[George]

Not so sure about that permission bit, at least at the recording artist level.

I find it hard to believe that performing artists who've had a recording of theirs "covered" by a more popular artist gave their permission to be knocked off the charts, and that happens all the time.

Little Richard had trouble early in his career with that very thing. He'd come out with a song, and suddenly there was Pat Boone and other more conservative singers with a toned down release of the same song.

Got so bad Little Richard finally came out with songs that were so way out there that Boone and the others didn't dare touch them for fear of looking foolish.

This all came out on an interview I saw a year or two back.

You wouldn't think the artists publishers would have agreed to it either. Wind up with an empty stable pretty fast. I think it's a very ambiguous area.