Klarinet Archive - Posting 000572.txt from 1997/03

From: Bob <laker29@-----.NET>
Subj: Re: Copyright on cadenzas?
Date: Mon, 17 Mar 1997 17:39:22 -0500

Mark & Martin -

Isn't it true that if you change one or two things (notes or rhythms etc.)
it would't be a direct "COPY" and therefore no Copyright Problem? Most
could or would do that!!
Bob Lake
Edina, MN

At 10:34 AM 3/17/97, Martin PERGLER wrote:
>Someone raised the question of to what extent performers "cadenzas"
>(and presumably other interpretive decisions) are copyrighted, and
>to what extent others can just retranscribe them and use them for
>their own performances.
>
>Mark Charette replied that he thinks they are copyrighted and cannot
>be used without permission (and made the important point that the
>copyright holder will usually no longer be the performer) and compared
>it to this situation of a software developer, who keeps the "ideas"
>of his work bu gives up the rights to the "expression".
>[Sorry about all the paraphrasing, it's hard to quote from the digest.
>Hope I haven't misread any ideas.]
>
>I wonder. Is it this simple? The copyright marked on a recording
>unquestionably applies to actual soundtrack. How much does it apply to the
>musical ideas? Does it apply to ornamentation and cadenzas? To the
>phrasing on Jonathan Cohler's CD? To the revolutionary fast tempo on John
>Eliot Gardiner's recording of Bach's Magnificat? To the tricks and turns
>of jazz clarinetists? I certainly don't know.
>
>University a cappella groups are notorious for often violating copyright.
>But in some cases, apparently, their take-offs and borrowings from
>famous songs and artists are quite legal without asking for permission.
>I once heard (not sure how reliably) that sometimes it depends on
>whether they actually write the music down (not legal) or not (fine).
>
>I don't mean this as picking on you, Mark, but intellectual property
>law is quite complicated and it's easy to use the wrong analogies
>to draw the wrong conclusions. Do you (or anybody else) know how the
>split between "expression of ideas" and the ideas themselves is drawn
>in classical music? (if this is indeed the crucial question, which
>I don't know enough to say)
>
>Martin
>
>-------------------------------------------------------
>Martin Pergler pergler@-----.edu
>Grad student, Mathematics http://www.math.uchicago.edu/~pergler
>Univ. of Chicago