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Talk:Hitler has only got one ball

First, I wrote a little article on the Colonel Bogey March and stuck the Variant #3 lyrics on the talk page. Then Tarquin boldly posted them, with links, in the article itself. Then, Sinper[?] deleted them without notice, whereupon I created this page. While I was typing this, I seem to have gotten into an edit war with Tarquin, who is also trying to restore the lyrics. More later, Ortolan88 17:14 Nov 4, 2002 (UTC)

Sorry, Orto! More a case of an "edit mixup" than a war ;-) -- Tarquin

Yep, but where should they go, really? See one-ball talk page Ortolan88

Toby O’Brien claims on his web page that this song was originally written by his father in 1939, which would make these lyrics copyright of the O'Brien estate. I do not know whether or not his claim is valid.

It is clear however, that ALL versions of these lyrics were written post 1939, and therefore copyright of them, by definition, lays with whoever wrote them (or their estates).

Ignoring any question of whether these lyrics belong here for reasons outside the scope of copyright, these lyrics cannot be allowed to stay here unless their copyright status is resolved.

Folklore is not copyright and there is no assertion of copyright on the O'Brien page. His father didn't write them for a musical comedy. He wrote them for British propaganda. Why are you intent on suppressing this article? This is your second try. Reverting soon unless you prove that anyone ever claimed a copyright on them and even then I'll dispute it. In other words, this is silly. If you think the article is vulgar or trivial, try making that point here and cut it out with the off-topic tactics. Ortolan88 21:34 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)PS - Donough wrote the web page, Toby is his dead father.

These songs are probably the most clear cut example of oral tradition extant. No sane person would think of imposing or seeking to impose a copyright on this. user:sjc

The Colonel Bogey March was a first world war tune and a big hit at that; it will inevitably transpire that someone had written some ribald words to this tune anterior to 1939: it would be a crying shame not to, wouldn't it? user:sjc

First, answer this question: Did someone write these lyrics? Unless you assume that they sprung into existence fully formed, then you have to assume there is an author.

Under the Berne Convention of 1908, protected works were granted a copyright for the life of the author plus 50 years.

Since 1911 there has been no requirement for an author to "claim" copyright, since copyright is automatically granted to the original author.

In 1996, Britain extended copyright protection to 70 years after the author's death, and this change was retroactive.

Given that we are assuming that the lyrics in question were written post 1939, the above tells us that no matter who wrote them, they are copyrighted until 70 years after that persons death.

If we assume that they were written by Toby O'Brien, then the copyright is owned by his heirs or by his employer at the time they were written. If the works were not authored by Toby O'Brien, then we do not know who owns the copyright, but unless the author has been dead over 70 years then SOMEONE owns the copyright. --"TMC"

Not necessarily. It is perfectly possible to write something and not assert copyright over it. As I am doing right now. Moreover, this is a frankly ludicrous sideshow. It is not copyright, never has been, never will be.user:sjc

sjc, the above is wrong on two levels. First, even if you didn't "assert" ownership at the moment you created a work, the copyright is automatically yours. Second, you misunderstand the terms that wikipedia accepts your entries under. It is implicit in the GFDL that you are the author and copyright holder of that which you write, and that you grant an irrevocable license to wikipedia to the use of your work.

I believe that's only assuming these have any identifiable author. Folktales, urban legends and the like are not copyrightable because no one person has any particular claim to them. They are created by the public, and are therefore in the public domain. I'm not saying that applies to this, because I don't know anything about this, but it is possible that no one holds any legally viable copyright. Tokerboy 22:09 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC)

Close, but not quite. If you hear a piece of folklore or urban legend, and you write it down in your own original words, then you indeed have a copyright on your expression of that story. But nothing stops someone else from coming along and writing their own version of the same story, in their own words.

Also, we should pay some heed to another wikipedia policy: Don't include copies of primary sources --"TMC"

I agree with sjc and Orty -- next we'll hear that the cadences sung by US soldiers in basic training are copyrighted, like:

C-130 going down the strip
Airborne daddy gonna take a little trip
Stand up, hook up, shuffle to the door
Jump right out and count to four.

Sound off! One, two!
Sound off! Three, four!
Bring it on down!
One, two, three, four
One! Two! Three, four!

(from memory)

Right, that's it. I've restored 3 times, everyone but "TMC" agrees it's public domain. I'm protecting the page. Fed up with bloody edit wars over trivialities. -- Tarquin 22:43 Nov 8, 2002 (UTC) (paraphrased)

Tarquin, I know your heart is in the right place, but this simply isn't how we do things around here.

First, review Wikipedia:Copyrights, which points out that content can only be added under the GFDL if the submitter owns the copyright, or the submitter has acquired the material from a source (such as public domain) which allows licensing under the GFDL. I point out, again, that the lyrics in question have not shown to be in the public domain.

Second, review the archives of wikipedia-l if you want to see prior discussions regarding posting song lyrics.

"TMC", or whoever you are ("this simply isn't how we do things around here" -- makes you sound like an old hand -- how long has your name been registered?) -- I don't appreciate reverting THREE times. I don't appreciate the use of the "minor edit" flag on what is clearly a MAJOR change. If you're convinced they're not PD find proof and get back to us. -- Tarquin (paraphrased)

Holy Shit Tarquin, read what you just wrote. You are attempting to assert that we assume all content is in the public domain unless there is proof that it is not. This is not the standard that we use on wikipedia. The very fact that these lyrics were authored in the later half of the twentieth century is PROOF that they are indeed copyrighted. Even reading the definitions of copyright here on wikipedia would point that out to you. --"TMC"

Just becuase there is an "author" does nto mean its copyrighted. I could author something it does nto mean ist copyrighted. - fonzy

Fonzy, I don't know how to put this other than to say you are wrong. The *moment* you author something, it is automatically copywriten. To quote the US Copyright Office "Copyright protection subsists from the time the work is created in fixed form. The copyright in the work of authorship immediately becomes the property of the author who created the work."

Seconded. I have seen no evidence despite intensive searching to suggest remotely that a copyright exists on this. user:sjc

hwo can it be copywrigted i'm shore when its said on films and things they dont pay rolayties. - fonzy

Look guys, you don't realize that this is absolutely serious. No matter how popular the song is, no matter how common it is, no matter how much they are "oral tradition", if it was written under the terms of the berne convention, it is copyrighted. Heck, there is even a copyright on the song "Happy Birthday", and we could not legally use those lyrics on wikipedia either.

YOUR SAYING EVEYRTIME I HAVE SUNG HAPPY B-DAY, I HAVE WAS MEANT TO [PAY ROYALTIES!? I MEAN TOO WHO? I MEAN EVEN IF IT WAS COPYRIGHTED NO ONE IS GOING TO SUE YOU. - fonzy

Fonzy, yes, look at the wikipedia entry on Happy Birthday if you don't believe it is copywritten.

i am nto saying its is nto copyrighted, i am saying no one in there right mind would sue you. - fonzy

Actually, the copyright to "Happy Birthday" is rigorously enforced. Watch birthday scenes in movies and plays and notice whether the song is sung or not. Many times it won't be because they don't want to pay. If it's there, they pay Warner Brothers. The reason Tweety Bird never sings anything but "Singing in the Bathtub" is that WB owns the copyright on that song and pay themselves.

On the other hand, the copyright (if any, since no one has shown that one even exists) on the Hitler lyrics to the "Colonel Bogey March", has never been enforced despite its appearance in many songbooks, novels, compilations, and public performances of various kinds. The reason the lyrics were not used in The Bridge on the River Kwai was their vulgarity, not their copyright status.

This complainant doesn't like the lyrics (or he likes making a fuss). He doesn't care about copyright. The first time he tried to kill this article, he simply deleted it and made it a redirect. The whole copyright thing was an afterthought.Ortolan88

Yes, and all the Michael Jackson jokes (for example) date from the last 30 years, but they're not copyright. Some things fall into the public domain straight away. See what Tokerboy wrote above. Are you an expert in copyright law? Sheesh. You'd think it would be just religion, evolution and politics that would get the edit wars, but no. Why do people pick the most unlikely pages to declare edit war on? Why have you suddenly gone fullt tilt behind this random cause? - t

Actually, "Happy Birthday" is copyrighted, but this song is not. It is not serious. The original isn't copyrighted and certainly none of the variations is copyrighted. I find it ironic that he is using my successful research against me like this. I can only think that he is trying to get rid of the article for some unstated reason. The business about copyright is just camouflage (and incorrect besides). He tried to do it with a redirect and when that didn't work he started deleting it, always with the Minor annotation, not knowing that "the way we do things around here" does not hide minor changes from the watchlist.

Granted, I had a lot of fun with this article, but the stuff he cut out was legitimate folklore research, including use of the song in a well-known novel, and by no stretch of the imagination was it anything but public domain material. Maybe he's an O'Brien descendant and plans to go out after what would be tremendous royalties. Everything has an author. The folk process starts with an author. In this case, it was a known author, a press agent, who knew exactly what he was doing. A copyright would have interfered with what he was doing. The stuff he cut also demonstrated how folk material evolves.Ortolan88

Why have I gone full tilt? Because it came to my attention and realization that copywritten song lyrics are being included in wikipedia. Am I an expert on copywrite law? More so then the average person, but I'll admit I'm not an attorney. You are showing by your actions that you do consider yourself to be an expert on copyright law, and that you are willing to make wikipedia legally liable by your refusal to have these lyrics removed.

I don't see any point in discussing the copyright status of "michael jackson jokes" here, as they fall into a different category of copyright law than song lyrics. -c

Hmm. I have been through the desultory list of contributions by le coq impermeable and it does look very much like a Trojan Horse to me, very little substance but enough to make it appear as though he has been around for a while with a kind of not unmissable name. I think there is definitely an agenda in le coq's mind; either that or he's just trolling. user:sjc

Thanks for reviewing my "desultory list" of work, and for the personal attack on my contributions here. I'm not going to bother to reply any further to this topic. --c

I'm not claiming to be an expert on copyright law. I'm saying not a single one of the sources I cited claimed any copyright, including the original. No one sued Thomas Pynchon for quoting it, no one sued any of those web pages I got material from, and no one is going to sue us because no one claims it. Ortolan88PS-The melody of "Happy Birthday" is copyrighted under the title "Good Morning to All", but the "birthday" lyrics are public domain. Happy birthday to you, Ortolan88

Exactly. If they were gonna take anyone on, they would go for an outfit with money e.g. News International (who have cited it in full on at least five occasions). If their solitors didn't see any problem with it I doubt we should. user:sjc

The standard for what can be added to wikipedia is not whatever won't get us sued, it is whatever can be licensed under the GFDL. --c

You appear to be in a minority of one in this opinion. Nobody else seems to think this might remotely be an issue. You've made your views felt. Now find some proof to substantiate your fears or shut up. Nothing you have said so far make sense other than that you are probably trolling. user:sjc

sjc, I don't mind being a "minority of one", especially when the majority (consisting solely of you, Tarq, Ortolan88, and maybe Fonzy) hasn't attempted to address this from a point of view of copyright law at all. The fact is that these lyrics are almost assuredly owned by someone, and therefore are not appropriat under the GFDL unless we find the copyright owner and get their permission.

Okay, "TMC". suppose it WAS copyright. Which version? All the others are derivates, and you can allow them as parody or pastiche or what have you. The very fact that no claim has been brought on use of this song indicates that its owners (IF they exist) consider it PD. Please stop getting your knickers in a twist over this. Try and understand the points above. You're really giving off a strong whiff of 14-year-old from where's I'm sitting -- that, or as I earlier suspectewd, an old contributor stirring up trouble under a new nick. (are you 24 by some chance?) -- Tarquin (paraphrased)

Tarq, (insult aside) that is a simple question with a fairly simple answer. The original author of an act owns whatever part of their work lead to the derivitive act, and the new author owns whatever part was novel.

As far as acting childish goes, that was exactly the impression I got from you with your "that's it, I'm locking the page" decision. Doesn't that ring pretty close to "I'm taking my ball and going home".

This page [1] (http://www.pdinfo.com/identify.htm) is a pretty low-level look at the issues here, but it might be worth reading.

Please thing carefully about what the GFDL means, and understand that we can only use material that we have the rights to. If there are specific points buried in the nest of text above that you think I haven't addressed, feel free to drag them down here.

There's a discussion of copyright and fair use going on on wikipedia-l right now and the owner of Bomis is consulting with Richard Stallman and Lawrence Lessig on using poetry under the GFDL. I suggest you join that discussion, and, if you like, submit this page to those eminent authorities (who I am sure you, as a copyright expert, have read as I the non-expert have) and maybe you can get an answer. Personally, it smells like a troll to me, but take it to the top and see how far you get. I don't want to get the Wikipedia in trouble, and I don't believe anything I've done here would do so. In fact, forget about doing it. I will. Ortolan88

That is a perfect first step. The discussion on wikipedia-l is primarily about fair use, which might apply if the attempt was to quote only passages of the lyrics instead of the whole song. You should read carefully what Stallman said about poetry - "Poetry is a different matter. I believe there was a ruling that quotations from poetry are never allowed as fair use. I think you simply cannot include any poetry."

So yes, take it to wikipedia-l for further discussion. But until you get an opinion from someone you respect, the prudent thing to do is to remove the lyrics from this page. I've given ample examples above explaining why these lyrics are almost certainly, de jure, owned by someone, even if we do not know who that someone is. --"TMC"

No need to remove them, any more than we should remove the poetry from William Butler Yeats, which I also suggested these experts have a look at. Ortolan88 00:22 Nov 9, 2002 (UTC)

You don't get it do you? I'll just point out that the poem in question was written before 1922, which is an important distinction when it comes to American copyright law. See [2] (http://www.pdinfo.com/faq.htm) and search on 1922 for more information. --"TMC"

As I understand it, Yeats has a copyright for 70 years after his death, which was 1939. Ortolan88

One more point here that I'm surprised that nobody has brought up. Take a look at the wikipedia entry for lyrics.

I think we need to have a nice long talk about when pages should and should not be protected. I basically think they should almost never be protected. I want to edit this article. :-)

I would rather completely divest all the "sysops" of their powers than live with powers inconsistently applied. Who decided to give sysops the power to freeze articles other than the main page, anyway? I don't remember a debate. (Maybe I wasn't paying attention.)

I think it's pretty obvious that we should have articles about important songs. Maybe this one is important to warrant the article. I also agree that we don't want to violate copyrights, but I don't have an informed opinion on the issue in this case. --Larry Sanger

Well, I've unprotected the page now - I agree they should hardly ever be protected, though I've not been paying attention to what has been going on here, so I don't know if the protection was justified. --Camembert

By the way, I wrote Variant #3, and I do not claim a copyright on it. Ortolan88

Then it sure as heck doesn't belong in Wikipedia, does it? ;-) --Larry Sanger

We sang it at camp.Ortolan88

You say you wrote it; I thought that meant that you invented, created it. In that case, it doesn't belong in Wikipedia. If you're saying you heard it at camp and are writing it down now, that's different--I just misunderstood. --Larry Sanger

No, you understood correctly. We were trying to sing it at camp 50 years ago and couldn't come up with the last line, so, clever 12-year-old that I was, I came up with the Mussolini bit. We all sang it then and I am sure some alumni of Camp Dixie for Boys still sing it that way. I am not exempted from the folk process just because I also contribute to Wikipedia. And anyway, there are thousands of original words by me in the 'pedia and none of them are copyright either.Ortolan88

No, of course you're not exempted, but prove that in fact your version is indeed part of the folk process and not just a lark 50 years ago (sir!). --Larry Sanger

I'm restating my points (again) before I remove the lyrics from the subject page (again).

It is a fact of modern law that practically all works that are created and put into a fixed form automatically have a copyright. There is no requirement for an author to "claim" copyright, it happens automatically. The "thousands of original words" that Ortolan88 has contributed to wikipedia are, like it or not, automatically copyrighted the moment he wrote them. But the magic of the GFDL means that he has granted rights to use his words to the entire wikipedia project.

This is all very directly covered under Wikipedia:Copyrights, but I'm going to rephrase the key point here. All information in wikipedia needs to fall under one of the following categories:

1: It was submitted by the original creator. 2: It is from material licensed under the GFDL. 3: It is from material in the public domain. 4: It is quoted under the terms of "fair use". 5: The copyright holder has granted special permission.

So, with regards to these lyrics, what do we know? We know that they were created circa 1939. This means that, by definition, the have a copyright held by someone, but we do not know who that person is.

They were not created by the submitter, and (as Larry pointed out) if they were they wouldn't belong here. They were not licensed under GFDL. They are not from the public domain (since they were written circa 1939). The copyright holder has not granted us special permission.

The only leg left to stand on would be that we are quoting them under "fair use". But quoting them in their entirity is not "fair use", and (as was pointed out on wikipedia-L) even small quotes from short works (such as poetry) can be difficult to justify under fair use.

--"TMC"

I think the view of many people here is that the lyrics fall under No. 5 of your above list: "The copyright holder has granted special permission" - it has not been granted explicitly, but the fact that the copyright holder (whoever they may be) has not brought an action in the 60-odd years since they created the work, despite plenty of opportunities to do so, is an implicit indication that they do not mind this kind of use. Please note: I'm not endorsing this view (neither am I disagreeing with it), but I thought I'd state it here, because it does seem to be the point of many, and, with all respect, it's a point you don't seem to be getting. --Camembert

If the author has granted "special permission" then it should be trivial to show the name of the author and the date he granted the permission.

I'm going to restate this point in another way. Pretend that the original author suddenly presented himself, had a court order showing proof of a valid copyright, and demanded that we remove this material. Would we remove it? If the answer is "yes", then the material cannot stay. --"TMC"

Yup, that's what I've been trying to say. There is also the angle that surely some things go into the public domain -- jokes, for example. someone must make them up somewhere, but who? By the time you've told a joke to a dozen people, it's spread far and wide. What if you make up a rude song on the way back from a rugby match? Some things are PD because of the way in which they are created and initially distributed -- if you are so concerned, "TMC", maybe we should get a British lawyer in on this. -- Tarquin (paraphrased)

I'm no lawyer. But from reading stuff about other sites that quote song lyrics there is apparently in US law a 'fair use' copyright exemption clause which allows for the publication of lyrics when used in comment, crtisism or parody. [[3] (http://borgus.com/legal.htm)] I think the Hitler thing comes under this. I would also claim that my peice about Alanis's Morrisette's song Ironic is also covered by this exemption.

'fair use' means quoting a small part of something, not quoting all of it. The article in question appeared to attempt to present the complete lyrics. Deciding "how much" of a work can be quoted is a grey area, but quoting all of it doesn't count. --"TMC"

Tarq, we shouldn't branch into jokes, because they aren't exactly the same as songs. But the simple answer to your question that yes, even jokes can copyrighted. If you made up a rude joke on the way back from a rugby match, and you wrote it down, you own the copyright on that joke. You can't stop other people from "telling" it. But you can stop them from writing it down, making recordings of it, or telling it in front of a live audience.

I have explained, over and over, how everything that is created in fixed form is automatically copyrighted. I've provided pointers to explanations of copyright law here on wikipedia, to external links, and to the explicit British statutes that apply. If you really believe that there is some exception that these song lyrics should fall under, why don't you simply provide a reference to that exception? --"TMC"

You're wrong, not everything in fixed form is automatically copyrighted. International copyright law recognizes that a certain complexity is required for a piece of information to constitute a copyrightable work. Otherwise we'd have constant copyright lawsuits over trivial phrases. The amount of complexity required varies, of course, depending on national precedents. The lyrics of the Hitler song do not, in my opinion, meet any reasonable complexity standard. Opinions may differ here, and in general it is possibly best for Wikipedia to err on the side of caution. But with a 1939(?haven't read the entire debate) folk song about Hitler's testicle(s), there seems to be no particular need to be cautious. "TMC", I wrote a small article for people like you, it's called m:Avoid Copyright Paranoia. Please reconsider your stance. --Eloquence 00:29 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC) (paraphrased)

I don't understand. We are an educational source. We are non-profit. We are negative-profit. Aren't we exempt? Lir 00:22 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

“If the law supposes that,” said Mr. Bumble, “the law is a ass, a idiot.” Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist. Nonetheless, I surrender to the utter fatuity of intellectual property law that preserves property even where there is no property and there is no owner. (I still don't believe this doctrine has been correctly interpreted but I am sick and tired of this discussion.)

I have rewritten the article including brief snatches of the lyrics, enough to make the point I was trying to make, that they were very popular and had evolved. I have also added a list of other people, commercial users, who have not bothered their heads about this alleged copyright.

I put in some links to web pages with the lyrics. Please go annoy them. Finally, I went back to "Colonel Bogey March" and removed the lyrics from there, where the forces of copyright morality had been too lazy to go. What a saga. Whew! Ortolan88

The chief complainant's user name, which is so vulgar even he won't use it, either here or in signing contributions on his own user pages, does appear in Recent Changes. One casualty of this little tiff here has been the driving off Isis from being sick of seeing it. See Wikipedia:Village pump for the resignation and Recent contributions by Isis (/w/wiki.phtml?title=Special:Contributions&target=Isis) to measure the loss. Ortolan88

I believe the use of lyrics as they previously existed on the subject page constituted "fair use" (US Copyright "Fair Use" (http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fairuse), US Copyright office circular (http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ21.pdf)) There is no specific identification of what portion of a song lyric may be used, however the circular states that in the case of poetry a poem of less than 250 words may be copied in its entirety for classroom activity under the terms of fair use.

Here's my full analysis of the situation:

No-one has made a substantiated claim of authorship.
Given the time period since its invention it is unlikely anyone is going to be able to ever make a substantiated claim.
If in any case the author was in the British Army or working for the government in another capacity the work may fall under Crown Copyright which expires after 50 years.
If it was invented by an American then its copyright has epired due to non-renewal. The same goes if the lyrics were legally used on American territory within 30 days of invention
If it was invented by a non-American then as no Notice of Intent to Enforce a Restored Copyright has been filed any person or business who had previously used it as "public domain" may continue to do so until one year after the NIE is filed.
It was almost certainly designed either as a marching song or as a piece of humourous propoganda designed to be distributed by word of mouth. In either case an implied licence is assumed to allow the distribution of the lyrics. As distribution by word of mouth often results in the lyrics changing (with this fact being known at the time of authorship) the implied licence could also be taken to mean that changes were permitted. As at no time the author either made himself known or anonymously objected to this implied licence even though it is likely that he knew of the existence of variants it could be taken to mean that the author clearly agreed with the implied licence.
For a licence to be compatible with the GNU FDL it has to allow modification and redistribution for any purpose without limitation, given that implied licence discussed above meets these conditions it is GNU FDL compatible.

In summary:

No-one at the moment has the capability of enforcing the copyright, this is likely to be true for the foreseeable future.

If it was produced by a government employee it lacks copyright now in both the UK (50 years expiry) and in the US (Governmental works wern't restored by the URAA).

The implied licence in this case is very strong for the reasons given above, and the licence is GNU FDL compatible.

In short there is overwhelming evidence that the work is GNU FDL compatible.

--Imran 15:16 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

That's good enough for me! I'm restoring the lyrics. (now, why we had to go to this length when NEARLY EVERYONE was satisfied with this already is another matter entirely) -- Tarquin 17:22 Nov 10, 2002 (UTC)

"TMC" is right in almost every respect. I must say I am amazed at how much others are flaunting their utter lack of knowledge of copyright law. If you don't know what you're talking about, then why talk about it! (paraphrased)

The only point on which I disagree with "TMC" is the one about fair use. He says <q>'fair use' means quoting a small part of something, not quoting all of it</q>. In my understanding of US law ('fair use' is a concept unique to that law), what is and what is not fair use can only be established by a court of law, after the fact. However, judges will try and determine if it is a case of fair use based on four criteria, of which the amount quoted is only one, and none of these criteria are absolute:

the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;

the nature of the copyrighted work;

the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole, and

the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

In other words, the amount copied will be weighed in with the other factors: in the scientific (literary criticism) dissemination of a poem, it can be necessary to quote the entire poem.

And yes, jokes are copyrighted. As Tarquin mentioned, something must be unique to be copyrightable, but I don't think a joke would be funny if it was exactly like the next joke.

Also, all the derivative versions of the lyrics can be seen as parody, for which copyright law makes an exception.

As for the other stuff that has been said on this page:

every creative work has an author and is therefor copyrighted, unless the author has specifically given up copyright (not allowed in some countries!) or the copyright has expired.
you cannot renew copyright, nor does copyright have to be asserted in the US to be valid -- what the author was thinking of is related to the amount of damages thatcan be claimed.
there is no such thing as an implied license.

branko

On implied licences I suggest you look at the UK goverment IP site,

http://www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/std/faq/copyright/implied_copy_licence.htm

And on copyright renewal look at Circular 15 at the US copyright office,

http://www.loc.gov/copyright/circs/circ15.pdf

Please correct your above statements. As you said yourself if you don't know what you're talking about, then why talk about it!

--Imran 18:56 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

I will try and answer this later, for now I paste a link to the text of the UK here for my own reference: http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880048_en_1.htm branko

I don't understand. We are an educational source. We are non-profit. We are negative-profit. Aren't we exempt? Lir 18:15 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

Exempt from what? Copyright law does make a distinction when deciding wether something is fair use or not, but does not make non-profits impervious to copyright infringement. A non-profit can infringe on copyrights.

Wether somebody made money with copyright infringement may be reflected in the amount of damages awarded (at least in the Netherlands), but unfortunately there is a trend of making more and more forms of copyright infringement a felony. branko

but we are an educational source! Lir 18:35 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

How does that change the law? branko

I have gone along with removing the lyrics, putting them back, and removing them. I have tried to participate in this discussion without claiming any particular authority. I spoke up for "Happy Birthday", and I'm just about to warn the authors of Highway 61 Revisited that they are stepping over the line on lyrics, but I really do not understand the idea you are putting forward. As I read it, you are saying that there is no such thing as public domain anymore. Of course, as in today's Wall Street Journal, people are being thrown into jail for "intellectual property crimes" that would never have be crimes in any other context, so maybe it is so. If so, I don't believe that the recent developments in intellectual property law have been at all salubrious. Ortolan88 18:42 Nov 11, 2002 (UTC)

Of course there is such a thing as Public Domain. All works whose copyrights have expired or that have been placed into it, are part of the public domain.

What's more, technically (following the intentions of those that originally drafted US copyright law) all works are in the PD, but some have been temporarily removed from there, allowing publish^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hauthors to make money off them. branko

Public domain is a restricted, and if I may say so, valueless category then. How about folk songs? "I woke up this morning with the blues all around my bed." A thousand guys have recorded it. Most of them claim to have written it. There's a really funny, and profound, article somewhere in my books about the "Black Jack David" folk song, with dozens of people saying, "Oh, it's just something I came up with while we were messing around in the studio." How many times has "Barbara Allen" been "written" and "copyrighted"? My son recorded it on an album as "Traditional, arranged by [band name]". Who could stop them? I just don't see how there can be a copyright on something when no one has claimed it and no one any standing to sue. This position on "one ball" literally does not make any sense to me. I am really trying to understand, believe me. Ortolan88

Perhaps some more research is necessary on this topic. Anyone want to shell out some money for a book? I did a little digging, and I found out that there have been many discussions of the various child's folklore versions of songs (like the "Comet" version of Colonel Bogey's March that I mentioned elsewhere). Example: http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=upugkaoit.fsf%40hpl.hp.com&rnum=2&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dcomet%2Blisterine%2Bbogey%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26selm%3Dupugkaoit.fsf%2540hpl.hp.com%26rnum%3D2

Just perusing that thread, I saw a reference to something called "GGGG". Turns out that this is a book called "Greasy Grimey Gopher Guts", a book that chronicles various examples of North American children's folklore/songs/chants, the kinds that are sung in camp or on the schoolbus. The "Comet" version of Bogey's March is mentioned. And in the thread, someone quotes from GGGG, saying that Colonel Bogey's March "has been the tune for many a World War II children's parody both in England and America".

Hmmm, how tantalizing.

(The book is available on Amazon, by the way, but I honestly don't know if has anything else useful to say about the various lyrics that have arisen for this song.) soulpatch

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