Uncle Fiesta wrote:There are many musicologists who will tell you that ALW never wrote an original note of music in his life, but that most of the composers he steals from are dead so can't sue him.
Just to be fair here, the first test is that the composer must know that they are using someone else's work. If not, it's an accident and probably doesn't matter. If they do know, it may still not matter. Copyright in the UK lasts for a period of 70 years from the end of the year of the composer's death. If the music originates from outside the European Economic Area, the copyright lasts for as long as the music is protected by copyright in its country of origin, provided that this does not exceed 70 years. So if you take a work by a composer who has been dead for over 70 years and deliberately lift some ideas from it, you are not stealing anything.