[hnlmorg]

> When I was in a band, one of the most valuable things my songwriting friends and I did for each other was tell each other when our work sounded like something that was already out there.

I'm a big advocate for originality, but its worth noting that most bands will have covered at least one song.

> If you make a new piece of software and offer it to a friend to use, it's not unreasonable for them to ask how it's different from something that's out there already.

If you're comparing baking to software then I'd argue that the software equivalent of a recipe is going to be frameworks and the programming language. And people do very much flock towards common frameworks that are known to work well. Just like how a lot of people prefer to use recipes that are known to work rather than chancing on something unknown.

[jp57]

Sure, you do covers, and everyone knows the difference between a cover and an original. Even so, bands that do original music often try to do the cover in their own style, so the question of "how is this different from the original" is still relevant.

[hnlmorg]

> Sure, you do covers, and everyone knows the difference between a cover and an original.

Everyone? You'd be amazed at the number of songs people think are the originals but are actually covers. I bet there's some songs even you didn't realise were covers

> Even so, bands that do original music often try to do the cover in their own style

"often" is a pretty telling term here because it's also often when the cover is extremely faithful to the original.

> so the question of "how is this different from the original" is still relevant.

People ask that question about all sorts of things. But what the point originally being inferred was, is that if the secondary item isn't distinct enough from the original then the secondary item doesn't have much value. And I'm making a point that doesn't apply to music (and nor do I believe it applies to baking either).

The entire premise of some pastimes, such as karaoke, is centred around the concept of replication rather than originality.

Personally, I prefer originality over replication too. but it would be stupid for me to ignore the fact that a significant number of the worlds population just want to enjoy something without caring about how original it is.

[jp57]

> Sure, you do covers, and everyone knows the difference between a cover and an original.

Everyone? You'd be amazed at the number of songs people think are the originals but are actually covers. I bet there's some songs even you didn't realise were covers

Geez. I meant the concept of a cover vs the concept of an original. A cover is ultimately a performance, and is different from writing a new song. This is so well understood within the music community that a song even has separate copyrights for the song itself and a recording of its performance (even by the songwriter).

A baked pie is analogous to a performance of a recipe, while the recipe itself is analogous to the song (as a concept).

But it is strange to think of a reimplementation of a piece of software that one might acquire and use easily; it doesn't really fit the concept of performance. I am in fact a fan of reimplementing things in order to figure out how they work, but I don't expect my implementation to have any utility beyond the pedagogical value I got from doing it, unless it is in some way different from what exists already. I'm not sure what value I'd get from showing it to someone or what they'd get from looking at it, exactly.

[hnlmorg]

> Geez. I meant the concept of a cover vs the concept of an original. A cover is ultimately a performance, and is different from writing a new song. This is so well understood within the music community that a song even has separate copyrights for the song itself and a recording of its performance (even by the songwriter).

If only it were that simple. There are constantly cases bought to court about similarities in one persons work to another artists. Then you have other issues around what constitutes a derivative work. And so many original songs sample other artists songs and pay them royalties, that's not a cover either.

I think what you're trying to highlight is writing credits vs performance. Which is a lot easier to define. However even here, plenty of disputes still happen.

> But it is strange to think of a reimplementation of a piece of software that one might acquire and use easily; it doesn't really fit the concept of performance.

The real problem with these analogies is that you're comparing something consumable with something reuable. But I accept the point of an analogy isn't precision.

> I am in fact a fan of reimplementing things in order to figure out how they work, but I don't expect my implementation to have any utility beyond the pedagogical value I got from doing it, unless it is in some way different from what exists already.

Would emulation fall into this category? You're building software to run something exactly as it would run elsewhere - a reimplementation. The motive differs (to run on different hardware) but that's not a property of the product itself.

Which comes back to my earlier post: you're talking about the merit of replication without discussing motives behind it. In your latest comment you say "to figure out how they work" and that's another great example of a motive that brings value to replication.

[albedoa]

> If only it were that simple. There are constantly cases bought to court about similarities in one persons work to another artists. Then you have other issues around what constitutes a derivative work. And so many original songs sample other artists songs and pay them royalties, that's not a cover either.

It's increasingly difficult to accept that you are replying to jp57 in good faith. They are not talking about the ability of anyone to recognize the difference between an original and a derived work. The concept of a cover is well-understood.

[hnlmorg]

I am replying in good faith.

My point is that the whole concept of originality is a blurry mess and hugely subjective.

To demonstrate that point, I was giving other examples of copying in music. Let’s remember that it was me who introduced the analogy of a cover when the OP examples how bands might pride themselves on originality. I’m giving examples that his statement is false as often as it is true.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding the OPs point of view. Or maybe I’m just too old for this debate because trends are usually cyclical. If either of those are true then I’m sorry and I’ll bow out.