[Roger Slater]

Palin tried to fire the librarian for not cooperating in the banning of books (about which no one had complained except Palin), but there was backlash in the community so Palin had to back off. I do find it amusing that a mayor who strutted her stuff in a skimpy bathing suit for an audience and judges who would determine if she had the best body of them all was the moving force behind a desire to censor material she found salacious.

As far as copyright is concerned, Jerry, the plain fact is that you are wrong. This is not a matter of opinion, as in whether Palin is a horse's ass (my opinion, yes). I haven't even heard the McCain people claim that they didn't violate a copyright. If you have some reputable source to cite opining that there was no copyright violation, then cite it. Until then, why not believe the lawyers who are all basically in agreement on the subject?

[Donna English]

Originally posted by Mike Slippkauskas:
Yes, absurd statements about qualifications are running rife. Senator McCain mentioned Governor Palin's PTA history as an important Vice-Presidential qualification. (And isn't the PTA a form of "community organizing" -- just a mainly white, exurban, comfy-cozy apple pie version?)

Some blowhard on FOXNews said that as far as he's concerned anyone with 5 kids can be Vice President.

Wow! I'm qualified. I have five kids, my youngest has a chromosome disorder which made him moderately/severely mentally retarded, plus he is autistic. I did the PTA thing too. Actually president of the PTA for a couple years. And some members of my family like to drink! On the other hand: I'm a stay-at-home mom that is more like a hard working sled-dog than a pitbull. I don't hunt big game trophies, though I've killed and eaten squirrels and done trap shooting. I'm a pro-choice, pro-dirty books-- if that's our cuppa, non-church going ex-Catholic agnostic (pretty much atheiest)My husband does business in China, (and loves his country.) I've traveled to several foreign countries. We own more than one house. My grandchildren came after my daughters had been married a few years but though we would have been disappointed, had they become pregnant at 17 or 18, we would have welcomed the grandbaby if they had decided (with our help) the to have the child. I'm somewhat ashamed to say--I would do just about anything to keep my oldest son out of Iraq.

The thought of me potentially leading the free world is frightening! HA!

[Mike Slippkauskas]

I know this doesn't need saying, but I didn't mean to denigrate the PTA or the work involved in raising five children. (Just saying this for my own sake.)

More moved by the post above than by anything I heard at the Republican Convention (in fairness, I doubt they were trying to-make-misty-eyed the likes of me).

[This message has been edited by Mike Slippkauskas (edited September 06, 2008).]

[Donna English]

Mike of course it didn't need saying. I took no offense and I don't understand how anyone that's being honest could. I know the value of what I do, it's important for me and my family and a few others in the communtity, but I mean come on, PTA or motherhood as a qualification for VP is nuts! IMO

of course there's always someone that will take offense to your statement--McCain and Palin might.

Donna

[Joseph Bottum]

Originally posted by Kevin Andrew Murphy:
How the hell do you "accidentally" use copyrighted music? It's pretty clear what's in copyright and what isn't. Sony Bono--a Republican congressman, and for that matter, a well-known musician--literally wrote the current law. For Republicans to claim to not understand what is and isn't in copyright is blatant bullshit.

The sad fact is, they have enough power to run roughshod over the laws when it amuses them and they know it.

Hey, Kevin--

I'm sure you've got lots of reasons to dislike the Republicans, but this one seems to rely on a misunderstanding of what copyright actually means.

The publication of a recording automatically confers a use right on the purchaser, which is why we can all play the music without getting some kind of direct permission from the author. The band Heart didn't write 10,000 letters of permission to every DJ and radio station in the country when the label released their song.

Commercial use requires payment of a percentage back to the copyright holder, which is collected by the organizations called ASCAP and BMI--and, man, are they serious about that collecting. Remember the stories a couple years ago about them going after the Girl Scouts?

Anyway, a copyright holder can complain about a use (maybe even preemptively, if they find out about it) and thereby remove the presumptive permission. But everybody who owns a copy of the record starts with that permission.

With the case of a song played at a political convention, we enter into the tangled legal areas of whether this was genuinely commercial use. Thank about it this way: If you play a song on a stereo at a private party, do you have to pay ASCAP? What if you charged admission? What if you play it over the loudspeakers at a high-school football game?

Now, what if a tape of that party or that game makes it onto the evening news? The TV stations typically claim fair use: we're just reporting what others are doing. But that gets stretched when the whole song appears in the filmed snippet.

Some of this was worked out back during the Carter administration, when somebody recorded a song called "Bomb, Bomb Iran," during the Iran hostage crisis, to the tune of "Barbara Ann," and paid the usual ASCAP fees for borrowing a tune.

The copyright holders of "Barbara Ann" sued, and, as I remember, the courts said that the publication of the song gave implicit permission for its use, parodic or not (and so no punitive damages could be collected), but that such implicit permission could be withdrawn.

(As I remember, it gets even more complicated; I think the courts said further that when ASCAP or BMI accepted payment, they were acting as licensed agents for the copyright holders, and so the copyright holders had given an additional explicit permission beyond the implicit permission.)

More info than we need, I know, but it does mean that, however many laws you think the Republicans have run roughshod over, copyright on Heart's "Barracuda" wasn't one of them.

Jody

[Quincy Lehr]

Typical bloody American election. The discussion veers off into whether the GOP had the right to play a B-list 1970s AOR single. Hardly the most pressing matter, is it?

[Laura Heidy-Halberstein]

Originally posted by Quincy Lehr:
Typical bloody American election. The discussion veers off into whether the GOP had the right to play a B-list 1970s AOR single. Hardly the most pressing matter, is it?

Well, Sarah's not allowed to talk to the press so we have to fill in the blanks with trivia.
http://marcambinder.theatlantic.com/...shes_ready.php

[Kevin Andrew Murphy]

Originally posted by Joseph Bottum:
Hey, Kevin--

I'm sure you've got lots of reasons to dislike the Republicans, but this one seems to rely on a misunderstanding of what copyright actually means.

The publication of a recording automatically confers a use right on the purchaser, which is why we can all play the music without getting some kind of direct permission from the author. The band Heart didn't write 10,000 letters of permission to every DJ and radio station in the country when the label released their song.

Commercial use requires payment of a percentage back to the copyright holder, which is collected by the organizations called ASCAP and BMI--and, man, are they serious about that collecting. Remember the stories a couple years ago about them going after the Girl Scouts?

Anyway, a copyright holder can complain about a use (maybe even preemptively, if they find out about it) and thereby remove the presumptive permission. But everybody who owns a copy of the record starts with that permission.

With the case of a song played at a political convention, we enter into the tangled legal areas of whether this was genuinely commercial use. Thank about it this way: If you play a song on a stereo at a private party, do you have to pay ASCAP? What if you charged admission? What if you play it over the loudspeakers at a high-school football game?

Now, what if a tape of that party or that game makes it onto the evening news? The TV stations typically claim fair use: we're just reporting what others are doing. But that gets stretched when the whole song appears in the filmed snippet.

Some of this was worked out back during the Carter administration, when somebody recorded a song called "Bomb, Bomb Iran," during the Iran hostage crisis, to the tune of "Barbara Ann," and paid the usual ASCAP fees for borrowing a tune.

The copyright holders of "Barbara Ann" sued, and, as I remember, the courts said that the publication of the song gave implicit permission for its use, parodic or not (and so no punitive damages could be collected), but that such implicit permission could be withdrawn.

(As I remember, it gets even more complicated; I think the courts said further that when ASCAP or BMI accepted payment, they were acting as licensed agents for the copyright holders, and so the copyright holders had given an additional explicit permission beyond the implicit permission.)

More info than we need, I know, but it does mean that, however many laws you think the Republicans have run roughshod over, copyright on Heart's "Barracuda" wasn't one of them.

Jody

Jody--

Are you honestly saying that the Republican National Convention was a private party? That's giggle-worthy. It's a public spectacle on the order of the Oscars. Invitations may be limited to the membership and their guests, but there's no question that it's meant for public consumption.

I'll admit to handwaving over the complex web of copyright, ASCAP, the RIAA, and referring to them all under the layman's blanket of "copyright" rather than the more inclusive term of "intellectual property," but honestly, if you want to use a song, securing an artist's permission is not that hard. I distinctly remember Bill Clinton using Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" as his campaign theme song, and I'm fairly certain he secured the band's permission and approval because they were there dancing around on stage at the inauguration. Contrast that with Reagan, whose campaign got sued by Bruce Springsteen for using Springsteen's "Born in the USA," the Republican party in this case displaying the twin gorgons of Arrogance and Cluelessness--Arrogance for not asking the artist's permission, and Cluelessness for not having listened to the rest of the lyrics and realizing it was the most left-wing anti-Vietnam-war song possible.

I really don't see how this can be so difficult. I mean, other people get it. I remember being at the Comicon International in San Diego a few years ago--a public-private-newsworthy media spectacle of roughly the same order--and Neil Gaiman was doing a Q&A panel for his new film MirrorMask. The film had not been scored yet, but for the advance montage they'd used some songs by Tori Amos--a friend of Neil--and he remarked something along the lines of "Nice to be able to use some music where you know you won't get sued."

I hadn't heard about the Girl Scouts, but honestly, with the Republicans, you would have thought they'd have figured it out back during the Reagan era with Bruce Springsteen. Obviously not.

[Jerry Glenn Hartwig]

Roger

I'm not trying to be stubborn, I'm just reading the copyright laws and what case laws I can dig up.

What lawyers? I haven't seen anything in print about lawyers agreeing. It's not about the lawyers, anyway, but the judges. It's a lawyer's job to argue the side they're paid to argue. Unless you're paying them to give you an honest opinion - even then that opinion will probably have enough caveats to it to render it worthless *grin*.

If you know a relevant case history, I'd be interested in reading it.

Actually, I'd be interested in seeing this one go to court and read the arguments and decision.

No one's wrong in a legal dispute until the judge or jury says so.

One case I did find interesting was 2 Live Crew's theft of Roy Orbison's 'Pretty Woman',but the judge made the decision it was 'Fair Use' because 2 Live Crew claimed it was parody. Go figure.

When the court finds against the RNC I'll admit to being wrong. Until then, I'll concede the possibilty I'm wrong.

OK I'm probably being stubborn, but I also spend a lot of my day reading and applying laws.

There's always a gray area, which is why we have judges.

[Roger Slater]

The reason every radio station doesn't have to secure permission to play every song is that the stations have an ongoing, fee-based arrangement with BMI and ASCAP that is generally not based on the individual song, but on the size of the audience/market of the individual radio station. BMI and ASCAP monitor the stations to see what is being played and to determine which artists are entitled to compensation that BMI and ASCAP pay them from the fees they collect.

As far as I know, neither the DNC nor the RNC have licensing agreements with BMI or ASCAP, so they do not have even a presumptive, revocable right to play copyrighted songs. This is why the RNC use of the song without prior permission was improper while the use of a song by a radio station with an ongoing royalty arrangement with BMI or ASCAP would be proper.

I'm certainly not trying to make a big deal of this. It's more important to note that fiscal conservative Palin inherited a town with no debt and left it with $22 million in debt, despite having collected $27 million in federal earmarks of the type that she now pretends, as a "maverick," she finds repugnant. But, of course, she won't answer any questions about this because she clearly has no answers.




[This message has been edited by Roger Slater (edited September 06, 2008).]