Yeah that's a tough one. I have a musician friend who was obsessed with figuring out what equipment the neptunes used on certain songs and then remaking the instrumental part of the tracks. to my ears, they were pretty much indistinguishable from the originals. what's the distinction?

I guess it doesn't seem too hard to define, but maybe the confusion is philosophical. When I say bit-for-bit, that's what I mean. When I say "remake" it involves using your own voice and instruments to make a new recording. That's actually been the default through all history. There's no "original recordings" for Beethoven's music. If you buy a pop song's sheet music, never having heard the song, that's a very traditional kind of making music, and completely appropriate.

But really, philosophically. Here's an original recording (couldn't find the studio version):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzZHmHqEE7k

Okay, and here's a great remake. I say great because it's so completely original at the same time:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVuh1Ymve2I

And here's a ripoff (sort of. The sampled parts were paid for), which you probably already guessed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zx3m4e45bTo

I really like that song, but that guy added very little to the original remake, so to speak.

The distinction is the amount of work, energy, creativity and risk required to produce them. One requires a lot of it, the other requires clicking a button.