Eye of Tiger Composer Sues Gingrich To Stop Campaign From Using Song 452
First time accepted submitter Joe_Dragon writes "The composer of the Survivor hit Eye of the Tiger has sued Newt Gingrich to stop the Republican presidential candidate from using the Rocky III anthem at campaign events. The lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in Chicago by Rude Music Inc., the Palatine-based music publishing company owned by Frank Sullivan, who, with Jim Peterik, composed the song and copyrighted it in 1982. The lawsuit states that as early as 2009, Gingrich has entered rallies and public events to the pulsing guitar riffs of the song. In a lengthy section of the five-page complaint, Rude's attorneys point out that Gingrich is well aware of copyright laws, noting he is listed as author or co-author of more than 40 published works and has earned between $500,000 to $1 million from Gingrich Productions, a company that sells his written work, documentaries and audio books. It also notes Gingrich's criticism of the 'Stop Online Piracy Act' during a recent debate in South Carolina, where Gingrich suggested the law was unnecessary because 'We have a patent office, we have copyright law. If a company finds it has genuinely been infringed upon, it has the right to sue.' The suit asks for an injunction to prevent Gingrich from using the song, as well as damages and attorneys' fees to be determined by the court."
Re:Fair Use? (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not sure that's a correct statement. Maybe it isn't direct, but he is using it in what essentially amounts to advertising. These events are not private parties, so the private party exemption (specific to music) is also gone.
I do believe, however, that Rude Music is in for a rude awakening because of a thing called compulsory licensing. In essence, they can collect money for their product, but they have to offer it to all comers, and, if memory serves me, they must do so with non-discriminatory pricing.
Re:Fair Use? (Score:4, Interesting)
You would need to be a lawyer, practically, to know how fine this line is. For example, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/28/nbc-mitt-romney-tom-brokaw-ad_n_1239107.html [huffingtonpost.com] . Romney's use of that news footage in an advertisement is likely Fair Use.
Gingrich is using the music for self-promotion at campaign events. Definition/standards of fair use: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use#Purpose_and_character [wikipedia.org]
0) ". . .for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright." It is none of these.
1) "the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;" - Technically non-profit, but not for an educational purpose. Well, unless you count used to introduce a candidate to an event where he is educating them about himself. I think that is a bit too broad to work.
2) "the nature of the copyrighted work" - Neither a fact, idea or something as important to the public as the Zapruder film.
3) "the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and" - The whole thing isn't being played, but how much of it?
4) "the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work." - I don't think this would be allowed to apply here. If the song can be blasted in part for this event, why not others? At that point the value of the song begins to go down due to over use.
It could go either way, but I'm leaning against fair use. I'm leaning enough against it that I expect this to be quietly hushed up with a settlement.
Re:My guess (Score:5, Interesting)
I am very much pro copyright. Though I am a purist who believes in fair use and and that limited duration should never have been extended past 14 years.
ASCAP/BMI license (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, if the Gingrich Campaign is paid up with ASCAP, they can play Eye of the Tiger all they want, even if the writers of that song disagree vehemently with Mr. Gingrinch's politics. The writers could go their own and not deal with ASCAP, which I kind of doubt they did, and hence retain more control over their works, but then they are on their own and lack ASCAP's "muscle" in getting the tithe paid.
If the Gingrich people are not paid up with ASCAP or BMI, well, some lame capitalists they are and Mr. Gingrinch doesn't deserve to run for President on account of legal ignorance.
Re:My guess (Score:5, Interesting)
How to you get to the conclusion that slashdot hates copyright?
A lot of people here own copyrights (registered or not) and would appreciate some protection. Very few people have said "screw it, download everything".
GPL is advertised as fighting copyright with copyright, and it would be unimportant without copyright. But without copyright, all you have is public domain and trade secrets. There is no requirement to release code changes unless you personally contract with everyone who wants to download your code. Hosting a tarball with a license and expecting people to follow the license does not exist, because there is no basis of enforcement. A license with a public domain download is not enforceable.
I believe the maximum copyright should be no more than 28 years, and several people have come up with 14 as the optimal length. Copyright is only evil because 1) it is excessively long, effectively infinite 2) enforcement such as DRM abridges fair use, especially if the DRM has not been broken when something that uses it is in the public domain.
Copyright is to be respected, at least for a little while.
http://www.teleread.com/copy-right/dumb-by-the-numbers-optimal-copyright-term-of-14-years-time-to-kill-all-the-economists/ [teleread.com]