Sunday, August 24, 2008

Olympic Sized Copyright Errors?

I get irritated that CCLI needs an audit of all the worship songs we sing at the church every two years. This means every time we make a master copy, arrangement, and plan a song — it gets recorded. I get irritated because it's pure administration for me to gather and report the information.

I understand why it's setup like this. Each song writer deserves the royalties due to them. But let me ask a candid question."When was the last time someone wrote a song and purposely DIDN'T sign their name — meaning they didn't get royalties, the credit, the fame, or the interest in subsequent songs?"

Still waiting for the anonymous worship album where all royalties go to solve the world top five problems:
  • Extreme Poverty
  • Pandemic Diseases
  • Illiteracy
  • Corruption
  • Spiritual Emptiness
And if this wasn't enough to twang my bud...check out this Olympic sized copyright feud.
clipped from blog.wired.com

Composer Says Beijing Olympic Committee Ripped Him Off

Beijing
Peter Breiner, who arranged more than 200 national anthems for the 2004 Olympics, has accused the Beijing Olympic Committee of stealing those works for this year's Games. He says he is "100 percent sure" that his arrangements are being played at medal ceremonies -- and the Washington Post's culture critic couldn't agree more.

It would appear that the Beijing
Olympic Committee has infringed his copyright on a massive scale, since
national anthems are played at each medal ceremony. An estimated 3 billion
people worldwide are tuning in to the games via television.

"My arrangements of public-domain anthems are actually original
compositions from a legal point of view," said the Czechoslovakian native to the Post from New York, "which means if someone wants to record them,
they have to purchase the material."

1 comment:

  1. Anonymous3:03 PM

    The issue you talk about is one that I see regularly and it comes up often. There was even a nasty copyright battle royal over Footprints in the Sand.

    http://www.wowzone.com/fpnews.htm

    For better or worse, it appears that religious music, books and other items are big business and are being treated as such - lawyers and all.

    ReplyDelete