If you want a laugh, read this
London Times
September 24, 2002
Composer settles for silence
By A Correspondent
A LEGAL battle over a "song" consisting of a minute's silence was settled yesterday with the Wombles composer, Mike Batt, paying a six-figure sum to the estate of the late avant garde composer John Cage.
Batt, who had included the passage on an album for his classical rock band The Planets, was accused of stealing it from a work by Cage, whose 1952 composition 4'33" was also totally silent.
Batt handed the cheque for the undisclosed sum to Nicholas Riddle, managing director of Peters Edition, on the steps of the High Court.
He said: "I am pleased that Cage's publishers have finally been persuaded that their case was, to say the least, optimistic. We are, however, making this gesture of a payment to the John Cage Trust in recognition of his brave and sometimes outrageous approach to artistic experimentation."
Batt had credited his piece, called A One-Minute Silence, to Batt/Cage on The Planets' album Classical Graffiti.
Mr Riddle said: "We had been prepared to make our point more strongly because we do feel that the concept of a silent piece is a valuable artistic concept in which there is a copyright."
In July Batt tried to prove that his piece was not stolen from Cage by staging a performance in which the musicians dropped their instruments to their sides for one minute. Not to be outdone, Mr Riddle produced a clarinettist to "play" the Cage version.
Fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, fun, hey Mike !!!
Dave
Jellyroll Man
