[Harp-L] plagarism



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Message: 13
Date: Mon, 02 Jul 2007 08:56:47 -0700
From: fjm <mktspot@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] plag(i)arism
Cc: harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx
Message-ID: <4689203F.8080203@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Glenn Weiser writes:

In academia, people get fired for plagarism,

Which gets to the heart of the matter. Whether or not you object to someone lifting an entire solo and placing it in a different context is cultural. Walter Joyce has already supplied us with a pretty complete legal opinion. Basically what's being argued about are cultural values. Good luck getting consensus on that. I'm also noticing a lot of confusion regarding performance rights versus publishing and recording rights. Did the venue have an ASCAP decal? fjm


------------------------------ fjm-

The venue was a large outdoor event and most likely had a ASCAP deal. But I'm not contending that any copyright infrigement occurred in this case.
After all, when those Chess songs were recorded the standard industry practice was to copyright only the lead sheet sheet, which consisted of the lyrics and vocal line. I know the recordings are copyright, but I'm not sure if the solos themselves are actually covered by the original copyright of the song. Maybe Walter Joyce could opine here. When Hal Leonard put out Master of the the Blues Harp they did negoiate publishing permissions with all the copyright holders, though.


As a legal nuance, Carey Bell was angry that he got no money for his solo on his remake of "I'm Ready," which I transcribed for the book. The Goodman Group, which holds the publishing rights to the Chess cataloge, got paid for it (I was just a hired pen and had no role in any legal decisions). That would suggest to me that there is no copyright protection for an improvised solo. So I doubt if the artist under discussion here would have infringed, unless the copyright of the recording (rather than the leadsheet) would have extened to live performances.

-Glenn





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