Silence is intellectual property

Cory Doctorow 5:21 pm Sat Jun 29, 2002

John Cage's 4'33", a lengthy silent ~~track on~~ composition from one of his avant-garde ~~albums~~ performances (thanks, Mark), constitutes an original work for copyright purposes. This means that other composers who include silent tracks have made a derivative work from Cage's silence. Cage's representatives have served producer Mike Batt with a legal nastygram asserting that he infringed on Cage's copyright with his 60-second silent track on the latest Planets album.

As my mother said when I told her, 'which part of the silence are they claiming you nicked?'.

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