[LAU] [slightly OT] Musical citation (what is allowed?)

[Dave Phillips]

On 11/30/2011 07:47 AM, Julien Claassen wrote:
> Hello everyone!
>   I'd like to cite from a relatively recent work (1970), which of 
> course is still copyrighted. So can I do it per se? I'd just like to 
> cite a main phrase for a bit (2-4 bars) I suspect. any hints on that 
> would be very much appreciated.

Hi Julien,

As others have pointed out, the legal status is unclear, probably by the 
nature of the problem. Bear in mind that George Harrison was busted for 
sol-mi-re in My Sweet Lord, it is the same melodic progression as The 
Chiffons He's So Fine. Now, I don't know what anyone else might think 
about it, but I find it hard to believe that GH was consciously ripping 
off The Chiffons. From Wikipedia :

"Harrison denied deliberately plagiarising the song, but he lost the 
resulting court case in 1976 as the judge deemed that Harrison had 
"subconsciously" plagiarised "He's So Fine". When considering liable 
earnings, "My Sweet Lord"'s contribution to the sales of /All Things 
Must Pass/ and /The Best of George Harrison 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Best_of_George_Harrison>/ were taken 
into account, and the judge decided a figure of $1,599,987 was owed to 
Bright 
Tunes.^<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Harrison#cite_note-Plagiarism-96> 
The dispute over damages became complicated when Harrison's former 
manager Allen Klein <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Klein> purchased 
the copyright to "He's So Fine" from Bright Tunes in 1978. In 1981, a 
district judge decided that Klein had acted improperly, and it was 
agreed that Harrison should pay Klein $587,000, the amount Klein had 
paid for "He's So Fine", so he would gain nothing from the deal, and 
that Harrison would take over ownership of Bright Tunes, making him the 
owner of the rights to both "My Sweet Lord" and "He's So Fine" and thus 
ending the copyright infringement claim. Though the dispute dragged on 
into the 1990s, the district judge's decision was upheld."

Best,

dp

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