Hi Mario

So maybe "Happy Birthday" is a bad example. Lets change that to "The Entertainer". I believe that is public domain.

The point is that the power comes from not trying to attribute the creation to any person(s) but from it being completely open and free. We do it for the love of it not for the money. And from that effort everybody learns, whether they contribute or not. "Everybody" owns the song, whether they contributed or not. It is public domain before the 75 years (or whatever the rule is) is up.

There is a lovely quote in the book that quotes Woody Guthrie's copy right notice; "This song is Copyrighted in US, under Seal of Copyright 154085, for a period of 28 years, any anybody caught singing it will be mighty good friends of ours, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it, Write it. Sing it. Swing it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do"

Last edited by jo131; 08/07/13 10:54 AM.
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