In the early 1990s I worked for Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond's record label, back when they were dominating the UK and European pop charts as The KLF (<a href="https://weirdestbandintheworld.com/2011/10/20/the-klf/" rel="nofollow">https://weirdestbandintheworld.com/2011/10/20/the-klf/</a>).<p>One day we received in the mail a cassette tape and a letter from a law firm representing a composer or publisher (I can't remember which) of a famous Broadway soundtrack from the 1960s. The letter accused the KLF of infringement. The cassette contained one of the songs on the Broadway soundtrack, an instrumental section of which repeated a three note riff that sounded a lot like the same three-note sequence from one of the KLFs biggest hits. The rhythms and song structures were otherwise nothing alike.<p>It didn't seem like an obvious example of copying, and it was quite possible it was a coincidence or some obscure influence on The KLF or their core musical collaborators, who would have been youths when the Broadway soundtrack was released.<p>"Are you going to fight this?" I asked the label's president.<p>The answer: "No."<p>From The KLF's perspective, it wasn't worth a long, expensive legal fight they might lose. The KLF had been burned before for rampant unauthorized sampling in a previous incarnation of the band called The JAMMs, as described here: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_(What_the_Fuck_Is_Going_On%3F)" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1987_(What_the_Fuck_Is_Going_O...</a><p>Also, the label president didn't say it, but potential bad press could have also been on her mind. At the time, the KLF had the British music press eating out of their hands, and a public legal fight could change the narrative of the KLF as being brilliant pop iconoclasts to something less favorable.