Don’t film studios generally own the rights to the music in the films they make?
Anyway, Star Wars was a pastiche of old plots and themes done worse, but louder. It’s appropriate that Williams stole for it.
You did miss one typical feature of Williams’ compositions: how every movie sounds the same. Sure, he steals from all over, but once it goes through the process you describe every Williams film score is instantly recognizable as one of his, because it sounds like his last three dozen scores.
IANA copyright lawyer, so I’ve got no idea of the specifics of the music in question, but what I will say is that I’d be very surprised if it were completely copyright-free already.
Ha ha, nice argument, one I might borrow in the future 
What I mean is that the studio has the sayso who can use the music. Kings Row was made by Warner Bros. and Star Wars was distributed by 20th Century Fox, so I assume a deal was cut behind the scenes if somebody at WB made a stink.
Oh, OK, I see. I realise I’ve not actually made my full stance clear, which is what I hear in that comparison of two short segments is close resemblance but not direct reuse of musical material. It comes about as close to the Korngold as it can, without being actual musical borrowing, thus not in this case becoming a breach of copyright. Writing in such a way does involve a particular skill all of its own, perhaps more familiar in the world of satirical songs, or even some of the musical moments in the Simpsons.
Neither of those are the piece I’m thinking of. The best way I can think to describe it is if you were listening to a tone poem about clouds rolling across a mountain in the summer, when suddenly, you get a couple of seconds of the Jaws theme spliced in.
If you want to hear real borrowing, compare Marsto the theme from Conan the Barbarian.
That’s ridiculous. He hsa a distinctive bombastic style. That hardly means his music is all just the same, any more than Mozart’s is.
Intriguing! Do you mean literally just a couple of notes resembling the ‘shark’ motif?
And Wagner.
Yes. It is utterly bizarre, IMHO. Sort of like a PDQ Bach work, wherein some riff is tossed in for seemingly no explicable reason. NPRs “Music Through the Night” program has it in heavy rotation, and I’d be laying there some nights, listening to the program, and suddenly those notes would just shoot out at me. To my ears, it sounds like what Williams did was to grab that measure(s), loop 'em, change the tempo in spots and call it the Jaws theme. Mind you, to my mind, this is a case where Williams was clearly in the “right” with what he did, as the notes in the Bach, or whomever, piece are so distinctive that they cry out to be expanded upon. So it could be that he heard that clip, realized it was a good bit, then took some of the pieces you linked to for an idea of how he should progress with those notes.
The first time I heard the piece, I thought that I was listening to something Williams did, but found out when the announcer gave the composer it was clearly not Williams.
Another thing I’m wondering is if some of us hear similarities in Williams work with others because our ears are “tuned” slightly differently. There’s been threads here on the Dope where people say that they can hear things many other people can’t. (I can hear strange elements introduced into music by one particular tube microphone, and it absolutely sets my teeth on edge. My musician friends have done blind tests with me and I can always pick out the mike, even when I’m unfamiliar with the piece or the recording.) Its possible that there’s elements we’re pulling out which aren’t always readily apparent to other people (note that this would not necessarily mean that Williams is deliberately putting them in). I know in talking with some musicians, I’ve pointed out things in their pieces they didn’t notice (not necessarily similarities with other works, either).
If you do identify it in the future, please do tell me, even after this thread dies! 
Yes, absolutely, even if he did take these particular notes from another composer, what he did with them was (a) original, and (b) an integral part of the film, in both short-term action within a scene and also as a longer-term signifier (I’d like to avoid saying it’s a leitmotif), rather than providing an emotional tweak or bludgeon when needed, in a Lord of the Rings way. (God, I might dislike John Williams in general, but I loathed the aural straightjacketing of the audience in that trilogy.)
I didn’t even know that was John Williams. Never really paid attention to it though so perhaps I can be excused…
-FrL-
The Lord of the Rings trilogy was not scored by John Williams. That was the work of Howard Shore.
Oh yeah, I did know that, but forgot it.
Did I misunderstand you GorillaMan?
-FrL-
Yes, on re-reading I didn’t make it very clear that I was referring to that soundtrack as worse still than John Williams.