If there are any music industry legal types out there, your tips would be greatly appreciated.

Bo Diddley would have died considerably wealthier.

I think I'm right in saying that The Clash managed to get 50% of Beats International's "Dub Be Good To Me" publishing because it had lifted the bassline from "Guns Of Brixton." However, that's a very distinctive and melodic bassline, and most rhythm tracks are very generic, so the answer to your pal's question will probably end up being "horses for courses."

PS the original writers of the SOS Band's "Just Be Good To Me" were already down for an 80% cut of the track, so for each copy of "Dub" sold, there was a total 130% royalty to pay out!

John Denver got an undisclosed sum and a co-writing credit for New Order's 'Run' on account of its apparent likeness to 'Leaving on a Jet Plane'.

Any Musicologists out there care to explain why? I'm damned if I can tell what the supposed copyright breach is here:

Run²

I could be wrong here (and google is not helping me), but I was told that Neil Peart from Rush once tried to sue someone for sampling one of his drum lines and lost the case. The fact that I am failing to confirm this online suggests that I'm wrong though. If any of the massive can help?

In terms of publishing a song sheet is bascially the melody, chords and lyrics, at least in the golden age it was. However sound recordings themselves are copyright therefore you cannot sample them without permission. I am guessing that many songs these days are not published in sheet music form at all therefore exactly what publishing amounts to might be open to interpretation. It surely keeps the lawyers busy.

I'm not a lawyer; my only qualfications for this are an HNC and undergraduate degree that covered some elements of music law.

The main thing is that the rules are different between sampling where it concerns stealing from an audio recording, and a performance of a work that is in some way similar to an already published work.

Sampling is relatively straightforward because if you are using an audio recording without permission then you have broken the law and you'd have to rely on nobody noticing. All that a plaintiff would have to do in court is prove that the recording match up, or can be matched up after some processing.

In cases where the piece of music has been performed by other musicians (even if it's just bass-line or rhythm track) then the person suing would have to prove that it took some effort or expertise on their part to create in the first place. That is where all nonsense that people sometimes come up with about less than 8 bars of music being allowed probably comes from (less than 8 bars would still get you into trouble if it was, say, the bass-line from "Good Times" or "Another One Bites the Dust").

That makes having copyright of a drum pattern or repeating bass sequence quite difficult, but it probably helps if the bass or drums is completely integral (in the view of a court) to the piece as a whole. If it's a melody or a lyric that have been "borrowed" then things are generally much more obvious to the court.

Of course none of that would seem to explain how the Rolling Stones managed to get all the money from "Bitter Sweet Symphony," so I'm clearly missing something.

was the supposed resemblance between Whigfield's Saturday Night and Linisfarne's Fog On The Tyne.

Cheers one and all - especially Andrew and the good doctor

..rhythm or bass lines, last time I looked.