Re: obscure derivative works question

On Tue, 12 Nov 1996 22:14:51 -0500 Drewsquire[_at_]aol.com wrote:
>
> Just out of curiosity, does anyone really believe 2LiveCrew was
> making a parody of the Roy Orbison song or was this just a case of
> ingenius lawyering? Personally, i found it difficult to believe
> that Luke was commenting on the song and not just using the song as
> an outline to sell his supposed modern day version. If i remeber
> correctly, wasn;t the basis of the song a comment about the types
> of women 2LiveCrew encountered in their neighborhood? Any comments?

Are you asking if the justification came afterwards? Artists of all sorts often claim reasons for what they did, but they often seem to do this after the fact. And, sometimes, these things seem far fetched to me. I'm not sure what you would find if you asked in the middle of the process. As I remember the 2LiveCrew version I think it uses "Pretty Woman" as a base to make some pretty pointed commentary.

As an interesting commentary: If I remember something I read once about music history correctly, the "greats" (Mozart, Beethoven, etc.) were always borrowing/using/plagiarizing (pick your word) from each other. It's only recently any one did anything about it. Imagine if you could sue for digital sampling back then--much of our classical music wouldn't exist.

Harold Federow
<hfederow[_at_]u.washington.edu> Received on Thu Nov 14 1996 - 16:24:32 GMT