How vague and insubstantial can you get in order to "earn" $5.4 million?
First,if you think music is without such innocent coincidences, you are
kidding yourself about how limited the range of possibly successful music
actually is. Or let's assume consciousness in such things. Yeah, like
Bolton & Goldmark saved this song as a brain burn from the age of 13 for 30
years, then decided to vaguely copy it once they were comfortable everyone
else had forgotten it. WELL, HOW DO YOU THINK MUSIC IS CREATED, JUDGE?
WHERE DO YOU THINK NEW MUSIC COMES FROM? And can we even count all the
recorded tunes that fade out repeating the same word?
Christ, these music courts make me sick! This kind of grasping misuse of
copyright is EXACTLY why it's so destructive and inhibitive to the human
musical impulse. How utterly stupid can a court be? All of folk music would
be one BIG lawsuit were it not for that unfortunate public domain thing
according to this. Modern popular music is no different than folk music and
is created in exactly the same way. AS IT SHOULD BE! Instead of hearing it
coming from the porch next door, we hear it on records and the radio, but
the process of creation remains exactly the same FOREVER. It's the only way
humans know how! As long as this continues - copyright's total denial of
direct influence and copycating in the creation of "new" music - there will
be plenty of us who show no respect to such demands of copyright. It has to
deserve respect to get it, and it doesn't.
Now let's check out the Isley's catalog and see if THEY copied
anybody...This is more anti-art hammering by a very art-ignorant law
dragged into the service of, NOT the Iseley Bros, but the damned music biz
OWNERS of their equally derivitive music who obviously don't know or care
how music is actually made at all. All for money and nothing else.
Disgusting!
DJ
Negativland
>Court Refuses Michael Bolton Case
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>http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Scotus-Michael-Bolton.html
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>January 22, 2001
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>By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
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>Filed at 11:18 a.m. ET
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>WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Supreme Court refused Monday to get involved
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>in pop singer Michael Bolton's long battle to avoid a $5.4 million
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>judgment for allegedly stealing a 1960s Isley Brothers tune.
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>The court, without comment, let stand a federal appeals court
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>ruling that Bolton must pay. His lawyers had asked the justices to
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>consider whether a California court erred in sending the case to a
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>jury in 1994.
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>Bolton denied lifting his 1991 hit ``Love is a Wonderful Thing''
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>from a 1966 Isley Brothers release of the same name, and testified
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>at trial that he had never heard of the earlier song.
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>But the 1994 trial jury found that Bolton and a collaborator,
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>Andrew Goldmark, had opportunity to hear the earlier song when it
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>came out, and that the two songs shared five distinctive elements.
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>Among the similarities the jury found were the title ``hook,'' or
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>musical phrase, and a ``fade-out'' ending that repeats one phrase
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>at ever-softer volume.
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>The jury awarded Ronald and Marvin Isley 66 percent of all past and
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>future royalties from the single and 28 percent of past and future
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>royalties from Bolton's ``Time, Love and Tenderness'' album, which
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>contained the song. Bolton's lawyer said it was the largest music
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>infringement award involving a single song.
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>Bolton's lawyer asked the high court to look at the threshold for
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>taking a copyright case like this one to a jury. Bolton claimed
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>that the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in California relied on
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>an out-of-date case to approve a standard that was too lenient.
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>The Isleys never established a reasonable likelihood that two white
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>Connecticut teen-agers would have heard an obscure 45 rpm single by
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>a black rhythm and blues group, Bolton claimed. The 1966 release
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>never cracked the Top 100.
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>But lawyers for the Isleys claimed that Bolton, then 13, and
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>Goldmark, then 15, were avid fans of black music, and noted that
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>Bolton played in a band that covered black R&B tunes of the day.
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>Bolton went on to make a career of covering other black artists and
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>writing and recording his own tunes.
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>The Recording Industry Association of America also urged the high
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>court to review the case, citing the implications for the $15
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>billion domestic music market.
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>The case is Bolton v. Three Boys Music, 00-689.
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>The New York Times on the Web
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>http://www.nytimes.com
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>/-----------------------------------------------------------------\
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>Visit NYTimes.com for complete access to the
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>most authoritative news coverage on the Web,
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>updated throughout the day.
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>Become a member today! It's free!
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>http://www.nytimes.com?eta
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