utah saints revisited...

[Jackie Zucconi <mailrus!gatech!netlink.cts.COM!lionhart@uunet.UU.NET>]

I'm not sure if this message will make the air waves but here it goes...
  How far an engineer can go in "reworking" a previously existing piece 
of music and be lawfully able to call it his/her own is a point of legal 
contention to be sure. The crux of the problem seems to lie with the 
realm of "recognizability." This ambiguous quality seems to be left up to 
the opinions of those presiding over the court case, no hard and fast law 
exists (yet) outlining when a song is still recognizable as the original 
work and when it has given up that "essence" and becomes something new 
and unique in its own right. This is why "samplign cases" are long drawn 
out processes usually resulting in out of court settlements. What makes 
the matter even more confusing is the difference in copyright laws from 
country to country. Kate and Utah Saints both work under UK law but what 
if Nirvana tried to sample Kate? Now there are problems because of 
incompatibilities with US and UK copyright laws. Hope this helps...
                     Kateness,
                            Lionheart

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