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

[Lee Gold <leeway@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Michelle & Boyd Bottorff wrote:
> 
> 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...

I reread this and realized I had a few more comments to make on it.

One of my favorite of my songs is "Let the Birds Fly" (about a 
subplot of Hughart's BRIDGE OF BIRDS).  It can't be recorded 
because it's to the tune of "Man of La Mancha" whose composer's
agent got very nasty when Eli Goldberg checked with him because
Kathy Mar wanted to record it.

A number of filkers sing it.  Some sing the version I wrote and
published (in FILKER UP #3).  Windborne rewrote bits of it, changing
the words to make them a bit easier to pronounce (and losing bits
of my poetry) so that 
	How could we suspect what the peddler planned next
	Or guess that he hadn't a heart
turned into
	How could we suspect what the peddler had planned
	Or guess that he hadn't a heart
which lost the hissing and assonance of suspect/next/guess.
I'd even have let them record it that way, as long as they
titled it "Let the Birds Fly -- Windborne version."  

Then again there's "The Chemist's Drinking Song" aka
"Paradimethylaminobenzaldehyde."  Mudcat credits this to 
Isaac Asimov, which is WRONG, although the Good Doctor did
sort of set the song off by observing in an F&SF column
that was later collected in an anthology of his articles
that the chemical's name scanned to the tune of "The Irish
Washerwoman."  But the rest of the song was written by
Jack Carroll and appears in NESFA 2, without (if I recall
correctly) crediting Asimov, which is also WRONG.

But then there's the two extra verses of the song that are
sung on the West Coast.  (I think they're by Jordin Kare.)
I gave a copy of them to Carroll some years back, and he
was thrilled to have them.  These verses were circulated 
by people copying them down from tapes after hearing them
sung.

I think that legally you'd only need to get Carroll's & Kare's
permission to record the West Coast version of  the song, as
observing that a word scans to a tune just doesn't give you
the right to copyright it being sung that way when it's only
a small part of the song.  But morally, Asimov should still
get a share of credit, and if nobody has done it already,
someone should send his estate a copy of the song, perhaps
even of the NESFA 2 songbook.

--Lee Gold