Jeff Knowlton wrote:
>
> I certainly don't want Nike using my music to make more money, but in the
> end I don't think that I could afford the legal battle.
To quote (appropriate?) Dave Sim:
"No publisher will ever pay you enough money to sue them successfully."
I know someone whose music is routinely used to sell a lot of crap on TV
... hamburgers, shoes, etc. He has no legal recourse because, a long
time ago, he signed away the controlling interest. I don't think he
understood what he was doing. A _lot_ of people from the sixties had
that experience. I think artists are a little more savvy these days, but
not by a whole lot.
I wonder if we'll ever see a case where someone attempts to copyleft
their music, but somehow or other leaves themselves vulnerable to
exploitation and finds that some company is making money off them and
they can't legally stop it. I wonder how the GPL would hold up in court
if applied to music. It does use the word "software" a lot; if you were
the complainant in a copyleft-infringement case, you'd have to
demonstrate that the term "software" is valid for music, or else the
court might decide that the GPL was not applicable in the first place.
And then what would happen? I have no idea.
--PW
