Kagan, J., dissenting
maybe rock’s only Nobel Laureate and greatest-ever lyricist is known for some appropriations? See M. Gilmore, The Rolling Stone Interview, Rolling Stone, Sept. 27, 2012, pp. 51, 81.[1] He wouldn’t be alone. Here’s what songwriter Nick Cave (he of the Bad Seeds) once said about how music develops:
“The great beauty of contemporary music, and what gives it its edge and vitality, is its devil-may-care attitude toward appropriation—everybody is grabbing stuff from everybody else, all the time. It’s a feeding frenzy of borrowed ideas that goes toward the advancement of rock music—the great artistic experiment of our era.” The Red Hand Files (Apr. 2020) (online source archived at https://www.supremecourt.gov).
But not as the majority sees the matter. Are these guys making money? Are they appropriating for some different reason than to critique the thing being borrowed? Then they’re “shar[ing] the objectives” of the original work, and will get no benefit from factor 1, let alone protection from
- ↑ He is, though, also one of modern music’s most bounteous sources. His work has been copied so often that Rolling Stone (whose name was partly inspired by—OK, you guessed it—Bob Dylan) recently published a list of the 80 greatest Dylan covers. See J. Wenner, A Letter from the Editor, Rolling Stone, Nov. 9, 1967, p. 2; J. Dolan et al., The 80 Greatest Dylan Covers of All Time, Rolling Stone, May 24, 2021 (online source archived at https://www.supremecourt.gov). (The list’s collators noted that Dylan so “loved the ide[a] of other people doing his songs” that they struggled to settle on 80. Ibid.) To see how important all that copying was, consider Mr. Tambourine Man. When the Byrds first heard Dylan’s demo of the song, they weren’t sure they could use it. (David Crosby thought it was way too long.) But Roger McGuinn decided he could “save” the tune. Ibid. Add a Bach-inspired guitar lick (truly, J. S. Bach) and a Beatles-inspired beat, and the “pound of Dylan’s acoustic guitars” was “transformed” into a “danceable” and “uplifting” megahit. R. Unterberger, Turn! Turn! Turn! 137 (2002). And that rendition (not Dylan’s own) launched a thousand ships. Among other things, it “spawned an entirely new style” of music—what soon came to be known as “folk-rock.” Id., at 108, 132–133.
