[Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases

[kos at panix.com]

On Fri, 18 Dec 2009, Richard Lewis <richardlewis at fastmail.co.uk>

> This question may be better directed at law scholars, but a colleague
> is interested in finding cases of music plagiarism which have been
> heard in court (in any country, but English or German proceedings will
> be easiest to read). Anyone know of any?

I know that Puccini won a suit against Al Jolson in 1920 for using "E lucevan 
le stelle" (from Tosca) in Jolson's song "Avalon."  I would need to research 
more to find the court proceedings.

Bob Kosovsky, Ph.D. -- Curator, Rare Books and Manuscripts,
Music Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
     blog:  http://www.nypl.org/blog/21
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