As I watch royalty battles go on seemingly non-stop, it made me wonder. If I were to get this tattooed on my arm, who would have to pay royalties to Picasso's estate? Me who now owns and displays it or the tattoo artist who "painted" it?



And THIS is how frivolous and stupid these nonsense intellectual property lawsuits has become. Spirit suing Zep for the chord progression in Stairway when Spirit stole them from Pachelbel? (Oops. One of MY songs uses it too! As did Walk Away Renee...) Phil Collins suing for use of "his" snare drum?? Where did HE get it? If it was generated by a synthesizer, should the maker of the synthesizer sue Collins? You can take that argument back to Benjamin Franklin who allegedly created electricity. Or even further, for those who believe in god, to god for allegedly creating the world.

I remember thinking I came up with a really cool chord progression for a retro disco beat kind of thing. Follow the top note as it moves down.

C major with C on top
C major 7
C dominant 7
F major with A on top
F minor
C major with G on top
D major with F# on top

So the top note walks down from C to B to Bb to A to Ab to G to F#

Play those chords once.

And while you play them, sing

"I can't stop this feeling deep inside of me. Girl you just don't realize what you do to me..."

Yup. Without even realizing it, I copied BJ Thomas' chord progression from Hooked on a Feeling, written by Mark James. (Who also wrote Always On My Mind and Sunday Sunrise. Did you know Always On My Mind was originally an Elvis b-side?)

Stealing stuff is SO easy to do without realizing it.

But back to that tattoo....

Well Eddie, when you live in a world that drinking bleach to cure some viral infection would be a consideration what do you expect.

There is a law firm called Morgan and Morgan. They have made many millions bringing lawsuits against insurance companies. Well OK, who cares about all those low-life insurance companies?

Where do you think the money comes from for the insurance companies to pay Morgan And Morgan?

The public is so stupid they deserve what they get.

The United States is one of the few places in the world where frivolous lawsuits exist in abundance.

I guess because of the fact that the United States is the center of the known universe and the rest of the world is a bunch of stone-age barbarians all this is exactly how things should be.

Lately, I have been working to bring all the music I own into compliance with all copyright laws, processes, and procedures.

I am beginning to think "Wild Man Fischer" had it all right.

Just for those of you who have no idea who Fischer was, here is a quoit from Wikipedia.

Lawrence Wayne "Wild Man" Fischer was an American street performer known for offering erratic, a cappella performances of "new kinds of songs" for a dime on the beaches and the Sunset Strip in West Hollywood. Most of his life was spent homeless or institutionalized, and he later became regarded as "the godfather of outsider music".

See you in court, or perhaps on the street corner...lol

Billy

"It's a Hard Business", with Wild Man Fischer and Rosemary Clooney

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8u2DichXlA

It's a hard business
Reaching way down in your soul
It's a hard business
Singing jazz or rock n' roll

Agents and critics
Managers and slime
You make them a million
They'll toss you a dime

Well, speaking of Zep:

Fifty years of Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven — the epic all epics are measured against

“The public is so stupid they deserve what they get.”

Hey Billy, what are the criteria for leaving the public? Damn big tent

It's not new, technology just escalated it.

Stan Kenton, frustrated with excessive copyright laws, wrote a piece of 32 bars of rest for every instrument in his entire orchestra followed by one snare drum eighth note, and copyrighted it as a protest.

What people forget, the law is SUPPOSED to protect the income of the copyright owner. Since "Blurred Lines" didn't hurt the by now non-existent sales of an old Marvin Gaye song, IMO, the jury that awarded the money to the Gaye estate are guilty of robbery.

And keeping the copyright active for 75 years after the artist's death IMHO is also very excessive.

If I invented a drug that cured all cancers, I'd get about 20 years of patent protection.

So tell me that a song is so much more important that it gets the rest of the author's life plus 75 years.

I see the problem, but don't know how to fix it.

Any ideas?

Notes ♫

My only thought is that I am going to sue the estate of Stan Kenton because "Your Honor, I have remained silent for 32 bars many times in my life, and it was obvious, clear and apparent that Mr. Kenton heard me do that and then stole my silence to create a song he claimed to be his, attempting to disguise my previous (lack of) work simply by adding a drum hit. If it please the court, please take note that while seated at the table while the defense questioned witnesses I performed that very piece of music, sans snare drum so as not to disturb these proceedings, several times."

How can someone claim copy right law is "excessive" and then ever even consider suing someone for violating them and stealing his music? Do you want the laws to be thorough or not? I mean, he stole my silence!

I am interested in international forum members sharing how song copyrights work in their country. Does the European Union share a common copyright law or does each member country have it's own? Does the United Kingdom have it's own law? What about the African, South American and Asian countries?

Do foreign songwriters get their songs copyrighted in the US so they are protected after their death?

Hi Bud.

I never should have said that in exactly that manner. It was more or less a rant based on the emotional impact of the number of people I have known personally who have died of Covid-19 needlessly.

Eddie was calling to our attention the frivolous nature of the copyright situation and I just took it from there, right wrong or indifferent.

Also the number and amount of money involved in frivolous lawsuits over music copyrights and a thousand other things.

The fact that many people get their medical information from sources like Facebook and believe all the unsupported information they read there is much more than "stupid".

The fact that a large number of people living in the United States can not read the front page of a newspaper is unbelievable.

"Stupid" is a very inaccurate term to describe the condition. It is substantially more complex than that.

The criteria for leaving the generally uneducated public is the acquisition of education and common sense.

We use to have something in the law here call " the reasonable man". He died sometime about 1956 and left no children...lol Actually not funny.

If you believe the earth is flat and the universe revolves around the earth I guess you are intituled to your opinion.

If you are a stone-age barbarian and believe you should go around loping off the heads of the "infidels" then I think we would be justified in exterminating such people.

If you think it is OK to get drunk and drive your car and kill other people or infect and kill other people because you do not believe in vaccines then "stupid" is hardly sufficient to describe you.

If you have no skill set and no education and no intention of learning the common language of the country you live in and think the government should be required to support you generation after generation then " stupid" is a very inadequate word to describe what is going on. Don't misconstrue that to mean I have no empathy for the issues that many people face. I personally do my best to help people I know achieve upward mobility and assist them when I can.

I hear way too many people say "there should be a law". Well...the are, and literally millions of reams of paper describing them and no way to enforce said laws.

This fact is extremely relevant to people here on this forum who produce music who are subject to copyright laws that are out of date and seriously need to be revised.

We have a federal government that is barely capable of function any longer and a high number of citizens in this country who believe deadly violence is the proper action to take to change what they don't like.

I have not written any protest songs for a very long time but I think I will start soon. It is one method of communication no one can really take me to task for.

Sorry if my perception of what is going on offends anyone.

It is just that, my perception. Feel free to take me to tasks for anything that I say. I don't pretend to know everything. I am always ready to listen to other opinions about the state of things that concern us here on the forum.

Billy

Billy, I think this old Ray Charles song says it well.




IMO the USA has gone from a semi-civilized country to a barbaric one. Five weeks in Australia showed me just how uncivilized we have become.

As we used to say in grad school ... "stupid is forever but ignorance can (potentially) be fixed. It's a thin line at times

Bud

You misspelled "grade school"...

This is a super cool song in any event. I was asked to write a song by the Songwriters Guild Of America for a benefit for Ray in Los Angles Ca. Probably the scariest thing I ever did musically. It went over well but I needed Valum after to calm down...lol I did have a wonderful vocalist at the time which made it possible.

What a super nice human being Ray was. I will always miss him.

Billy