Johann Sebastian Bach: plagiarist and copycat (and Handel too)

It happened a lot. A composer would take a line from another's work and use it in their own composition. Bach would borrow from Handel.  Handel would borrow from Bach.  Sometimes entire sets of variations were done on another composer's theme. Variations on a theme by Paganini comes to mind, Brahms being the guilty party. It was actually considered an act of respect to quote from a known piece and make it into something else. I guess they didn't have lawyers around then.

Somehow, somewhere, some lawyer got hold of some musician or composer and convinced them that this "borrowing" was actually stealing. Instead of being honored when someone else uses a part of our work to make something new, we're told, we should be incensed that they are stealing from us. And so the legal profession brings down hundreds of years of musical tradition and creativity. For hundreds of years musicians were able to look to past works as an avenue to inspiration. No longer.

I guess I'm just sore because I recently wrote a song called All Right Now, and although it was an original composition, I wanted to quote an old pop song to make a point and catch the ear. I'm talking two bars, out of a 4-minute song. Harry Fox had a table set up at the ASCAP New York Sessions event, and so I thought I'd ask if it was okay to use it. Of course the answer was, "No." So I either have to pay for a mechanical license, or I have to get permission from the writers and/or current owners of the publishing rights to use it, which may or may not happen. Even though it's a totally different piece of music and the "sample" occurs only once. Sigh.

I guess I'm happy that someone can't go out, take a melody of mine, write different words to it and claim it as their own. It is a good thing that someone can't take a record, digitally eliminate the vocal, and record a new melody and words over the remaining track and call it their own. But to make it illegal to borrow one phrase, or even one measure, seems a little bit over-reactionary to me, and also a little bit bizarre.