Now, if silence is copyrightable, will two-minute silences for war remembrance and the like have to be banned? Will the Quakers need to negotiate licensing terms? Will the police tell suspects under arrest, "You have the right to remain silent, but only if you pay royalties to the estate of John Cage"? The whole thing is absurd.

The fact that Batt mentioned Cage in his song list is not the point. Silence does not become any more copyrightable if you mention Cage. The idea that silence can constitute copyright infringement only if you mention Cage has no foundation whatever in copyright law. (It is arguable that, by mentioning Cage, Batt infringed rights of other kinds, but that is not the point.)

Whoever it was who claimed copyright in 4'33" -- for whatever reason -- made a silly mistake. Now, we all make mistakes, and if this were really nothing more than a clerical error, it would be easy to put the matter right by apologising to Mr Batt.

Unless and until they do, they deserve to be held up to ridicule as a symbol of the overextension of copyright law.

The fact that Batt mentioned Cage in his song list is not the point.

In fact, that's exactly the point. That's what caused the trouble. There was no claim that silence was copyrightable. That's the legend, and what's causing people to huff and puff so much.

The co-credit set-off an automatic bill. Because if there was a credit, what was it for? The case now seems technically about a right-of-publicity, not copyright. But talking about "copyrighted silence" makes for a so much better story.

Seth Finkelstein [sethf.com]

Someone sent Mr Batt a letter claiming copyright (according to one version), or a form asking Mr Batt to apply for a copyright licence (according to the other version -- but if you send someone a form asking them to apply for a copyright licence, that amounts to claiming copyright).

Whichever it was, the organisation that sent it must surely have reviewed the track attributed to "Batt/Cage", to ensure that this was really a reference to John Cage rather than to "Cage" from Ohio, or a collaborator of Mr Batt who happened to bear that name, or someone else entirely.

And then, somebody must have taken a conscious decision to claim copyright in 4'33".

Whichever version you believe, they did claim copyright -- not publicity rights, or anything else -- in 4'33". The "Batt/Cage" credit may well have been the reason that they claimed copyright, but claim it they did, and they don't deny it!

a) Immediately engage in a detailed copyright analysis about the particulars
or
b) Send out a bill for Bar's royalties?

Then a reporter asks why you sent out the bill. Do you

a) Retain a lawyer to have a precise legalistic statement, given the ferocity of the copyright wars, or
b) Attempt to explain the reason above?

Nobody seems to have thought about it on the level of copyrighted silence. The first action was "Foo and Bar, so bill for Bar's royalties". Then it seems have been "Using Bar's name, bill for Bar's royalties". But any copyright on silence has been specificially disclaimed.

Seth Finkelstein [sethf.com]

Nonetheless, that should not be allowed to obscure the fact that someone did claim copyright in 4'33" -- it's not a myth!

That 4'33" is silence is a kind of gotcha in the billing procedure. It's a funny joke, but it's turned into a copyright Urban Legend, rather than a mere joke which interacted badly with automatic royalty charges.

It's not presented as "There was an autmatic billing which went out because of a co-credit, but the piece turned out to be silent, so the billing wasn't valid for collaboration, but then it became an argument over publicity rights". That doesn't make for nearly as fun a story. But copyrighted silence - there's a column.

"A billing argument over a collaboration credit in a piece that turns out to be silence" is a very far cry from "trying to copyright silence as subject matter". One shouldn't try to phrase the former in a way as to be heard as the latter.

The key is that the core of the argument is about the co-credit.

- Seth Finkelstein [sethf.com]

"If Mr. Batt wants to produce a minute of silence under his own name," he conceded, "we would obviously have no right to the royalties."

In other words, (agents of) the "composer" of silence does claim to have the right to royalties.