Russ,
This is not an original 'composition', it's only an 'arrangement.' If George had done a contrafact of the song, then there wouldn't be any issue, and he might even allude to the original song in the contrafact without penalty. However, this is totally an infringement.

Of course, many of us do it. My site is littered with them. While it is no protection from the law, and possibly hell-bent copyright holders, I don't think the most holders will go after people who are doing this...UNLESS they are making money off of it.

Remember Gary Wachtel and the trouble *he* got into and all his files where pure MIDI files. But, they were based off of actual charts, AND he was selling memberships to his site, which is why he got in trouble. He still has the site, still produces files, and still charges, but now, a portion of that goes to the copyright holders.

We ALL (those of us who put up copywritten material on our sites, or on public sites) could be held accountable for the songs we post. Imagine getting a letter from ASCAP or EMI/BMI asking for $10,000 in copyright fees because you posted a song on your website, and people were downloading it. Maybe the copyright holder got ahold of ISP records and showed that file was downloaded 100,000 times, and they want ten cents per instance.

Gary

I'm blessed watching God do what He does best. I've had a few rough years, and I'm still not back to where I want to be, but I'm on the way and things are looking far better now than what they were!