Musicologists say make that change. How?

Is that what musicologists do? I'm so confused.

Is that where it's taken? I'm incredulous.

What the heck is going on? Why would you go to a musicologist (someone who studies music history, theory and social context to determine why it is the way it is, how it relates to general culture, etc) to do this? Why wouldn't the musician who did the track do it?

I thought this thread was going to be about Man in the Mirror.

Oh, so you're disappointed then, Carey? Well, if you want to make ILM a better place, take a look at yourself and ... umm, you know.

But I'm actually curious about this question. Ignore the "musicologist" part of it. First, it's probably worth breaking into two different cases: 1) sampling and 2) ripping off melodies, riffs, etc., a la Milli Vanilli and Blood Sweat & Tears. Is there a concrete number of notes played, or mere "recognizability" that makes it illegal? Obviously, this will differ between 1 and 2.

My wife is in law school and studied copyrights and we've talked about this. My understanding is it's a combination of things that include similarity to the original compositon, "recognizability" as you say, or a) degree of public awareness of the original compostion and b) ability of the public to associate the compostion with a particular person or group. And it also has to do with the amount of the original composition that the new song apes, ie the main melody as opposed to a single note, or piece of a bar. And it's only illegal if it can be argued in court to any degree that any of these similarities hold particular consequence to the artist (or estate) of the original compositon.

Hopefully, I haven't just bullshitted.

I don't know about musicologists, but one of my professors who is a saxophonist and studio musician has been brought in as an expert in court cases to determine these sorts of things. They have some legal criteria, but he mainly just used his 'expert opinion' to say "it may sound very similar, but this, this, this, and this are different" or whatever.

He also told an interesting story about how Garbage wanted to sample a couple seconds of a woodwind bit from an old OOP Frank Sinatra record and Sinatra's estate told them they could do it, but then they would require half (!!) of total sales. He went in to do an arrangement and play an approximation of the parts.

That's the kind of thing I meant - you kind of hear stories about no three concecutive notes being the same or something and I was just wondering what the actual legal situation was.

To me it sounds like an empowering thread title:

Musicologists say: 'Make that change!'

Don't put it off till tomorrow! You can investigate the differences between Balinese and Javanese gamelan music NOW! Empower yourself with a knowledge of the music of other cultures! Make that change and become a better person!!