At 1:00 AM -0500 3/4/07, Raymond Horton wrote:
This sounds to me, already, like a dumb question, but here goes anyway:
Is there any guideline established as to how much I can quote of a
copyrighted piece of music without getting into trouble?
This is not legal advice!!! No, there is nothing in the law and
nothing in the Fair Use Guidelines that suggests you don't have to
ask for permission to use any percentage or any number of seconds or
of measures. (Actually there is something in Fair Use about the
amount of music that can be copied for classroom use, but that
doesn't apply to plagiarism.) Anything that suggests otherwise is
pure urban legend, and would not hold up for a moment in court. As
far as I know.
This is where the new career path of "forensic musicologist" comes
into play, as expert witnesses as to whether a particular 5-note
motive (or whatever) is immediately recognizable as plagiarism of a
copyrighted work. But since jazz improv does not exist "in fixed
form," you can quote "How High The Moon" without worrying about it!
Like we were supposed to learn in kindergarten, if you want to play
with someone else's property, ask permission!!!
However, I seem to recall something with legal precedence about
parody being all right. I may be wrong about that.
John
--
John & Susie Howell
Virginia Tech Department of Music
Blacksburg, Virginia, U.S.A 24061-0240
Vox (540) 231-8411 Fax (540) 231-5034
(mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.music.vt.edu/faculty/howell/howell.html
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