The Null Device

John Cage's lawyers sue over "derivative" silent track

The latest tidings from the brave new era of neo-Galambosian intellectual-property absolutism: John Cage's music publishers are claiming to own the rights to the concept of silence as music. A British music producer has received a legal nastygram from the publishers over a 60-second silent track on a CD he put together. Cage's publishers are claiming that the track is a derivative work of Cage's 4'33". (via bOING bOING)

There are 3 comments on "John Cage's lawyers sue over "derivative" silent track":

Posted by: Graham http://grudnuk.com/ Sun Jun 30 14:52:42 2002

Hmm. Oh well, there goes the moment's silence on Remembrance Day.

Posted by: mitch http:// Mon Jul 1 04:53:13 2002

Posted by: Eric http://www.furnitureporn.com Mon Jul 1 07:40:54 2002

Huh? OK then, I claim copyright for the artistic act of not putting out a CD at all, so I will now sue all of you posers and imitators who are copying me by not putting out a CD!

Wow, are some people out there or what!

Want to say something? Do so here.

Post pseudonymously

Display name:
URL:(optional)
To prove that you are not a bot, please enter the text in the image into the field below it.

Your Comment:

Please keep comments on topic and to the point. Inappropriate comments may be deleted.

Note that markup is stripped from comments; URLs will be automatically converted into links.