It was fascinating to read Dweezil Zappa’s response today to his brothers open letter  – it can be read below

As anyone who has read my blog will know, I have been interested in the Zappa Family Trust’s restriction of copyright for a number of years – having first published a paper on it around six years ago. When I wrote the paper, I positioned Dweezil very much on the INSIDE of the activities of the Zappa Family Trust, but having read his response to his brother – I HAVE TO ADMIT I WAS WRONG. It appears that Dweezil himself got a more restrictive deal than the tribute bands I was writing about. I apologise for that.

Although my paper would have come to the same conclusions – Zappa’s entire catalogue can not be considered as a unified GRAND RIGHT, and this type of restriction actually contradicts Frank Zappa’s position regarding the importance of freedom of speech . To put it simply, if these type of restrictions were sanctified in court, the Zappa Family Trust would be the CENTRAL SCRUTINISER – not a position Zappa senior would be proud of.

I can sincerely once again only hope that this whole affair comes to a amicable conclusion soon. As a fan – i just want to listen to the music, and one of the ways I can do that is to ask the ZFT to allow tribute bands (including Dweezil) to play Zappa’s music.