Copyright News

[John A Swartz]

Chris writes, with a few comments from me:

>prostitution exists despite
most people doing it for free :-).

Reminds me of a line George Carlin used on one of his albums:  "Selling's
legal.  Fucking's legal.  Why isn't selling fucking legal?"

>Seriously though if I take the time to
learn *Hurry on Sundown* then go and play it in a pub without paying
royalties I'm clearly breaking the law.

Actually, I'm very ignorant on this.  Are bands suppossed to pay royalties
when they cover other artist's songs?  Just to stretch this a little,
what defines "playing in public"?  If a band has to pay royalties for
playing a song in a pub, do they have to pay royalties if their friends
show up and listen to one of their rehearsals?  Can someone clue me in
on how this works?

>If I *publish* the tab the same
applies, but what if as a result of either of these activities someone
goes out and buys a few HW albums? The band benefits, their record
company and publishers benefit. If I'd had to pay for the right to use
the copyright I wouldn't have bothered so that person wouldn't then be
buying HW albums.

I agree 100%.  These people are so concerned about "protecting their
rights" that they don't realize the benefits that they might get from
being able to access this stuff.  Someone who sees the lyrics to *Imaginos*
might think the story is pretty cool and go out and buy the album.  This
is a clear case (to me anyway) of free advertising.  I'm not saying
we should get royalties from the record company for promoting their stuff
(but compared to the current copyright laws, maybe it's not so ridiculous),
but I think they are very short-sighted in this area.

>Maybe you could elect that idiot Buchannan

Ooh, I should stay away from political discussions but I'm only going to
say that IMHO, none of the major candidates will make a great change in
the way our Government operates.  I really believe we need a third
political party so that everything in our Gov't isn't an US vs. THEM
battle.  Everything these days is too partisan - and they spend more
time bitching at each other while the people they're suppossed to serve
suffer.

John