A PLEA FROM D.

Bette Midler's intuition—which I share—is that there's some fundamental difference between: (1) pirating a piece of music and its attendant pavlovs for artistic reasons; and (2) doing so, as Ford seems to, as part of a cold, calculated effort to increase sales of a product. Well, but except the 'art' of popular music appears quite often as records, tapes and CDs, which of course are themselves saleable. Does that mean that songs, like Fords, are all and only products? Which is the product, in pop—the sounds or the containers they come in? Does it make a difference? If you, like me, are insistent about an important distinction between Ford's use of Midler's pavlovs and Midler's use of (or tribute to,
or comment on, or response to) Freeman's pavlovs, can you articulate what that distinction is in some way that isn't circular, or hideously digressive from this whole sampler's subject, or so freaking long it can't even be a way-too-long footnote? Any reader who can do so will be invited over to Somerbridge for a rousing game of MTV with D. and M. Simply send your articulated dis-tinctions, in let's say 20 pages or fewer, to:

DISTINCTION BETWEEN ARTISTS RIPPING OFF OTHER ARTISTS AND ADS DOING SO
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