John Cage's 4'33" is probably one of the best jokes in music.
I personally learned about 4'33" in a music class, where it was performed live -- basically it was 4'33" of ambient noise, but there was a lot of tension if you didn't know what to expect. During the final exam for the class, the professor would play some recording and we were supposed to identify the music, and all of us would start writing "John Cage's 4 minutes 33 seconds" when the professor was too slow to start the next song.
There was also an incident where apparently Mike Batt copied 4'33" and named his song "A One Minute Silence", which resulted in an 6-figure court settlement[1], although later news said it was just £1000[2]. I also heard a version of the story that they didn't settle at all, because John Cage's publishers couldn't prove which minute out of the 4'33" was copied.
Is there a test of originality for copyright? I wouldn’t call myself vehemently anti copyright but when the idea of “let’s just not play and the ambient sound of the orchestra sitting there is music instead” is the basis for the copyright it does make me question the validity of it. When someone who has done XYZ drug of choice and can come up with that idea in their drug addled state of mind as a pretty good first pass (if I were to to smoke marijuana and you asked me of a clever avant garde music idea, the concept of 4’33’’ is probably be one of the top three I would just list right off the bat not knowing of Cage) I really do question whether you should be able to copyright that idea. It’s even a bit of a hippie meme “what if the music is everything around us? Har har”
By the way I love 4’33” and don’t denigrate it - the way Cage executed the idea is flawless - which is one of the reasons it’s so timeless. I just don’t think it’s something you can copyright. And indeed, the stories you linked indicate that, though rather than point out the ridiculousness of the situation they simply used it as a money and publicity making opportunity.
Your performance in your location will have a different ambient near-silence, than mine, or any other performance and circumstance. Since the near-silence is the point of the piece, we have different expressions....?
This is a good one, but I think my point is that the original doesn’t stand up to copyright in the first place - so transformative use wouldn’t apply if that was the case
> I also heard a version of the story that they didn't settle at all, because John Cage's publishers couldn't prove which minute out of the 4'33" was copied.
This seems wrong on its face; If I steal the chorus out of a song where it's repeated multiple times and release it as my own, the artist might not be able to prove which instance of the chorus I used.
I personally learned about 4'33" in a music class, where it was performed live -- basically it was 4'33" of ambient noise, but there was a lot of tension if you didn't know what to expect. During the final exam for the class, the professor would play some recording and we were supposed to identify the music, and all of us would start writing "John Cage's 4 minutes 33 seconds" when the professor was too slow to start the next song.
There was also an incident where apparently Mike Batt copied 4'33" and named his song "A One Minute Silence", which resulted in an 6-figure court settlement[1], although later news said it was just £1000[2]. I also heard a version of the story that they didn't settle at all, because John Cage's publishers couldn't prove which minute out of the 4'33" was copied.
[1] https://edition.cnn.com/2002/SHOWBIZ/Music/09/23/uk.silence/
[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-11964995