Does Petty own full rights to his music, though?
I stopped by wikipedia to see if I could easily figure out whether he retained publishing, didn’t find that.
But I did note this, from a category entitled “Usage In Recent Media:”
“The song has been featured in several Hollywood films, most notably FM (1978), Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and Chasing Liberty (2004). Its use in The Silence of the Lambs made the list of Top 11 Uses of Classic Rock in Cinema at UGO.
It was featured in the TV series Scrubs, in a scene of an episode titled “My Own American Girl”, which was first aired on October 2, 2003. It was also featured in The Sopranos, in season 6 episode “Join the Club”.
The song was recently featured on the “NBC” comedy, “Parks and Recreation”, at the end of Season 3’s “Harvest Festival” episode.
The song was frequently played during Hillary Clinton rallies or town hall meetings during the 2008 Democratic Primaries.
The Strokes have admitted to taking the riff for their 2001 single, “Last Nite”, from this song. In a 2006 interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Tom Petty said “The Strokes took “American Girl”, and I saw an interview with them where they actually admitted it. That made me laugh out loud. I was like, ‘OK, good for you.’ It doesn’t bother me”.[6] This was brought up because of plagiarism accusations on the Red Hot Chili Peppers for similarities between their “Dani California” and Petty’s “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”. Petty has stated that he does not care about any similarities and The Strokes have actually played as an opening act for Tom Petty in summer of 2006.”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Girl_(song))
I thought, hmm. Just depends on who is using it, I guess. It’s apparently okay to, umm, ‘purloin/borrow/adapt’ portions of his work if it amuses him. Not my intent to malign him, as I own some of his work, and think well of it. But apparently the okay exists solely for those on the left.