4 ms·

A Legal Loophole May Leave Some Rock Riffs Up for Grabs

26 points by docker_up 7y ago

EVdotIO 7y ago
It kinda hit me why Frank Zappa fanatically transcribed _all_ his music (at one point he had a young inter named Steve Vai do it); submit those despot copies to the copyright office. It's what the major labels did, and he was decidedly independent with a good helping of paranoia to boot.
itronitron 7y ago
Seems fair, they should require a reference copy of the deposit transcription for every takedown request.
rmidthun 7y ago
By this logic, would Guitar Magazine, which published very complete sheet music for many of these songs have a copyright claim? I know I have a magazine at home with Stairway to Heaven and I'm pretty sure there's a copyright in there somewhere.
- evasote 7y ago
  For a published magazine like that I'm sure they get permission/pay for the rights
  - pwodhouse 7y ago
    Parent is saying that the magazine that trnascribed the music can get perhaps the copyright to music they didn't create, due to the OP loopholes .
coldcode 7y ago
Apparently all jazz music is then not copyrighted before 1978.
- wmil 7y ago
  The usual defence for copyright claims in music is that they are similar because you are both stealing from an earlier work without a valid copyright. So I'd bet that jazz cases would be difficult in general. I'd expect there are a lot of older songs without proper copyright papers.
dheera 7y ago
I didn't know what a "riff" was and thought this was about some free rocky land that was up for grabs ...
bairrd 7y ago
I feel like the outcome of the case discussed here runs completely opposite to the outcome of the Marvin Gaye estate against Robin Thicke and the other writers on Blurred Lines, whereby the song, without any sort of similarity note-wise, was found to be infringing based on the "feeling" of the song, which seems incredibly problematic for anyone writing music nowadays. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blurred_Lines#Marvin_Gaye_lawsuit_and_authorship_questions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blurred_Lines#Marvin_Gaye_laws...
mmerlin 7y ago
Sounds like a lot of pre '78 guitar/bass/horns/keys solos/intros are potentially non-copyrighted in the USA, because they were not transcribed into written musical notation. You'd still probably need deep pockets at some stage to pay a legal weasel to defend you from another legal weasel suing on behalf of the estate of a dead or aged musician.

26 points by docker_up 7y ago

It kinda hit me why Frank Zappa fanatically transcribed _all_ his music (at one point he had a young inter named Steve Vai do it); submit those despot copies to the copyright office. It's what the major labels did, and he was decidedly independent with a good helping of paranoia to boot.

itronitron 7y ago

Seems fair, they should require a reference copy of the deposit transcription for every takedown request.

rmidthun 7y ago

By this logic, would Guitar Magazine, which published very complete sheet music for many of these songs have a copyright claim? I know I have a magazine at home with Stairway to Heaven and I'm pretty sure there's a copyright in there somewhere.

evasote 7y ago
For a published magazine like that I'm sure they get permission/pay for the rights
- pwodhouse 7y ago
  Parent is saying that the magazine that trnascribed the music can get perhaps the copyright to music they didn't create, due to the OP loopholes .

coldcode 7y ago

Apparently all jazz music is then not copyrighted before 1978.

wmil 7y ago
The usual defence for copyright claims in music is that they are similar because you are both stealing from an earlier work without a valid copyright. So I'd bet that jazz cases would be difficult in general. I'd expect there are a lot of older songs without proper copyright papers.

dheera 7y ago

I didn't know what a "riff" was and thought this was about some free rocky land that was up for grabs ...

bairrd 7y ago

I feel like the outcome of the case discussed here runs completely opposite to the outcome of the Marvin Gaye estate against Robin Thicke and the other writers on Blurred Lines, whereby the song, without any sort of similarity note-wise, was found to be infringing based on the "feeling" of the song, which seems incredibly problematic for anyone writing music nowadays. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blurred_Lines#Marvin_Gaye_lawsuit_and_authorship_questions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blurred_Lines#Marvin_Gaye_laws...

mmerlin 7y ago

Sounds like a lot of pre '78 guitar/bass/horns/keys solos/intros are potentially non-copyrighted in the USA, because they were not transcribed into written musical notation. You'd still probably need deep pockets at some stage to pay a legal weasel to defend you from another legal weasel suing on behalf of the estate of a dead or aged musician.