Return to BSD News archive
Received: by minnie.vk1xwt.ampr.org with NNTP id AA572 ; Fri, 05 Feb 93 03:01:53 EST Newsgroups: alt.suit.att-bsdi,comp.unix.bsd Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!spool.mu.edu!yale.edu!ira.uka.de!math.fu-berlin.de!news.netmbx.de!Germany.EU.net!mcsun!sunic!ugle.unit.no!nuug!nntp.uio.no!bootes.sds.no!toreh From: toreh@bootes.sds.no (Tore Haraldsen) Subject: Re: George William Herbert's Challenge - Part 4 (copyright & derived works) Message-ID: <1993Feb3.235320.12182@ulrik.uio.no> Sender: news@ulrik.uio.no (Mr News) Nntp-Posting-Host: 192.68.77.217 Organization: Statens Datasentral A/S, SDS, Norway References: <1993Jan27.215738.12384@igor.tamri.com> <1kbtpf$e9h@agate.berkeley.edu> <1993Feb3.175211.13214@igor.tamri.com> Date: Wed, 3 Feb 1993 23:53:20 GMT Lines: 39 (How I hate getting into this lame debate...) In article <1993Feb3.175211.13214@igor.tamri.com> jbass@igor.tamri.com (John Bass) writes: >In regard to derived works, standards from other parts of the publishing >industries need to be examined. Take music for example. > >If we have a well known piece, like "Jingle Bells" and someone comes along >with a tune that sounds just like it ... IE has the same rhythm and melody >... then we without question would call it a rendition of "Jingle Bells", >no matter how much the author claims it to be a new piece ... even if >EVERY note, EVERY chord, and every other technical description is different >from the original. > [rest of message deleted] I am afraid your analogy will not hold any water. When you hear a piece of music, what you hear is the realization of an idea, analogous to watching the output of a program. To transcribe the output back into written form you use some kind of notation. If writing the output back into musical notation rends a result identical to the original (maybe differing in key or rythm), the output is deemed to be a plagiat in the music world (I am not saying this is the method, I am only running an analogy backwards. In the music world a work is considered a plagiat if there are sixteen or more concecutive identical notes). In music, the IDEA is the copyrighted thing. It has to be, since you can copyright a piece of music without putting it into notational form. This is where your analogy breaks down. I leave the rest as an exercise to the reader... -- tore -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tore Haraldsen, Statens Datasentral A/S - SDS, Norway email: toreh@bootes.sds.no