09/23/02

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Silence Is Golden and Copyrighted

The question of whether British composer Mike Batt's "A Minute's Silence" on the "Classical Graffiti" CD (by The Planets) violated the copyright of John Cage's silent composition " 4'33" " has been resolved in an out-of-court settlement. Batt reportedly paid the John Cage Trust an "adequate sum" (whatever that is). On his site, Batt writes, "We have now settled the matter of my artless plagiarism of John Cage's silence, by his publishers caving in and us winning! Why didn't I think of that before! We could have saved a lot of time and buggering about, although I must say, the struggle was one of the most amusing disputes I've ever , er, disputed." Batt may yet have the last laugh. According to the New Yorker, Batt has been busy copyrighting chunks of silence of various lengths other than the four minutes, thirty-three seconds of silence owned by Cage.

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