This is how jazz flutist James Newton found out -- eight years after the fact -- that he was on a popular rap recording: A student strolled into his class and said hey, prof, I didn't know you performed with the Beastie Boys.-- The Flute Case That Fell ApartNewton wasn't happy. A six-second snippet of his song "Choir" was a featured attraction in the 1992 Beastie Boys hit "Pass the Mic." He says that he's never received any compensation for the band's use of the recording and that the Beastie Boys never bothered to ask his permission.
As Kessler sees it, "the idea that the judge would take a look at these six notes and determine that they are not original and didn't warrant protection, it's something musical artists, composers will and should fear."
Art is finite.
That's right. Art is finite. I'm not just speaking broadly here of "there are no new plots" or "everything's been painted", I mean it's mathematically finite. There are restrictions on art that don't have to do with the amount of time humanity has to produce it; they have to do with our ability to percieve art.
So what happens when all the art/music/writing has been created, and it's all owned by someone? No new art/music/writing.
From a more down-to-earth perspective, consider the possibility of just writing a body of no-talent music and waiting five years, then matching its composition against the music made in those five years. Eventually, this would be a viable money-making scheme, because somebody probably nearly duplicated what you did, and with the right lawyers, that becomes enough ammunition to secure royalties.
