Hi, I was just reading this book ("FREE CULTURE" by Lawrence Lessing), page 35ff. (using a set of free software applications, BTW).

That's where Lessing illuminates how the Mickey Mouse figure was born.
At these time, early 1930s, there were lots of cartoons, and the new ones amended existing ones.
Walt Disney now added sound to it, and, after all, added special charme to that Mickey Mouse figure.
Quotation:
- Now, the reason for this post is not Mickey Mouse or cartoons - it's Jazz. - I "live and eat" Jazz.

Every Jazz musician in this world has a number of standard songs in their repertoire, mostly this is more than 50% of the repertoire. - "Embracable You", "Last Train To Clarksville", "Love For Sale" - most of these songs have been originally written in the 1930s.

All of these songs are still valid until today, and every Jazz combo interpretes them newly and completely different. If it was a ballad, originally, it might be a bossa by another artist, or only the notions differ.

- Sorry. My English is bad, and I'm tired. I just wanted to share how important it is to pick up the ideas of others, and to make a new culture of it.

Jazz is so great.

- The Beatles's Paul McCartney, asked on how to best start with a new band, said: "Well, copy songs."

- You cannot invalidate culture by reproducing and amending it...

Funny you mention one Beatle in your post. You should have a look at the lawsuit that resulted in a decision of "unitentional plagiarism" against George Harrison who included the line "He's so fine" in his "My Sweet Lord". There are sometimes pitfalls to "reproducing and amending".

Personally I'm not against copyright but do think it goes to far on occasion as in the above case. I also believe if copyright's denote "itellectual property" as big corporations say they should always be owned by the individual rather than the corporation as we all know corporations have no intellect of their own. It might make them treat the talent a little better after creation. I also don't think copyrights should outlive their original human holder. The heirs of such a creation did nothing in its creation if not credited at the time of creation so should have no ownership. Allowing creations to be defended long after the creator has died simply helps to stifle the "reproduction and amendment" that appears in almost all new "creations".

Thanks. - I'm glad to be informed about that George Harrison case.

I'm not against copyrights, too - not at all. I still strongly believe that there are cultural ideas that should never be copyrighted.

This - of course - includes music, but also what you expect your computer to do when you do a right-mouse-click...

Moved: This thread is more suitable in General and has been moved accordingly to help your thread/question get the exposure it deserves.

Thanks XavierP.

- I've re-read the Harrison-vs.-Klein story. I've really liked Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" since my youth, and never knew it might be a plagiarism. Well, Harrison earned a lot of money by selling that song, and that might be where the problem came in.

- In Jazz it's, an interprete, a musician can't do too much without using, and sharing, and - in a custom way - interpreting the "old masters". In fact, you can't even do Jazz without playing songs written by Cole Porter. You'll interprete the songs in your own way, of course, in your very personal way.

- As I've read, many and most Bebop songs - in the old times, but still today - were just amending other songs by just changing some chords, or the rhythm. That's still the same with Jazz ballads. That's how Jazz evolved, and that's how it still does.

- Today, all the great musicians - like prominent Dianne Reeves and Cassandra Wilson - use these old songs, which are still up-to-date, contemporary, in their current interpretions.

- These, Dianne and Cassandra, are modern musicians, who won't even shy on transforming Sting's or U2's songs into Jazz.

- Their last albums are DRM-protected, and all of that is copyrighted, in the mean time (of course, Sting's and U2's work were copyrighted, too, at any rate).

- OK, so these world-class musicians like special songs, and "buy" them, and re-release them in a personalized way. Thus, everything should be OK.

- My own problem is with the fact, that every musician, with every song he "invents", recaptures and broadens his personal experiences, and those of their listeners - and this transition is hampered by copyright issues.

- Moreover, there should be really no copyright on a song like The Stones's "I can't get no satisfaction", because it's in millions of peoples's brains and bellies. Hey, you can't charge for anything that's already slipped into the bowels.

- Well, I'm naive. I know. Probably, I'm totally wrong.

- It's, I love music, and I understand how songs evolve out of other songs. There's no new song in this world, at all, but music always goes on. - At least, it was doing so. - Well, listen to your radio. *bad grin*

Thanks