A copyright in silence?

London’s The Independent reports that agents of “the avant-garde, experimentalist composer John Cage, who died in 1992” are upset that “Mike Batt, the man behind the Wombles and Vanessa Mae, has put a silent 60-second track on the album of his latest classical chart-topping protégés, the Planets.” Cage’s reps apparently claim that Batt’s minute-of-silence infringe Cage’s copyrights in Cage’s song (sic), 4’33”, which “contains” four minutes, thirty-three seconds of silence, “composed” (sic) by Cage “in his”prime” (sic). “As [Batt’s] mother said when I told her, ‘which part of the silence are they claiming you nicked?’.” Batt’s defense? “[M]y silence is original silence, not a quotation from [Cage’s] silence.”