Some smartass artists have actually written their silent compositions as rhythmically structured rests. That is, something like "silence in 6/4 time, as three

Some smartass artists have actually written their silent compositions as rhythmically structured rests. That is, something like "silence in 6/4 time, as three quarter rests and three eigthth-triplet rests". It's intentionally absurd, but as the minimum-information notation would be the full-measure rest glyph and the number of measures of duration, the deviation from this is undoubtedly creative content that is copyrightable on paper. That kind of thing is completely unenforceable with respect to performances, but in written musical notation, copying the specific notation pattern could be infringement. If you write "4/4, tempo 80, 91-measure rest", that's maybe violating the 4'33" copyright. If you write a score for a full band or orchestra that shows rests in each measure for each instrument, with key changes and tempo changes and such, you're just retelling the same joke in a different way.