In the wake of copyright and "Creative Commons" discussions lately, I hauled out this old Wall Street Journal story which can be found in "Falling Off the Page." Story 1996 by Lisa Bannon about an overeager ASCAP crackdown on the Girl Scouts. I did two more posts on this subject. Commence excerpts:
Something is missing at Diablo Day Camp this year. At the 3 p.m. sing-along in a wooded canyon near Oakland, Calif, 214 Girl Scouts are learning the summer dance craze, the Macarena. Keeping time by slapping their hands across their arms and hips, they jiggle, hop and stomp ... in silence.
"Yesterday, I told them we could be sued if we played the music," explains Teesie King, camp codirector and a volunteer mom. "So they decided they'd learn it without the music."
Starting this summer, the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP) has informed camps nationwide that they must pay license fees to use any of the 4 million copyrighted songs written or published by ASCAP's 68,000 members. Those who sing or play but don’t pay, ASCAP warns, might be violating the law. ... camps, including nonprofit ones such as those run by the Girl Scouts, are being told to ante up. The demand covers not only recorded music but also songs around the campfire.
"They buy paper, twine and glue for their crafts - they can pay for the music, too," says John Lo Frumento, ASCAP's chief operating officer. "If offenders keep singing without paying," he says, "we will sue them if necessary."
No more "This Land Is Your Land." An ASCAP spokesman says "Kumbaya" isn't on its list, but "God Bless America" is. ... Another composer group, Sesac, Inc., which owns copyrights to such tunes as Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," says it plans to ask camps for another set of royalties in the fall.
... Diablo's regional Girl Scout Council in Oakland is low on cash and decided its 20 area camps can't afford the extra expense. Rather than risk a lawsuit, the council told camps to scratch copyrighted songs from their programs.
"At first I thought, 'You guys have got to be kidding,'" says Sharon Kosch, the council's director of program services. "They can't sing the songs? But it's pretty threatening. We were told the penalty can be $5,000 and six days in jail." So the camp's directors have scrutinized its official "Elf Manual" and, in the section headed "Favorite Songs at Diablo Day Camp," have crossed out the most popular copyrighted tunes with black Magic Marker....
Article comments
1 - alienboy
that's messed up...
2 - Temple Stark
Again with the one paragraph posts. I stopped reading, but that copyright (there is no loss here) is crazy.
Apparently it went away though and ASCAP agreed that it was nuts.