Moses – you do not have the right to sue. Unless God legally assigned the Commandments to you, and you never claimed that...Anyway, it doesn’t matter, really. Our government stopped honoring that sort of thing ages ago…
There’s a very sad and rather convoluted strory regarding the origin of the Happy Birthday Song and the copyright battle – still extant. NPR did an interesting feature on it recently when discussing copyright laws.
Remember the Aussie rock band Men At Work? They were sued for the flute phrasing in Do You Come From The Land Down Under. They took it from an ancient aboriginal tune, clearly not copyrighted, which had been incorporated in to a Australian Boy Scout (or equiv) camping song, and somehow that song ended up under copyright. MAW lost their defense by saying it was from an old aboriginal tune even though it was demonstrably true.
There can be reasonable copyright, but because of The Mouse That Cannot Die, we’re probably doomed.
About 45 years ago Sonny Bono wrote “I Got You Babe” under the 1909 copyright law (the creator of a work is protected from infiringement for 28 years with the option to renew for another 28 years) in faith that Chastity (as Chaz was then) would earn enough by her own efforts that she wouldn’t need the royalties from it to pay for her nursing home. By the time he reached Congress he had lost that faith and proposed (and his widow pushed through) the 1998 law that copyrights works for 95 years or the life of the author plus 75 years.
BE THIS GUY over 10 years ago
Start with the towns that are putting the 10 commandments on the city hall lawn.
Sherlock Watson over 10 years ago
Umm, why exactly is it “nonsense” to protect a copyright?
Kali39 over 10 years ago
“Gibberish replaces English as official language.” Same thing, isn’t it?
Kali39 over 10 years ago
Moses – you do not have the right to sue. Unless God legally assigned the Commandments to you, and you never claimed that...Anyway, it doesn’t matter, really. Our government stopped honoring that sort of thing ages ago…
Linguist over 10 years ago
There’s a very sad and rather convoluted strory regarding the origin of the Happy Birthday Song and the copyright battle – still extant. NPR did an interesting feature on it recently when discussing copyright laws.
Cloudster over 10 years ago
Remember the Aussie rock band Men At Work? They were sued for the flute phrasing in Do You Come From The Land Down Under. They took it from an ancient aboriginal tune, clearly not copyrighted, which had been incorporated in to a Australian Boy Scout (or equiv) camping song, and somehow that song ended up under copyright. MAW lost their defense by saying it was from an old aboriginal tune even though it was demonstrably true.
There can be reasonable copyright, but because of The Mouse That Cannot Die, we’re probably doomed.
gcarlson over 10 years ago
About 45 years ago Sonny Bono wrote “I Got You Babe” under the 1909 copyright law (the creator of a work is protected from infiringement for 28 years with the option to renew for another 28 years) in faith that Chastity (as Chaz was then) would earn enough by her own efforts that she wouldn’t need the royalties from it to pay for her nursing home. By the time he reached Congress he had lost that faith and proposed (and his widow pushed through) the 1998 law that copyrights works for 95 years or the life of the author plus 75 years.