[overflow] Re: Copyrights (by way of Tom Smith got his wish...)

[Lee Gold <leeway@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michelle & Boyd Bottorff wrote:
> 
> >
> > I suspect that your feeling that it's impolite to hand songs around
> > or change them indicates you're not thinking of filk as part of
> > folksong but rather as part of commercial pop music, in which even
> > an arrangement can be copyrighted.  What are your feelings on recipes,
> > and does it make a different if you got them out of a cookbook
> > or from an elderly relative?  Do you have a right to pass them on
> > without checking with the author?  To change the ingredients?
> 
> Hmm, no when you put it that way, I realize I don't mind people handing
> them around or changing the words, I mind them PUBLISHING my version, or
> their changed version *without asking*.  I wouldn't care if they sung it
> howsoever they wanted, so long as no one was recording it, or at least,
> they were recording it only for their own use...

That makes a lot more sense to me.  

I have rewritten stuff but never published it without permisison
-- except in some cases where the rewriting was so 
extensive that nothing was left of the original, and then I
published with a note saying the song was inspired by an
earlier song and giving the author's name.  
> 
> Okay, I've got it.  Finances aside, I want the right to permanent public
> record.  The more work I put into something, the greater value I place
> on that right. 
> 
> If someone else wanted to make a public perminant record, I would likely
> say "yes", but I would like to be asked, I'd like to be able to look
> over the ms. and make sure no blatant errors have crept in, 

This seems like a good opening to discuss my feelings when I heard that
a group had sung a *calypso* version of my "You Bash the Balrog."  I 
gritted my teeth and said something polite, but inside I winced.  And
they hadn't changed *any* of the words.

Then again, I've written a few rebuttal songs that take a popular
filksong, reuse the same tune, and attempt to show why its moral is
wrong.  So far none of the authors I've done this to has objected
(and Leslie actually likes my "Warning:  Eagles are an Endangered
Species; So Is Hope", a rebuttal of "Hope Eyrie", but I'm aware that
this is legal, within the folk tradition, but still capable of
hurting/angering people just as any argument can.

> I don't see any point in copyright after someone is dead, except on a
> financial, "support his dependants" sort of a thing.  I agree with you
> that it isn't fair to not be able to use something just because you
> can't ask, and if the author is dead, then you REALLY can't ask.

A lot of stuff these days is sold as work for hire, and if copyright
expired after the original author's death, then people would pay
less to older or sicker authors.

> Property rights are
> considered pretty natural nowadays, and yet, according to what I
> understand many primitive societies had no real concept of personal
> property.

I'm not sure about that.  They may only have group property rights
but would certainly object to a non-group member taking certain
things without permission.
> 
> If I built a chair, I would have "natural" rights over who got to use
> that chair.

Until/unless you sold it.  And of course if you made the chair out of
stolen materials, it gets more complicated.

> By the time I have polished a lyric, contructed a tune, and made a
> musical arrangement for a tune, I have probably spent a similar amount
> of time to the amount of time it takes to make a chair.  (And I could
> make an 11 piece dining set in the time it takes me to write a novel.)
> Yes, I think I deserve some rights over who gets to use the tune.

My better songs get written FASTER than my average songs.  I object
to counting time made in creating something as a factor in how much
I own it or what rights I have to it.
> 
> In a society where there is no copyright the only way I would have to
> maintain that control was to never let my song be heard.  But then, the
> only way I could maintain my right to the chair in a society with no
> personal property laws, would be to hold on to that chair for the rest
> of my life.

In a society without copyright, you might not want to control who
used stuff you created.  It's interesting to look over medieval art
and see how few people felt like signing things.  It's important
to realize that our own culture isn't the only one (and in fact,
might be sicker than other cultures humans have lived in).

In spite of all the above, I do agree that some sort of copyright
is a Good Thing for commercial publication, and that even non-
commercial publication should carefully note who originated 
something and whether it's still the same as the original 
version and if not, who made the changes.

--Lee