de=da=duh=D'OH/ bloooooze and thievery

[Carl Edlund Anderson]

At 17.50 -0400 99-10-07, Paul Mather wrote:
>On Thu, 7 Oct 1999, Carl Edlund Anderson wrote:
>
>=> I emphasize that I'm not discussing whether Zeppelin did with the blues
>=> songs they ripped off was legally or morally correct, I'm simply suggesting
>=> that it was probably pretty similar to the sorts of things pre-recording
>=> blues performers did all the time. I think it's an interesting example of
>=> how our society's views have changed.
>
>I see what you're getting at, now.  But the important thing to note is
>that Zeppelin were *not* "pre-recording blues performers," so it is
>unfair to judge them by those societal norms, which had---by your own
>admission---drastically changed by then.  So I don't see how they can
>adopt this cultural defence, because when they were ripping off songs,
>eveybody played by different rules and knew the game.

I'm emphatically *not* talking about judging Zeppelin's actions or
suggesting this understanding of the process as a defense--their actions
clearly violated modern copyright law! I'm making what is strictly a
observation.

Cheers,
Carl

--
Carl Edlund Anderson
mailto:cea20 at cus.cam.ac.uk
http://hea-www.harvard.edu/~carl/