Originally posted by Jon Broderick
If you could copyright a riff, keith richards would be coming after all of us...

Actually, i believe that you can copyright a riff. Anytime that you create something, there is an implied copyright attached to it. For example: back in the day, the rolling stones manager/producer (i forget which) would take their songs and rerelease them as orchestral arrangements. Fast forward to 1999 - a band called The Verve samples a 3-second portion of a Rolling Stones orchestral arrangement for the song "The Last Time" and loops it, and releases the hit single "Bittersweet Symphony". A few weeks later, Rolling Stones' former manager Allen Klein's lawyers are all over The Verve (he held the rights to that song). They sue for copyright infringement, and win. In the end, The Verve did not see a cent of the sales from the album "Urban Hymns", even though it was just the one song off the album that used a sample - all of it is forwarded to the Mr. Klein.

So, it does seem that it is possible to copyright licks, especially if they are important parts of the song.