Baloney. Most of them subscribe to the musical equivalent of Samuel Johnson’s Law: “No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.” The average income of songwriters is less than $10,000 annually. How can you justify stealing from them?

And if you think they don’t want to feed their kids and pay their mortgages, you’re as out of touch as McCain is, when he says people won’t pick lettuce, even for $50/hour.

Clearly it is NOT a violation of Bill Clinton’s civil rights if McDonald’s were to refuse service. Refusing service to someone because of his race, religion or ethnicity is illegal, because those are protected classes, but stores routinely bar suspected shoplifters, casinos routinely bar card-counters, bars routinely refuse service to people with a history of being belligerent, and restaurants commonly refuse service to men not wearing ties or jackets, or to women wearing revealing clothing. It’s very much legal to refuse service to someone whose body stinks, and it’s very much legal to refuse service to someone whose politics stink.

Most car rental companies refuse to do business with someone under 25, and they refuse to do business with someone who doesn’t have a credit card, regardless of how much cash they are willing to leave on deposit.

If you pimp out your mother to anyone, you’ve violated the laws, but if you discriminate in your business dealings in favor of environmentalists but not to loggers, it’s not a civil rights violation.

Crime consists of violating the law. The civil rights laws are at 42 U.S.C. 3601 et seq. Feel free to educate yourself. Copyright laws are at 17 U.S.C. 101 et seq. Feel free to towel yourself off behind the ears and bring up the subject again if you eventually have something valid to say.

“He who takes what isn’t his’n, must pay for it or go to prison.”

Bill Clinton goes into a McDonalds and is refused service (obviously a devastating blow for Bill). The manager tells him he will not be served as he doesn’t agree with his beliefs. Clearly this would be a violation of his civil rights. How is that not the case with these songs?

Your other analogies are ridiculous. You would not like any of your aforementioned events to occur regardless of the beliefs of the perpetrator. If however you pimp out your mother to all environmentalists but not to loggers you have committed a civil rights violation.

Thanks for playing…

http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Logic-Alfred-Tarski/dp/048628462X/ref=pd_bxgy_b_text_b

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.

Not really. They had a classic rock song before. Now they have a controversial rock song, which is going to scare off licensees for advertising.

A month ago, the song “Barracuda” appealed to just about everybody. A fast food restaurant might decide to use it in their advertising for a new fish sandwich with a wicked hot sauce - that is, fish with a bite.

With a strong association with partisan politics, though, McFastFish can’t afford to appeal to the 30% that are GOP members, while turning off the 40% that are Democrat, and possibly a big share of the 30% who are independent. Especially when the 30% are only being drawn to the spicy fish sandwich, while the other 70% are being turned off to the whole restaurant.

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.

It’s a 1977 song. If you increase sales ten-fold, it’s still a piddling amount. The real money in classic songs is their use in advertising, and in Muzak, and making the song controversial clobbers that market.

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.

If your “creativity” amounts to stealing the creativity of others, then you might feel that way. The Mickey Mouse clause doesn’t keep you from creating ORIGINAL works.

The US Constitution says Congress may write copyright law “To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.”

It doesn’t say anything about protecting the rights of non-authors and non-inventors to the sweat of someone else’s brow. I think the Mickey-Mousification of the law is unconstitutional; it doesn’t say anything about the *heirs* of authors and inventors, and “limited times” surely should be less than the lifetime of authors and inventors.

But “crime” consists of violating the law. If you don’t like the law, you can argue in court that it’s not constitutional, or you can try to get Congress to change it. Advocating disobedience to the law is an anarchist attitude, or at least a Democratic one; Republicans traditionally have supported law and order, and the US Constitution.

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.

If the artist has handed management over to ASCAP or whoever, I don’t know that they can say, “I don’t want that played in McDonald’s restaurants”.

That being said, if you have an artist that doesn’t want their music used, you are always better off not using it. I am not sure what the band meant by saying “We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music.”–does that mean that they issued a statement or did the contact the McCain campaign directly? Do we know that the campaign was aware of the request?

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.