In Web ads and at campaign appearances, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Rand Paul sometimes has called on the music of the band Rush to give his message a little pop.

It turns out the campaign wasn’t using the music with the band’s permission, according to Rush’s attorney, Robert Farmer.

Farmer, general counsel for the Anthem Entertainment Group Inc. in Toronto, which is Rush’s record label, has sent a letter to Paul campaign officials informing them that they have violated copyright laws — and urging them to stop.”This is not a political issue — this is a copyright issue,” Farmer said in an interview. “We would do this no matter who it is.”

Besides, all three members of Rush — Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart — are Canadians, not Americans, he pointed out.

Rock band Rush says Rand Paul’s campaign can’t use its songs | The Political Carnival.

According to the 1998 Guinness Book of World Records, “Happy Birthday to You” is the most recognized song in the English language.

The melody comes from the song “Good Morning to All” which was written and composed by sisters Patty and Mildred Hill in 1893 and published in Song Stories for the Kindergarten by the Summy Company as a greeting song for teachers to sing to their students.  Mildred wrote the melody, and Patty the lyrics.

“Happy Birthday to You” first appeared in print in 1912 using the melody of “Good Morning to All” with different lyrics. Its popularity continued to grow through the 1930’s, with no author identified for the new lyrics, nor credit given for the melody from “Good Morning to You”.

In 1935 “Happy Birthday to You” was copyrighted as a work for hire by Preston Ware Orem for the Summy Company, the publisher of “Good Morning to All”.

The song’s current owner, Warner Music Group continues to insist that one cannot sing the “Happy Birthday to You” lyrics for profit without paying royalties: in 2008, Warner collected about $5000 per day ($2 million per year) in royalties for the song. This includes use in film, television, radio, anywhere open to the public, or even among a group where a substantial number of those in attendance are not family or friend to whoever is performing the song.

Professor Robert Brauneis cited problems with the song’s authorship and the notice and renewal of the copyright, and concluded “It is almost certainly no longer under copyright.

In European Union (EU) countries the copyright will expire December 31, 2016, while in the United States, the song is currently set to pass in to the public domain in 2030.

Patty and Mildred Hill were posthumously inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame on June 12, 1996.  The Hill Foundation continues to receive royalties on public performances of the song to this day, estimated to be about about $1 million a year.

more: Happy Birthday to You – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Check out these proposed increases:

Mid-sized restaurant (120 seats): from $125 to $19,344 a year.

Small restaurant (50 seats): from $84 to $16,016.

Cafe (50 seats): from $62 to $10,010.

Smaller cafe (30 seats): from $124 to $5864 a year.

Gyms: Up from 96 cents a class capped at $2600 a year to $4.54 per member a month.

via Aussie Record Labels Demand $5 p/Member Gym Tax.

Hopefully your relationship with Facebook will never go sour, because the pre-nup just changed.

That’s right, the dreaded Facebook Terms of Service (TOS) section that deals with their use of content on your profile and related pages (including yoru notes, blogs, comments and everything else) now has one less sentence.

They always had these lines:

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

But now it’s missing THESE  Two important sentences:

You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content.

You can see the old Facebook TOS at the web.archive.org

So make sure that anything you upload to Facebook isn’t something that you mind giving away…because ALL YOUR CONTENT ARE BELONG TO US now.

Facebook’s New Terms Of Service: “We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever.”.

Another case of derivative vs. transformative  in the copyright world…this time involving a popular Obama campaign image.  On the left, the original Associated Press photo, taken by Manny Garcia in April 2006, and on the right is the Obama campaign poster designed by Shepard Fairey.

The AP says it owns the copyright and wants credit…and cash.  Fairey’s attorney says nope…it’s covered under fair use.   What I want to know is, where’s Andy Warhol’s cut?

AP alleges copyright infringement of Obama image – Yahoo! News.

Copyright law is designed to be flexible.  And the big deal is the difference between “tranformative” works and “derivative” works.  Transformative is usually okay…derivative is not.

Everyone borrows from everyone else…it’s how things work.  We mimic what we see and hear from the moment we are born.   The worlds greatest artists, writers and composers stand on the shoulders of those that came before them.

But where does the law draw the line?   That’s what this article is about….

Copyright Law in the Days of Downloading – WSJ.com.