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"...the sound track teases us by quoting from Strauss's 'Thus Spake Zarathustra,' but never quite getting it right. Why bother to rewrite Strauss? He's out of copyright."
Roger Ebert, reviewing Caveman

Want to use a popular song for your soundtrack, with or without the original lyrics, but don't have the money to get the rights? You can always get some studio musician to record The Jimmy Hart Version — an instrumental version of the tune with a note tweaked here and there, designed to sound as much like the original as possible while being different enough not to break copyright.

Strangely enough, this sometimes happens with tunes which are clearly in the public domain.

A staple of shows that frequently feature parody songs or skits.

Named for "The Mouth of the South" Jimmy Hart, who did this constantly during his time as WCW's music director. Ironically, Time Warner (the owners of WCW) already owned the rights to most of the songs that Hart was using, making it entirely unnecessary for him to create Jimmy Hart Versions.

Note that, in the United States at least, it is perfectly legal under copyright law to use the same exact tune as the original song without paying royalties if the derivative work is clearly a parody of the original (using an original tune to parody something completely unrelated is fuzzier). However, this would obviously not apply to instrumental versions or songs that were instrumental to begin with.

Contrast with In The Style Of where the song is covered, in a style as far from the original as possible. When one song recycles the tune of another it's God Save The King. In the music industry, this is called "sampling", and usually requires permission...but it ain't always given.

Note that if you're just reworking your own theme, that doesn't count. Let's not go ballistic here.

Examples

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