[sldev] Re: [Opensim-dev] Voice Module

[Matthew Dowd]

>> I'd like to see this case law.  As I've said before, this is akin to 
>> saying a musician is not allowed to listen to any music, because then 
>> everything he produces from then on might possibly be derivative. 

Unfortunately there is case law in music copyright enfringement which makes you wonder whether this should be the case!

 I have an article somewhere on some of the more questionable decisions reached in court cases but can't put my hands on it immediately. One case which I do recall was over the first person to use an alberti bass figure in a popular piece of music (the alberti bass - see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberti_bass is something that has been around for centuries, and anyone who plays the piano will be familiar with; it would be a little like first person to use induction in C# suing anyone else who decides to use it later!)

Another more recent case, which isn't quite a silly as it first appears but still pretty silly, was Mike Batt being sued by the John Cage estate on the basis that Batt's 1 minute silence piece plagiarised Cage's 4 minutes 33 seconds silence piece. (Batt paid a six figure out of court settlement for that one).

Matthew


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