http://freemusicarchive.org/member/stevenarntson/blog/The_Absent_Second_An_Explanation
In this article, folk musician Steven Arntson discusses his frustration with copyright law as it applies to the folk music process. Not unlike current hip hop, a part of folk music has always been the re imagining and reuse of existing songs, either through reference or parody. In this example, Arntson, a contemporary musician wanted to use some bars of music and some lyrics from Woody Guthrie, who was inspired by an earlier folk song which was itself inspired by a spiritual.
While Guthrie had no problem doing this in 1936, the law and the companies holding the copyright on Guthrie's work today prevented Arntson from using a section of this song in a much larger melody without paying several thousand dollars (on an album Arntson intended to release free of charge).
Arntson decided to release the album without the Guthrie inspired section, but feels that his musical process was stifled. And as unfair as it seems that the owners of Guthrie's work can take credit for an adaptation of an adaptation of an old spiritual (both of which are in the public domain. However, Guthrie's lyrics remain copyrighted), what seems more striking is that Guthrie himself had no desire to see his work copyrighted and featured the following memo on the bottom of a page from his song book, sent to listeners who requested it:
"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do." (http://www.boingboing.net/2002/06/17/guthrie-on-copyright.html#previouspost)
In this instance, it seems clear, that far from protecting the creator of the original work (the supposed purpose behind copyright law), the ownership of this intellectual material is serving only to stifle the musical process.
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I believe that the copyright laws needs to be amended since these laws seem to limit the "freedom of knowledge" by not giving equal access to information to everyone. I believe that if someone wants to use parts of some lyrics or some music, then that person should not be restricted as long as that person is giving the original artist credit and is not using the whole song. However, I am against people who want to make easy profit by copying the whole content and making minor changes and then calling it their own work to make profits. There are countries that allow this and this , I believe, is a negative reinforcement since it diminishes incentives. Copy right laws should be amended so that people who invent should have incentives, while also giving equal access to people who may not be as fortunate and allowing others to use some ideas, not all, from a particular invention to form new and or improved inventions.
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