violation trial of ex-Beatle (George
Harrison, I think) for writing "My Sweet Lord".  The melody and chords
are almost identical to the old (at least ten years earlier) R&R song
"He's So Fine".

I'm prepared to believe the defense' contention that he didn't realize he
was copying it.  After all, he wasn't some local club band that would
never be noticed.  And "He's So Fine" wasn't an ancient or obscure work
that would never be recognized.

However, the case was decided on:
 1. Major passages (in this case, pretty much the whole song) was copied.
 2. (George ?) had access to the original from which he was copying.  I.e.-
    it's inconceivable that he hadn't heard it when it was popular.

And thereby hangs the tale. 

I'm a little worried about that right now, myself.
I've written down a couple of pieces over the summer, to be arranged and
recorded when the music season (winter) comes to NJ.  They're the
sort of thing I hear from time to time on WQCD ("CD101"), and I wrote
them sufficiently easily that I'm afraid they MAY have been inspired by
something that already exists.  How would I find out?  (Hey, if I send a
tape to Flavio for his radio show, I may wind up in deep doo-doo.  A fair
amount of WQCD's program material is from Brazilian bands.)

>I have noticed this happening with computer programs....
>
>I once wrote a short program myself which I then later discovered that
>was written almost line for line in a book that I had never seen before. 
>The book was published after I had written the code and I had never
>released my code to anyone.  Perhaps I should try to sue the publishers. 

No harm, no foul!  In this case,
 - You did it first, so they can't sue you.
 - You never "published" it (in even the most liberal sense of the term),
   so you're not a copyright holder, so you can't sue them.  And even if
   your never-published work could be considered "copyrighted", they'd
   have the safe defense that they never heard it, so they couldn't have
   copied it.

Note that this is VERY different from patents.  A patent protects the idea,
whether or not the violator invented it independently.  The first one to
the patent office wins, roughly speaking.  A copyright only protects a
work against copying, not against truly independent invention.  And copying
has to be proved, to some degree.

Cheers!

Dave

Disclaimer and warning: I'm not a lawyer. (Whew! :-) 
I know just enough about the law to be dangerous.
Newsgroups: rec.music.synth