> I'm not defending the record industry but Bo Diddley signed those > contracts. So did Chuck Berry. I suppose that's why Chuck always insisted on being paid in full, in cash, before he would go on stage. There's a famous story about a promoter in the UK having to push banknotes one at a time under the dressing room door. > Will Bach be upset that Chuck Berry lifted complete sounds from > his work at times? I don't think the lift was quite so complete, or close in time. To take the example of Bo Diddley, he would have been able to hear plenty of derivative music coming out of his radio while he was still working. On one level that's flattering, on another it must be upsetting - especially if the sound-alike bands are getting all the attention and making all the money. > Every musician uses pieces of everything he's > heard from the time he was born. Absolutely. There's a difference between influence and plagiarism though. > Music as a whole is part of a cultural commons but my creativity > in writing a particular song is not. I'm not arguing that artists shouldn't be able to earn a living. The general problem of 'intellectual property' seems to apply across many arts. Disney, for example, had very few orginal ideas, but is now keen to keep all the folk stories it borrowed in an ever-extending copyright envelope. Just parody or otherwise adapt Mickey Mouse, and see how far a defence of creativity gets you in front of the judge. > Granite is pretty much common > property too but I don't own any of Michaelangelo's sculptures. Those 60's British musicians weren't exactly starting with the raw stone - more like taking a mould of the sculpture. I think the imitation for the most part was sincere, and done out of respect, but this discussion was originally about proper attribution. > I live in Mississippi and I've met > many of the still living Delta blues players. Trust me, they're > not very depressed (or repressed) either. Glad to hear it. I think the Bonzo's lyric was actually a joke :-) > In my opinion, anyone > who has been addicted to heroin and whose son has done a one-way > nose dive out of a fourth story window has a right to play the > blues. I think Clapton's career as a bluesman was well established by the time those things happened. Cheers Daniel
