OFF: copyright permissions (was: Artists needed!)

[Damon C Capehart]

On Tue, 29 Oct 1996, SKARSOL wrote:
> here is an example to consider:
> iron maiden did a song based on frank herbert's 'dune'.
> they wanted to call it 'dune', so contacted herbert for permission.
> frank refused permission,either wanting money,or wanting not to be
> associated with >that< kind of music,i forget which.
> so they called the song- 'to tame a land'.they changed nothing in the
> content,only the title.nothing ill happened,they were never sued,
> so i imagine it comes down to an interpretation,which is probably
> allowed.  idunno<shrugs>  rj

A nearly identical scenario occured with David Bowie.  In 1974 (I think),
he came up with a few songs setting Orwell's 1984 to music.  In the midst
of his composing period, he (or the label) contacted Orwell's estate, and
Orwell's widow refused to let Bowie release any album with the above
description.  (Probably something about not wanting to release anything
about 1984 until 1984, though Mrs. Orwell may have simply not liked
Bowie's music, or she was afraid of bisexual glam rockers, or something.)
So Bowie simply completed the songs that he already had mostly written,
then wrote the rest of the album, which was relatively unrelated to the
book, and called it Diamond Dogs.  It still has songs on it titled "1984"
and "Big Brother", but also contains songs like the title song and "Rebel
Rebel".  I seem to remember that DD was my first Bowie album.

    Damon C Capehart    |  aka Le Monsieur Damon  | dcapehar at utdallas.edu
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