Xref: utzoo rec.music.misc:38547 comp.music:523
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!wuarchive!texbell!texsun!newstop!sun!bari!briang
From: briang@bari.Sun.COM (Brian Gordon)
Newsgroups: rec.music.misc,comp.music
Subject: Re: Copyright question
Message-ID: <129609@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 26 Dec 89 18:33:06 GMT
References: <35021@grapevine.uucp>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
Reply-To: briang@sun.UUCP (Brian Gordon)
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 26

In article <35021@grapevine.uucp> koreth@panarthea.ebay.sun.com (Steven Grimm) writes:
>What do the copyright laws have to say about transmitting small excerpts from
>a piece of music?  I am pretty sure it's legal to quote a few paragraphs from
>a book/magazine for review or discussion purposes; is it legal to digitize a
>few seconds of music, for the same purpose?
>	[...]


Fascinating question.  /* #include (not_a_lawyer.h) */

Once upon a time, the rule for having to pay for air-play was "8 bars or more",
nice and cut-and-dry.  Then it went to "enough to be recognizable", which can
vary from 3 notes to a page.  Courts held, eventually, that 8 bars was always
enough to be recognized.

I suspect that a little (4 bars?) for the purposes you describe would be deemed
"fair use", and legal.  Enough to impart "the flavor" is probably not, since
that is presumably what is copyrighted.

Of course, don't expect to see much respect for copyrights on usenet -- until
the ax falls the first time.

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