Was Dylan ever punished for this? I think not.

I once lamented the same thing…until I saw the dividing line between community and commerce.

Before record sales became a global industry, a singer’s livelihood was in public performance, not royalties on intellectual property. Singers worked for venues by the sweat of their brow, or some in community gatherings by donation. As hard-earned popularity increased, so would the size of the venue, the crowd & the financial reward. They capitalized not on song ownership but on hard work, like any business.

This is still the way real musicians work today – Bob Dylan would be a very rich man even if he never received a single royalty cheque – because of his incredible work ethic in touring.

Upon being successfully sued by Willie Dixon for ripping off his songs, Led Zeppelin retorted that they just wanted to be like the old blues artists who freely exchanged material – all the while cashing in on lucrative record sales! Thus it is hypocrisy to benefit in commerce from freedoms exclusive to community.

The great news for un-greedy songwriters is that community is as alive today as it ever was. Every shmuck with a guitar is uploading his version of Brown Eyed Girl to Youtube without fear of law suits – some just for fun, others as a tool for their small entertainment business; others still, like Pomplamoose, attracting over 70,000 subscribers – freely distributing versions of known songs increases their popularity but not their bank account (leading to big sales of originals). The low cost of technology is allowing award-winning albums to be produced in lounge rooms!

In short, you only have to fear copyright laws if you intend to make money from copyright laws.

And if you want to line your pockets with the value of ideas, what’s wrong with sharing the paycheck with the rightful originators of those ideas? I am a professional songwriter and I practise this fairly. I recently leased the rights to a tune a friend and I had fiddled on years earlier. He was elated when I surprised him with a thousand dollar cheque for his quarter share.

Let’s not forget that a musician’s main source of income is performing. Intellectual ownership (a concept I struggle with, ironically) is a relatively new one. I for one am keen to explore this curious new portal that the internet has opened up back into the ancient folk ethic of freely exchangeable music. In my mind, community is as far above commerce as God is above mammon. Davo :)

What if Jesus comes back sues the ass off EVERYBODY!!! :)

Camden NJ June 2, 2009 -Few artists can lay claim to the controversy that has surrounded the career of songwriter James Damiano. Twenty-two years ago James Damiano began an odyssey that led him into a legal maelstrom with Bob Dylan that, to this day, fascinates the greatest of intellectual minds.

As the curtain rises on the stage of deceit we learn that CBS used songs and
lyrics for international recording artist, Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan’s name is credited to the songs. One of those songs is nominated for a Grammy as best rock song of the year. Ironically the title of that song is Dignity.

Since auditioning for the legendary CBS Record producer John Hammond, Sr., who influenced the careers of music industry icons Billy Holiday, Bob Dylan, Pete Seger, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan, James has engaged in a multimillion dollar copyright infringement law suit with Bob Dylan.

It is judicially uncontested by Bob Dylan and or Bob Dylan’s law firms Manatt, Phelps & Phillips , Parcher Hayes & Snyder, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Heck Brown and Sherry and Sony House Counsel that Bob Dylan and people in Bob Dylan’s entourage have solicited James Damiano’s songs and music for over ten years and eleven months, as per the law suit.

District Judge Jerome B. Simandle states in his decision “This court will accept as true Plaintiff’s allegations that Sony represented to him that he would be credited and compensated for his work if Dylan used it. Judge Simandle also stated in his decision “Plaintiff has demonstrated a genuine issue of material fact as to whether defendants had access to his work.

http://www.jamesdamiano.com/

Read more The Bob Dylan James Damiano Story

Richard Frankel

uslawjournal@gmail.com

Which is ironic, because the initial idea of copyright was just the opposite: securing artists a bigger piece of the cake so that culture may thrive.

If you want to start selling copies of a derivative work, just keep in mind what the composer may have done: sold their rights for money. While not legally a Work-for-hire, the result is similar. I’m sure the artist community would prefer to see it as an Us-vs.-Them scenario between themselves and the stiffs, but if the stiffs are to be blamed, so are the composers. It’s increasingly common for labels to buy some or all of the pub rights, but that’s one of the few ways they can still survive (because they sure aren’t profiting on record sales anymore).

As a songwriter who’s assigned a portion of my publisher’s share over to a label in exchange for recording costs, I can say that this segment of the current copyright law is hardly the worst part.

I’m not. The synchronization and publishing rights to west end blues are owned by Sony, so it’s not in the public domain. That means other artists can’t reference it musically in their own work, it technically can’t be played or performed in public without royalties being paid, etc. It’s a part of our national heritage but not part of our cultural commons — it is, essentially, locked away.

And people, come on. I’m not saying Dylan is a thief. But the absurdity of modern copyright law, had it been in effect that way it is now back in the 60s, would’ve made him one.