[Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases

[Deborah Burton]

I believe that Puccini's editor Ricordi did receive $25,000 in damages 
and future royalties, but I haven't seen the actual documents.

Deborah Burton
Boston University
burtond at bu.edu

Locke, Ralph wrote:
>
> Did Puccini really win that case?  The resemblance between the two is 
> brief (just the opening eight melody notes--a scalar fragment up and 
> down, followed by a ^5-^8 melodic cadence), and the mode is changed 
> from minor to major as well!  Jolson's song then churns this little 
> chunk for a while, sequencing it here and there, in very predictable 
> fashion.  Puccini veers off into all kinds of new (though distantly 
> related) developments.
>
> If I were the judge, I'd have thrown the case out!
>
> RLocke
>
> Ralph P. Locke
> Professor of Musicology
> 26 Gibbs St.
> Rochester NY 14604-2599 USA
> Tel.: 585-274-1455
> Fax: 585-274-1088 ("for R. Locke")
> RLocke at esm.rochester.edu
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: smt-talk-bounces at societymusictheory.org on behalf of kos at panix.com
> Sent: Fri 12/18/2009 8:14 AM
> To: smt-talk at societymusictheory.org
> Subject: Re: [Smt-talk] Music Plagiarism Cases
>
> 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
>    Listowner: OPERA-L ; SMT-TALK ; SMT-ANNOUNCE ; SoundForge-users
> --- My opinions do not necessarily represent those of my institutions ---
>
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