More copyright complaints

Free Republic | April 8, 2004 | Jim Robinson

[Jim Robinson]

As most of you are aware, we've recently received several copyright complaints. In the last few weeks, we've received complaints from the SJ Mercury News, Independent (UK), SF Chronicle and The Boston Globe. Just a couple days ago the Post-Gazette send a cease and desist notice and yesterday I heard from the Tribune-Review.

Tonight, I got a call from Amy and there were two more registered letters at our PO Box. The McClatchy News (Sacramento Bee) and USAToday are now added to the list of publications that have complained about copyright violations.

Well, folks, the handwriting is on the wall. The complaints are now coming in faster than I can respond to them. John is currently in the process of writing programs to search out and automatically excerpt all existing threads from these sources.

I think we're gonna have to go to excerpt and link for all news sources very soon unless we have written permission on file.

[Mo1]

Or, alternativly, as FReepers respond to the posted, excerpted article, they could "quote" the next paragraph in the article, and eventually the whole article is posted anyway, just in bits and pieces ;0)

That's an interesting idea

[supercat]

The traditional "Happy Birthday" song is copyrighted.

The melody, with the possible exception of the dotted-eighth/sixteenth rhythm at the start of each line, is in the public domain as it was published prior to 1922 with the lyrics

Good morning to you
Good morning to you
Good morning dear ____ [or dead Children]
Good morning to all

I am unaware of any copy of the Happy Birthday lyrics having been published prior to 1922, though I've read that at least one pre-1922 publication of the work noted that the song was also titled "Happy Birthday to You" but did not explicitly write out the lyrics. It would seem likely that might be sufficient evidence to disqualify the claimed copyright on the lyrics, but a cartoon in 1935 (Ub Iwerks' Mary's Little Lamb) uses the tune (without lyrics) in such a way as to suggest it was primarily known with the "Good Morning to All" lyrics.

That having been said, I'd like to see a restaurant use something like:

Your birthday's today.
What more can we say?
The tune's out of copyright
ASCAP go away.

BTW, that latter point reminds me--I have on occasion heard restaurant staff singing made-up birthday-song replacements to tunes which, while their origins may not be well known, are more recent than "Good Morning to All" and are, in fact, still under copyright.

[DaughterOfAnIwoJimaVet]

Make that wondering. Ahem. ; )

[Jim Robinson]

Certainly.

[Chad Fairbanks]

They were one of the early bands (the 60s, I believe) featuring Ronnie James Dio - who then went on to the band Elf, and eventually Rainbow, Black Sabbath, and then solo...

[Jim Robinson]

Yes, that can happen.

[umgud]

Could be lefties, could be major media, could be banned trolls, or it could just be one very upset anti-FReeper

This is orchestrated. Somebody is pulling the media's strings or they've formed their own cobol. DNC, MoveOn.org, etc..... Probably not a whacko fringe group like DU, although I imagine they are very happy about this. Within days, I'd expect to see some stories in the major media about this. We will have to modify our postings, but most of us read just enough of an article to get its jist anyway. This is not a setback.

[jpsb]

The jukebox is owned by a vendor that supplies stuff like that and it's license does not cover live music or karaoke.

[Jim Robinson]

This is not a setback at all. As the old saying goes, "What doesn't kill us only makes us stronger."

[quidnunc]

Here is a good overview of copyright written in layman's language:

http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/index.html

[Chad Fairbanks]

Yup. Gotta watch out for that COBOL... been around forever... < shudder >

[Nita Nupress]

Or we could add some money to the quarterly budget and buy a LexisNexis account and then distribute the password to everyone who pays their dues. (or something similar). FReepers would be able to dig out articles that have been yanked and then post a paragraph or two when it's relevant.

This wouldn't solve the current problem, but it may help counteract this power play on their part.

Nothing would terrorize the Left more than hundreds or thousands of bored, inquisitive FReepers with nothing to do but LexNex. :-)

[Spunky]

"Or, alternativly, as FReepers respond to the posted, excerpted article, they could "quote" the next paragraph in the article,...."

That was my thought also.

They can try to shut us down, but I am sure we can figure out ways to get around it.

[Chad Fairbanks]

What were the fees like for Live/Karaoke? (Like I said - it's been well over a decade since I've been involved in this kind of stuff)

[Mo1]

I rudely interrupted and asked, "So you think Bill Clinton getting blow jobs in the Oval Office was ok? You think that the sitting President lying to the public about that was ok??? My, my, you do have low standards, don't you! That's ok, we don't have very high expectations for Democrats, either." She doesn't talk sh*t anymore.

*L* .. I use to get the kind of stuff from my brother in law

One day he goes off on me about how Clinton has his full support no matter what

So I said .. Fine .. you want to fully support a man who has been accused of raping a women .. Go For It

The room went dead silent .. including my brother inlaw :0)

[AM2000]

We'll just have to paraphrase. Or how about using frames? For example, a frame in the middle with content directly from NYT, within a larger FR frame. It would take some recoding of the forum but I suspect it'd satisfy them and us.

[Dan from Michigan]

Was this from "USA Today" or was it from GANNETT? which is their parent company.

USA Today is owned by Gannett and is their main paper.

They also own all these here at this link

The Lansing State Journal and Detroit News are two of the most common sources posted here and both are Gannett papers.

The Detroit News has two website domains.
detroitnews.com
detnews.com

The Lansing State Journal has three.
lansingstatejournal.com
greenandwhite.com
lsj.com

A Battle Creek Enquirer(also Gannett) article in the Campaign News section was posted awhile back.
battlecreekenquirer.com

Outside of press releases, alerts, congressional record and other govt documents, and wire reports, I'm exerpting or summerizing everything from now on to save any future trouble, especially since I don't expect any help from SCOTUS.

[jpsb]

Thanks, if ww1 era songs come back in vogue I can start booking bands again.

[The Old Hoosier]

That costs money.

[Chad Fairbanks]

When people at work would spout crap about Bush, Reagan, THe Republican Party, Conservatives etc... I would usually just say "Who are YOU to judge? Huh?"

I always liked it when they'd start sputtering...