RE: [dvd-discuss] Music (Was Re: Public Domain Enhancement Bill)

["Richard Hartman" <hartman(at)onetouch.com>]

the whole idea of phrase-based copyright is kind of
odd ... the whole work is under copyright.  fair use
is a defense against accusations of copyright.  it
is up to the courts to determine what constitutes
"fair use".  in the case of music, a recognizable
-- or more importantly, characteristic -- phrase
may not be "fair use" ... but a longer, though 
less recognizable, phrase might be defensible.


-- 
-Richard M. Hartman
hartman@onetouch.com

186,000 mi/sec: not just a good idea, it's the LAW!



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Hosgood [mailto:steve@caederus.com]
> Sent: Monday, June 30, 2003 9:05 AM
> To: dvd-discuss@eon.law.harvard.edu
> Subject: [dvd-discuss] Music (Was Re: Public Domain Enhancement Bill)
> 
> 
> > On Friday 27 June 2003 18:25, Jeme A Brelin wrote:
> > # Disney might (speculatively) control 90% of the existing 
> copyrights on
> > # novels, short stories and movies (or whatver), but that's 
> an insignificant
> I know it's hardly relevant or new, but just recently 
> D.C.sessions wrote:
> > A single CD can now hold all of the possible musical phrases
> > (allowing for "legal Hamming distance") so that one could, with
> > modest effort, make it legally impossible to produce *any* music
> > without infringing the copyright on one of those "works."
> > 
> > The owner of these priceless copyrights would then be in
> > position to hold all music and English writing hostage.
> > 
> 
> I'd been meaning to ask before, and here's my chance:
> Why hasn't some interested activist tried creating an 
> internet database of
> all the musical phrases in the works of Handel, J.S.Bach, 
> Scarlatti, Vivaldi,
> Mozart, Beethoven and all the other obvious and non-obvious 
> famous composers
> of yore whose works are now PD?
> 
> I'd guess that such a database would, without chasing obscure 
> composers, be
> found to contain all playable musical phrases, thus killing 
> off at a stroke
> anyone's silly attempt to copyright any modern music based on 
> musical phrases
> alone.
> 
> It doesn't seem to have been done though.
> 
> Any ideas why not?
> 
> --
> 
> Steve Hosgood                               |
> steve@caederus.com                          | "A good plan 
> today is better
> Phone: +44 1792 203707 + ask for Steve      |   than a 
> perfect plan tomorrow"
> Fax:   +44 70922 70944                      |              - 
> Conrad Brean
> --------------------------------------------+
>         http://tallyho.bc.nu/~steve         |  ( from the 
> film "Wag the Dog" )
> 
> 
>