Is it possible for a musician/composer to hold copyright on a completely silent track? Should it be possible?
Eh.
The real objection here is that John Cage’s name was used without his estate’s permission. It was an ill-advised joke on the part of Batt, referring to Cage’s infamous 4’33, a piece (arguably) consisting of nothing but silence.
Cage’s estate is by no means arguing that they deserve royalties on all silence.
To answer the question, can silence be copywrited.
No. You can always claim prior art. The soundtrack
to “The Buddy Holly Story” has 90 seconds of silence.
on the eight track version.
According to the cover, this was intentional.
That piece (4’33) was not about silence - it was about the noise of the audience shuffling and complaining during a live show. This made the piece different each time it was ‘performed’.
If he hadn’t mentioned Cage in the credits, he would have been fine. Note that the article doesn’t mention copyright; it mentions royalties.
You need to pay fees to play any of Cage’s work. By putting his name on the credits, he is officially a co-writer of the track and thus entitled to royalties.
If, for instance, you wrote a new song using the lyrics to “Golden Slumbers,” you could do that without paying (since the lyrics come from a public domain source). But if you give Lennon/McCartney credit, you owe them royalties.
Thank you, Aro. I get annoyed when I hear about John Cage’s piece discussed as “silence”.
I heard an interview with the artist on NPR. The Cage credited on the album is not John Cage, it was a fictitious person he invented for this piece. It was all spelled out in the contract (?) he signed with the record company. Clearly it was an homage, but it was just as clearly not intended to credit John Cage.
Apparently the lawyers for Cage felt it was too close for comfort.
Sounds of Silence by the Carpenters was copyrighted in the 70s.
I copyrighted HTML space in 1996 in my magnus opus:
I see you are all using extracts of it it in your posts. Quite frankly I don’t care if you are paying me homage or not. I demand royalties.
similarly, if i hang up a blank piece of paper and call it “The Void” is it really art?
Just can’t resist chiming in about the “Nutopian International Anthem” by John Lennon and Yoko Ono. It was on the album Mind Games. At the end of side 1, it consisted of 3 seconds of silence. Although a Cageite would insist it wasn’t so much “silence” as the sound of the record needle hissing and popping over the blank vinyl groove. On a CD it wouldn’t be the same piece at all.
In a similar vein, there’s “Subliminal Sonic Laxative” by the Blues Magoos (c 1967). The piece consists of a minute or so of low level amplifier hum. Sixty Hz noise is irritating as hell if you don’t know that it’s Art.
Your drive-by attempt hit a speed bump. Simon and Garfunkle. The 60’s. Let’s keep those wise-ass remarks FACTUAL.
Not to mention “Metal Machine Music” by Lou Reed. Two whole albums of feedback. Of course, a rumor persists that this “artistic” effort was the result of Lou being pissed off at RCA for holding him to a recording contract, so he made the most ludicrous, unsalable record for them he possibly could.
I was surprised to find that the Carpenters actually DID record Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sounds of Silence” in the 70’s. They must have at least copyrighted their version of the song, so Handy is technically correct.