I get a lot of calls to my radio show asking if someone can use “classical” music in a film or podcast or something without permission since it’s so old. Seasoned listeners to Barely Legal Radio know that you can use the composition because it is in the public domain if it is from the classical period (1550 to 1900?) but you must get permission to use copyrighted recordings of these, or any works, regardless of whether they are in the public domain. Somehow this doesn’t sit well with some people.

According to Richard Esguerra from The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a group is “doing something about this “problem. The organization “Musopen” is raising money from “philanthropists” to create high quality digital recordings of works from masters such as Beethoven and Brahms so that they can “generously” donate these recordings to the public domain so that no one will have to worry about licensing recordings of them ever again.

Does this sound nice to you? If it does, you are forgetting one thing.You are forgetting that if these recordings have some commercial value it creates a market for them which not only employs musicians, it encourages better and better recordings and orchestrations that benefit all of society. Destroy their commercial value, and you destroy a lot more than you realize. (more…)

Now that all the papers have been filed with the Judge in Delaware, The Vandals have released the following summary of their legal situation:

The Hollywood trade publication, Daily Variety, is presently suing the Vandals and Kung Fu Records in Federal District Court in Delaware in what has to be one of the most frivolous and abusive lawsuits of all time. In 2004, The Vandals released a CD called Hollywood Potato Chip. Its cover design was a parody of the Hollywood “system” complete with a parody of the logo for the Daily Variety, who call themselves the “Bible of the Entertainment Industry.”

Warren Fitzgerald: Vandals Guitarist/Federal Court Litigator

Although this was an artistic expression fully protected by the Fair Use Doctrine of the U.S. Copyright Act, and the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee of free speech, the Daily Variety and their parent company Reed Elsevier, Inc. hired the 950 attorneys at Fulbright & Jaworski to sue the Vandals in Federal Court in California over this artwork for several hundred thousand dollars in penalties and threatened litigation costs.

The Vandals were disgusted by this abuse of the legal system and disregard for the Constitution by a magazine that supposedly served the community of the arts, but did not have enough money to fight these monsters so they settled and changed their artwork with complete cooperation. In 2004, The Vandals signed a settlement agreement with Variety that promised not to use the logo again. However, if by fault of the Vandals, an inadvertent use of the logo appeared on the Internet somewhere, the Vandals had a 30 day “cure period” to take it down before they could be sued again. If the use could not be removed within 30 days, or if the Vandals refused, the Vandals would pay Variety liquidated damages in the  amount of $50,000 plus attorneys’ fees. (more…)

I watched MTV’s “Jersey Shore” last weekend. My whole band was mesmerized by it in the bus as we drove to a gig in San Francisco. We felt better about ourselves because we found some people more vulgar and self-centered than we felt we were.

Of course it was hilarious to watch these “piles” conduct themselves like primates in front of the cameras. Then I looked in the corner and notice the MTV logo. I thought I had been watching a shock documentary on a curious lifestyle that would perhaps even propose some solutions to what what looked like a tortured existence. The MTV logo told me that this was not the case. (more…)

Some listeners to my Barely Legal Radio Program are asking me if Taylor Swift has a defamation case against Kanye West for his recent actions against her at the VMA awards, and if Barack Obama has a defamation case against Joe Wilson. Although it would be unimaginable to see her pursue this, Swift actually has a couple decent causes of action against West.

In a suit for defamation you need damages. Provable damages in this case would center on the value of the airtime Swift was deprived of to speak about her recordings. Expert witnesses would testify as to the “bump” typically witnessed after an acceptance speech in such a valuable forum. Arguably, West deprived Swift of this sales bump. (more…)

I didn’t get permission to see Ron Howard’s “Angels and Demons” film from anyone official but as a member of the media as well as the Catholic Church my gut feeling was that I should see it, but not pay for it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to pull that off because although the program I host on St. Joseph Radio is heard on EWTN, it’s really not on anyone in Hollywood’s radar, and my in-box at Indie 1031 has got Internet radio written all over it’s empty enclosure. Somehow I was invited to a screening at the ArcLight in Hollywood presented by Flemming’s Steakhouse. Perfect!

We could debate for a while whether A&D is really a movie at all or just a series of scenes with silly dialogue propelling an action filled scavenger hunt through Vatican City. Instead I will try to be as informative as I can about whether the movie is offensive, blasphemous, inaccurate, or just a joke; or all of those things like “The Da Vinci Code.” (more…)