Supreme Court copyright case

[dirac]

Hal Plotkin analyzes the current case before the Supreme Court challenging the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act for sfgate.com:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...&type=printable

[Mel Johnson]

Oh, darn, now we may have to wait even longer to make "Red October - The Ballet!";)

[dirac]

The Supremes are having trouble sorting out the issues in the case as oral arguments commence. Tony Mauro reports for American Lawyer Media:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1032128711781

[dirac]

Charles Lane of the Washington Post reports on the case (10/10):

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...8-2002Oct9.html

[dirac]

Lawrence Lessig, who argued the copyright case currently in front of the Supreme Court, makes his case against extensions in the Financial Times:

http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?p...p=1012571727102

[dirac]

Good news for copyright holders in the Supreme Court's decision. Report from the New York Law Journal:

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1042568656706

[dirac]

The opinion for the majority:

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/a...ves/01-618o.pdf

Dissenting. Justice Breyer:

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/a...es/01-618d1.pdf

and Justice Stevens:

http://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/lessig/blog/a...ves/01-618d.pdf

[dirac]

Further adventures in copyright madness. An interview with Amy Sewell, the writer of the new documentary “Mad Hot Ballroom” on the hoops that had to be jumped through to obtain clearance for the use of music in the film. From stayfreemagazine.org.

Stay Free!: There's a scene where a woman's cell phone rings and she has the "Rocky" theme ring tone. I noticed that you even cleared that! I would have thought that could be an example of fair use.

Sewell: I thought so too. It's only six seconds! But our lawyer said we needed to clear it. So I called Sprint, which owns the ring tone master rights, and they gave it to me for free because they saw it as product placement. But then I called EMI, which owns the publishing rights and they asked for $10,000. I said no way--even the classics weren't getting that much. Luckily, we were able to get it for less.

[sandik]

Further adventures in copyright madness. An interview with Amy Sewell, the writer of the new documentary “Mad Hot Ballroom” on the hoops that had to be jumped through to obtain clearance for the use of music in the film.  From stayfreemagazine.org.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Many thanks for the link -- I just saw the film last week, but didn't think twice about the copyright issue. I know that many young choreographers use music without really considering the issue of rights and fees, and it worries me that the legal establishment might choose to start enforcement, in a community that can't really add one more fee to the overwhelming list.

[vagansmom]

Gosh, as a former performing musician myself, I have been dismayed by the copyright issues. Many of my peers in the folk music world agree. Folk music, by and large, has had a rich oral tradition that's being ripped apart by the recording studios. As a result, those of us who teach traditional music have found ourselves handicapped whenever on university grounds (I used to teach and perform at folk festivals). Once the copyright issue became known (somewhere around 1990, a university had to pay out millions to a recording studio, I believe) we had to submit our teaching material to the university months in advance and anything that wasn't already in our collective music memories (think "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star") was rejected.

The GOOD part about it is that I started to write lots more of my own music! The bad part, and I think this is a serious blow, is that oral tradition can't thrive in this atmosphere. We folk musicians have always shared our works with each other. I'll give a friend permission to perform something of mine at a coffeehouse or festival and she'll do likewise. Or at least that was how it used to be done. Nowadays, the coffeehouses themselves won't let us do that sharing because they're afraid of getting into trouble with the studios. They too require a list of music in advance so they can check to be sure it's in the public domain or written by the performing musician.

I know that there ARE cases where musicians haven't requested permission from a peer and have performed their music without even giving credit to the composer. It's happened to me personally and it hurt. But I'd rather have that scenario than lose the oral tradition of sharing music. After all, the copyright rules ultimately do not increase the pocketbook of the average musician; it's the studios who profit from those laws.

[dirac]

The situation does look grim. It's nice that you can see a bright side, vagansmom.