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Comment by jboggan | Hacker News Reader

This video of the ending of Star Wars without John Williams' music got a copyright claim from the rightsholder to Williams' score [edited from original post, not actually claimed by Williams himself]. The little bit of music at the beginning is from Gustav Holst and is public domain.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj-GZJhfBmI

edit for more context: https://www.wired.com/story/the-star-wars-video-that-baffled...

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John Williams stole (borrowed) a lot of music from Gustav Holst and many others. He's famous for it. Specifically parts of Holst's The Planets. Does this sound familiar?: https://youtu.be/Isic2Z2e2xs?t=4m24s

There's a long history - I suppose it's a tradition - of composers leaning on one another for inspiration. Sometimes this takes the form of them outright copying another's melody and elaborating upon it.

Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms etc. all did this. Put in this context what Williams has done in borrowing from Holst and others isn't scandalous whatsoever and shouldn't be thought of as such.

Just let me fix a few words, for science:

> There's a long history - I suppose it's a tradition - of composers claiming copyright on someone else's work and sending DMCA takedowns automatically

That's how absurd it has become.

Everything is a remix, https://vimeo.com/14912890

Beethoven, Mozart, Haydn, Bach, Mendelssohn, Brahms etc. probably didn't send each other DMCA takedown demands though.

You're making an excellent case against copyright.

I always joke about how much money Europe should pay China for ideas like the compass or gunpowder.

Oh of course, Auralnauts replace so many of Williams' works with Holst in their various videos that you hardly even know it. Similarly look at the opening of the 4th movement of Dvorak's 9th (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9OBf8f55tU) for Jaws' inspiration.

Or listen to any of Ralph Vaughan Williams' 9 symphonies and you'll hear John Williams' orchestration and voicing directly.

Listen at 1:45, whole piece is amazing though.

https://youtu.be/JFIGoB7rK70?t=1m40s

The overall structure is similar, many themes sound like they were modified from Star Wars (or rather, the other way around), and 6:55 sounds like it was literally copy pasted.

“...great poets imitate and improve, whereas small ones steal and spoil.”

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