I found this web site with free downloads (I think they are transcribed by the owner of the website, so there is no copyright issue). The version of the coda from Layla is a lot of fun to play. Does anyone else have another version they might recommend?

Who else loves playing this piece?

I'm not making any moral judgement here, but need to point out that the composer (and copyright lawyers) might feel differently.

And this next comment is coming from someone not really qualified to make such a judgement (I'm not much of a rocker,) but the original recording of Layla (Derek and the Dominos) is an awesome display of rock 'n roll guitar playing.

What's the difference between that and doing your own copy of the Mona Lisa?

I am not a lawyer, but it would seem that if I were writing a song and using the same rhythm, melody, chord progression, etc. then that would be copyright infringement...

But if I am doing my own transcription of another's song, and the medium is therefore the printed text, and I am not selling it as my own composition, then there is not a copyright issue (unless a lawyer happens to learn of it)...

Anyone else?

Steve,

I alwats enjoyed it--as a guitar player it was on of the first songs that made me realize that big hunk of wood in the loving room had some musical interest.

For what it's worth, the guitar part of the song is a very difficult piece to play with the flow that's intended. The coda starts out as piano--slips into acustic guitar, but is really the underpinning for some brilliant slide guitar playing.

It takes quite a bit of vituoso musicanship to play the song right.

I picked out the piano part by ear, when I was but a boy.

And is there a more profound question that a man could ask a woman than: "What if you need a cup of coffee and no one is waiting by your side?"

Mr. Thumper:

Just so you know, copyright lawyers do from time to time cruise through these hallways.

Concerning the Mona Lisa, the first copyright protection of which I'm aware came via England's Statute of Anne, which came after Leonardo's painting days. So there never was any copyright in the Mona Lisa painting. But assuming that copyright did exist then and Mona Lisa got some for herself, the rights would have long since lapsed, so you can photograph it, draw it, make a play out of it, whatever you want, and neither Leonardo nor his heirs could do a thing about it. So draw away, and if you do a nice job, post it for the rest of us.

Concerning Layla, there are rights both in the recording by Derek and his many Dominos and in the musical composition. There should be no copyright infringement if you listen to the record and transcribe the piano part for yourself. This is almost certainly fair use of the copyright protected work. (Fair use, a legal term of art, is use made of a protected work that does not require the authorization of its author/owner. But it goes a lot deeper than that.) However, it's another matter to make a transcription and to post it for the world to see, download, use. This is surely an infringing distribution of protected material. The copyright owners probably won't sue because the damages are negligible, but they would be within their rights to do so.

I should have attached a big fat smiley face to my earlier post. The law is correct as I understand it, but I didn't mean my first sentence to be menacing. I won't report you to Eric Clapton, even if I did have his phone number.

I did meet him once on the way to Gatwick, he was pumping petrol into his car at the next pump over. We rarely even send Christmas cards to each other these days.

Well, actually, one might cite the decision of the 6th century King Diarmuid of Ireland, "To every cow its calf, to every book its copy."

One reference to the decision
And another

I am not a copyright lawyer but I have stayed at a Holiday Inn.

If you buy the published sheet music for a song, copy it, and distribute it without the permission of the copyright holder, that is infringing the copyright.
If you listen to a song and transcribe what you hear into your own arrangement, as long as you don't try to publish it claiming songwriting credit for yourself or sell it as your own that is not copyright infringement.

Thanks for this. It's an interesting point, but it's no evidence of copyright protection as we understand it now. I gather from the story that the owner of the psalm book wasn't its author but was instead a rich guy who had pull with the king. The Statute of Anne and the relevant portion of the U.S. Constitution protect authors rights for the purpose of encouraging writers to write because this benefits society. Unless I'm misreading it, the king was doing a favor for one of his pals, not protecting an author's rights in his work, so I'll go with Anne instead of Diarmuid on this one.

But you can't distribute your arrangement without permission, even if you credit the authors, because the authors have the exclusive right to make and distribute derivative works.