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Birthday Song's Copyright Leads To a Lawsuit For the Ages
New submitter chriscappuccio sends this excerpt from the NY Times:
"The song 'Happy Birthday to You' is widely credited for being the most performed song in the world. But one of its latest venues may be the federal courthouse in Manhattan, where the only parties may be the litigants to a new legal battle. The dispute stems from a lawsuit filed on Thursday by a filmmaker in New York who is seeking to have the court declare the popular ditty to be in the public domain, and to block a music company from claiming it owns the copyright to the song and charging licensing fees for its use. The filmmaker, Jennifer Nelson, was producing a documentary movie, tentatively titled 'Happy Birthday,' about the song, the lawsuit said. In one proposed scene, the song was to be performed."
Right? /sarcasm
I'm glad someone is pushing this topic (finally) and this is the perfect example. It's one thing to protect artists but the never-ending copyright extensions doing nothing of the sort. They ensure the media companies can generate recurring profits but, by and large, provide limit benefit to those actually responsible for the work. Oh wait...corporations are people now too.
Hopefully this is decided firmly, not on some silly technicality, and sets a precedent for other cases so common-use media can be pushed into public domain. Maybe someone will rule that copyright law is unfair, unconstitutional, or similar and FORCE our government to review this and move to a more rational policy.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Bring back the original copyright terms:
The original length of copyright in the United States was 14 years, and it had to be explicitly applied for. If the author wished, he could apply for a second 14year monopoly grant, but after that the work entered the public domain, so it could be used and built upon by others.
How about "25 years without any extension, then it goes into the public domain". What these money-hungry Hollywood and publishing executives don't seem to realize is that everything DRM'ed will be lost in time, like tears in the rain.
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What I find funny is that the "strict constitutionalists" in our politics today have no problems with IP. People like Clarance Thomas talk about "original intent" but never have a problem with these matters. If there is one thing that has outstripped original intent of the constitution it's copyright. It wasn't put there for people to make money. It was put there to encourage people to be creative. Copyright in perpetuity does NOT encourage people to be creative.
... Which is why they're gonna rule in favour Warner, because screw the public. They aren't a corporation. What business do they have owning things that can be owned privately and exploited by individuals. Individuals meaning individual corporations: The real people.
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This sort of thing is why copyright should only last for 10 year (or less). No extensions. No nothing. 10 (or less) years. If you can't profit in that amount of time, that's life.
What really pisses me off is that even a public domain work these days is subject to being "reclaimed" into copyright, if there is money to be made. Just look at "It's a Wonderful Life." No one would have even remembered that movie if it hadn't fell into the public domain and became popular to air around Christmas (since anyone could do it). But when someone realized it was actually making money and had became popular again, of course some corporation immediately sweeps in and reclaims copyright on it. Now it only airs once or twice a year on NBC and no one gives a shit.
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To promote the Perpetual Stream of Revenue, by securing for however long it takes to lose all value to Authors' and Inventors' Employers the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
- Ammended copyright in the 2000s.
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Arguably the current copyright system doesn't promote progress of science or useful arts, and there's no indication that copyrights will ever be for a limited time since Disney buys a new law whenever Steamboat Willie is about to leave copyright.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
You're right, you wouldn't have trouble finding a lawyer. And that's one of my biggest problems with a lot of lawyers: many of them have no sense of morality or justice. I'm not just talking about lawyers who represent defendants of violent crimes because I realize that they deserve a fair trial. I am referring to all of the lawyers that would argue either side of a case depending on which side offered them more money. These people are not driven by an inner sense of justice and making the world a better place, but simply following their own motivations of greed and rationalizing away any negative effects their greedy actions are causing society. Luckily not all lawyers are like that, but the greedy ones certainly paint a very negative image of lawyers in general and that image is hard to shake.
One of the functions of a corporation is to separate some of the aspects of management (control) from ownership. This allows management to hijack capitol in much the same way it hijacks labor. it is essential so that cronyism can flourish.
FTFY
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I am referring to all of the lawyers that would argue either side of a case depending on which side offered them more money. These people are not driven by an inner sense of justice and making the world a better place, but simply following their own motivations of greed and rationalizing away any negative effects their greedy actions are causing society.
It's almost like it's a job for them to argue cases, not some quest to improve the world.