A small Michigan publisher won’t be able to publish a Harry Potter encyclopedia in print—because a court has found it’s too much of a repackage of J.K. Rowling‘s writings to qualify for fair use. Her side: "The proposed book took an enormous amount of my work and added virtually no original commentary of its own." Ironically she’d praised the related Web site in the past. Google roundup here.
And speaking of copyright: Supporters of John McCain and Sarah Palin have used foes’ music in their campaign over the wishes of the artists—follow the just-given links. Touching. So does this mean that if they win, they’ll come out against Bono (the law) and the DMCA? (Sick humor alert.)
Technorati Tags: J.K. Rowling,Harry Potter
from what I have heard from listening to PotterCast (a Harry Potter fan podcast – their hosts actually attended the court proceedings) it was actually more an issue of Plagiarism than Copyright – the author freely quoted from JKR’s work, without even using quotation marks much less footnotes! From what I heard, it sounded like JKR would have possibly not taken it to court if it had just been done properly (as she hasn’t taken every other Harry Potter related book to court!). Its not even like it would have been that much competition for her own encyclopedia she hopes to put out one day, because it will have brand new information in it. But I can’t blame her for getting upset at her own words being directly quoted without attribution, no matter how strongly I may feel about fair use and the limits of copyright.
You might be more careful about political remarks. The Democratic blogsphere, never too stable at best, has gone ballistic since the Sarah Palin announcement, making claims that make 9/11 conspiracy theorists look sane. Unless Republican staff blundered badly about something obvious, their use of music was quite legal. Here’s what someone in the entertainment industry wrote about the Wilson sisters’ fury at the use of “Barracuda” (Heart-1977) after Palin’s convention speech.
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I administer music licenses as part of my job, but I am not an attorney. Many of the commenters have stated it correctly: as long as the RNC/McCain campaign paid the appropriate license fee to BMI or ASCAP, this was absolutely not a copyright violation. The only question is whether or not the Wilson sisters have the right to constrain specific performance of the song in the future.
As far as I know, this is an area of legal debate, untested by the courts. It is complicated by the fact that most major artists, including the Wilson sisters, have sold the administration of their copyrights to other entities: publishing companies, mechanical rights organizations, and performance rights organizations (BMI/ASCAP/SESAC). While an individual artist may want to constrain performance in a specific situation, that constraint is contrary to the interests of the other entities, who would probably wish to simply collect the license fees.
It also is not practical for these organizations, who administer the rights to millions of songs, to take “special requests” from artists. This could quickly get so convoluted as to be impossible to administer. A Christian artist may ask for their music to not be played in strip clubs; a vegan artist may ask for their music to be restricted from steakhouses, etc. Currently, when a venue purchases a license to perform music from BMI, ASCAP, or SESAC, they gain the right to use all songs in the catalog in a “blanket license.” There is no provision in the license to constrain particular songs from performance.
Until this is tested by the courts, there is no legal road to run on. Therefore, it is fashionable lately for artists to send these “cease and desist” letters as a press release. They have no legal weight, and are merely relying on the court of public opinion to shame the other party into discontinuing use of the song. So far, it has worked.
SOURCE: http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/05/awesome-gop-rocks-out-to-barracuda/
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Personally, if I were Sarah Palin, I’d consider it a compliment to have angered a few entertainment types this vain and egotistical. Ann Wilson wrote “Barracuda” as an attack on a fan who made remarks she didn’t like, hence the “you’re gonna burn, burn, burn it to the wick.”
Mike, many thanks for the detailed analysis. I’ve changed the wording of the original post. That said, the issue of control is indeed at stake, and ideally these incidents would give the McCain people a bit of an opportunity to rethink positions on copyright. Keep the comments coming. Thanks. David