(no subject)

[andrew_jorgensen]

The JibJab/Woody Guthrie copyright battle deepens: the Electronic Freedom Foundation provides sonic evidence that Guthrie himself may have ripped off the Carter Family. Jesse Walker then points out that the Carter Family claimed ownership of a number of traditional folksongs.

I'm waiting for someone to rework "The Lemon Song," and for the Led Zeppelin legal team to go on record that they've never heard of Howlin' Wolf or Robert Johnson. And I'm reminded, for some reason, of the bit of Douglas Adams's where the editors of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy copy their entry for "The Universe" off the back of a cereal box and then send the book back through a time warp and successfully sue the cereal company for copyright infringement.

Comments

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

"Folk" has often translated into "Written by someone too poor to have lawyers". Have you heard about the horrible mess over "Wimoweh" (aka "The Lion Sleeps Tonight")?

Not too surprising.

[cactuswatcher.livejournal.com]

Any one in 'old time' music in those days borrowed pretty liberally from others. Guthrie just preferred his own political lyrics to the centuries-old words about the vagaries of back-country romance, tracing back to the British Isles. Most of the Carter family's signature songs were not only very old tunes, but like "Blackberry Blossom" often their versions had the words so badly garbled they were nonsense in spots..

No I'm not a big fan of 'old time' country music, but one of my best friends in grad school loved the stuff... and classical opera. Go figure!