Copyright gone awry

ziggy on 2002-09-24T19:07:37

"Mine is a much better silent piece. I have been able to say in one minute what Cage could only say in four minutes and 33 seconds."
Mike Batt found himself sued by the John Cage trust because his song, «A One Minute Silence», was a derivative work of John Cage's 1952 composition, «4' 33"», a stretch of silence that was 4:30 long.

Batt paid a huge chunk of change to the John Cage trust to settle the plagiarism suit.

Neither of these allegedly musical pieces actually contain any music, so I'm dumbfounded how there can be any plagiarism involved...

(via Lisa Rein.)


His Mistake

Herkemer on 2002-09-24T20:53:05

As I read on CNN it seems that Batt credited the song as being co-written by John Cage. Hence the legal trouble.