It's all about the rights

Here's an interesting piece from the BBC Radio 3 blog, describing the problems faced in getting all the necessary copyright clearances to put on a concert and in the process nicely illustrating how what looks like a unitary piece of work might involve a large number of different copyright works to which I will refer students. Presumably the missing link here - the rights in the dialogue - was Arthur Laurents's work, though (leaving aside Shakespeare's claim to be the author) if you asked me who wrote West Side Story I would immediately say Leonard Bernstein - and probably not bring even Stephen Sondheim to mind. Which just goes to show ...