$4.99 Australian Dollars seems to work out at about £1.99 which is $4USD

That and the fact that probably only about 20 copies of the originals were ever sold, whereas Eno and his partner will likely sell hundreds of thousands of copies, or even millions.

I found this interesting since 33 years ago, in his liner notes to “Discrete Music”, Eno freely admitted stealing Steve Reich’s tape delay idea, saying he was glad Reich abandoned its use (implying that he was now free to pursue it without impinging on Reich’s provenance.) Those were the days when originality and ownership still counted.

Since then, successive cultural generations of hip-hoppers have been slapped down in court, charged with plagiarism when publishing samples of copyrighted recordings. Yet the current strong trend in the software business is to encourage plagiarism and abandon the protections traditionally afforded by the patent system.

Especially funny to me about this is the landmark case involving Melle Mel’s “White Lines”, as I remember it. Without permission, “White Lines” reused the signature bass line from a Liquid Liquid tune, and Liquid Liquid sued. At the time, Melle Mel said something like ‘Well, they didn’t get a hit out of it; at least I did.’ This is the poster child for the current thinking in the software products and services business.

There is a lot more that could and should be said about all of this. But my point here is that Eno’s time has finally come: he is free to take to the largest market, for profit and with impunity, the products of his plagiarism and elegant unoriginality.

Thanks!

And I really can’t recommend it enough (if you’re in to ambient music), it’s a very special app.