From a purely business sense, if a guy were to rape your mother, then throw down a $10 bill, you should be happy about it.

And from a purely business sense, if you come out of your house tomorrow evening to go to your best friend’s wedding, and your car has vanished, but later that evening, you find it three blocks away gone, with 10 extra miles on the odometer, and the gas gauge reads “F” instead of “1/4″, you should be overjoyed.

Which part of “property rights” do you not understand?

If you want something that belongs to someone else, you negotiate for it, reach a deal, and pay for it. The folks in Marysville, Ohio did exactly that when they wanted to use that song commercially.

And if you want to play music in your department store, you can’t just turn on the radio over the loudspeakers. You have to sign a contract that specifies the royalties you will pay for public performance of those songs.

Conservatives have long been proud to stand for law and order. Senator McCain spoke to the corruption that he hopes to root out, if elected, but after getting alerted to the fact by Jackson Browne that his campaign is violating the copyrights of music, he does nothing to prevent this criminal behavior from continuing?

Defending this kind of behavior makes it look like Republicans are rape-and-pillage hoodlums, instead of mostly being honest and ethical people. Stop it!

The Honda folks used the song with damaging it. Ask a thousand people what they think of when they hear the song, and you won’t get even ten that say “Oh, that’s the theme song for Honda”.

How many do you think are going to say “Oh, Sarah Palin”? And they’re going to think that ten years from now.

Bill Conti knew that “Gonna Fly Now” would be permanently connected to Rocky, and he agreed to terms that reflected that. Chances are pretty good that he will be able to collect royalties for decades yet - but not if someone “contaminates” the imagery associated with the music. That’s why the McCain campaign was slapped with a court order telling them that they had to stop their theft.

Jackson Browne doesn’t want the commercial possibilities for “Running on Empty” destroyed by politicizing that song. Neither does Van Halen want to have the commercial potential for “Right Now” destroyed by politicizing it.

You may not like Chrissie Hynde’s “My City Was Gone”, but apparently Rush Limbaugh thinks it makes a dandy theme song. He tried to steal the song, and he squealed like a stuck pig when he was caught tune-lifting, but he worked out a deal with Ms. Hynde that was acceptable to both.

It’s about property rights. If your neighbor wants to hold a satanic ritual at YOUR house, and you say no, you’d be peeved if he picked the lock to the front door while you were gone and you came home to find people having sex with goats in the living room.

And if you want to eat your neighbor’s dog, and your neighbor refuses to sell, you aren’t allowed to steal it and stick it in the stockpot anyway.

A double-edge sword? You’re right. John McCain has so many houses that he can’t remember how many there are, but he’s allowed to decide who gets to use his houses. And people who write songs are allowed to decide who gets to use them.

There are LOTS of songwriters out there who have tons of songs they’d love to license to Senator McCain’s campaign. There’s no need to steal.

ASCAP, BMI, SoundExchange and others are the ones who license bars, restaurants, offices, elevators, etc. This is called PRO licensing. (Performing Rights Organization). You also need one if you’re the guy who plays piano and sings at the bar down on the corner, or if you have “music on hold” on your company phone system. I knew a “wedding reception DJ” who got caught about 20 years ago - he didn’t know any better - and he squealed like a stuck pig about the money he had to pay.

No, you can’t say “I don’t want that played at McDonald’s”

If you want to record a song, you need a “mechanical” rights license. That’s handled by the Harry Fox Agency (HFA) in the US.

For use in advertising or in movies or TV programs, you need a “synch” license. HFA stopped doing synch in 1992; you have to contact the music publisher directly.

Universal Music Publishing and Sony BMG sent a cease-and-desist notice. On Friday, the McCain campaign issued a public statement saying, “The McCain campaign respects intellectual property rights. Accordingly, prior to using ‘Barracuda’ at any events, we paid for and obtained all necessary licenses.”

It’s not clear whether they’re lying, or they’re simply mistaken, but as Ian Fleming reminded us in Goldfinger, “Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, the third time it’s enemy action.”

This is at least the fifth time the campaign has done this. They might have obtained PRO licensing through ASCAP, but you can only obtain synch licensing through the publisher of the song. Not good, if you’re trying to position yourself as reformers who are going to root out corruption.

Does nobody at the McCain campaign remember the lesson of Watergate? It’s not the two-bit burglary that’s the problem; it’s the coverup. The campaign should have confessed their sins, publicly apologized, and mended their ways. The public will readily forgive an honest mistake, but not brazen misdeeds.

All of this is exactly why podcasters like myself turn to independent music by artists who, in many, many cases, are more talented than anybody played on Top 40 stations. As the RIAA has basically made it a crime to actually enjoy any type of commercially licensed music, why bother? If you drive down the street with your car stereo playing loud enough for others to hear the the newest CD you purchased, technically the RIAA could pursue you for public performance of the song. This is ridiculous, and while I understand the Wilson sisters’ position, I find their actions to be petty. First, take a look at any of the poll numbers since the convention and you will see that the use of Barracuda is more likely to make the song more popular and BENEFIT Heart than to harm them. In addition, to compare the supposed “theft” of music by simply playing it at a public event to stealing your neighbors dog is asinine. When you steal your neighbors dog and eat it, the neighbor will never get his dog back. You have physically, tangibly stolen it. When you “steal” music by playing it in a public event, everyone who ever paid for that music still has it. It is not stolen and gone forever. In fact, many who hear the song may be compelled to purchase it. And when the public performance of which you are “guilty” actually benefits the “victim,” well, I have a hard time calling that a crime. Copyright law in the U.S. has become so out of hand (thanks to the Mickey Mouse clause) that it does more harm to creativity than good. I have played music by Heart and Ann Wilson in my podcast before — WITH permission and WITHOUT royalty payments required, and WITH ads for John McCain included in the show. Their music received free publicity to the thousands who listen to my show, and they were happy enough to let that happen. Their complaint with the McCain campaign is clearly a political issue, not a legal/creative/copyright issue. Get over it, Heart! I know I’m over it. And I’m over featuring your music in my show, as well.

I get a bit frustrated at the “new media’s” (sorry, that is overreaching here) understanding of property rights. The world of YouTube and mp3’s has raised up a generation that believe that you can buy a CD, rip it to an electronic form and then use it in any way that you want.

Once again, if I am the McCain campaign, I quit using the song (I suspect that they already have). At the same time, I think they have done things right. I think they have licensed it properly–they have not used the song in commercials or in any way that would require more than the “pro” license. I don’t believe that Heart has the right to demand them not use the song in that context because they have given up that aspect of the management of the song to another company.

Average Joe may be right that it would actually benefit Heart for the McCain campaign to use the song. But there is nothing about ownership rights that would force an owner to do the “smart” thing with what they own. Quite simply, ownership means that you can do the dumbest thing in the world with your property.

obviously I meant “straw men”