BOSTON to HUCKABEE: Stop Using Our Music

[n2nh]

“Boston has never endorsed a political candidate, and with all due respect, would not start by endorsing a candidate who is the polar opposite of most everything Boston stands for,” Scholz said in a statement. “In fact, although I’m impressed you learned my bass guitar part on More Than a Feeling, I am an Obama supporter.”

[...]

“As the ’straight talk candidate,’ I hope you will help undo the damage still being caused by this misleading use of Boston and More Than a Feeling,” he said.

Not More Than A Feeling for Boston... (http://blogs.reuters.com/trail08/2008/02/15/not-more-than-a-feeling-or-an-endorsement-for-huckabee/)

[N2RJ]

They should sue him for copyright infringement.

[N5NPO]

I wish the Huck had not done this... I was going to support Obama, but ever sice I heard that the Huck could play the bass part of Boston's "More Than A Felling" I have been overwelmed with the urge to support him...
Now if Hillary or Obama would just learn to play the guitar solo from Van Halen's "Eruption", then there may be hope....

[K0RGR]

I didn't know that Boston performed hymns...

I'd be impressed if they could do the guitar solo from 'Jump'.

[KG4JYD]

In copyright you have a "right to integrity" - there is perhaps a case for Boston to go after him on this.

[n0ov]

Actually if Boston actually did say that, this should have been on the National News.

Right along with, "You can't fix stupid"

[n2nh]

Rocker Tells Huckabee to Lay Off the Song (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/16/rocker-tells-huckabee-to-_n_86980.html)

“By using my song, and my band’s name Boston, you have taken something of mine and used it to promote ideas to which I am opposed. In other words, I think I’ve been ripped off, dude!”

Faux News Take (http://youdecide08.foxnews.com/2008/02/14/boston-guitarist-wants-to-pull-the-plug-on-huckabee-for-using-hit-song/)

Tom Scholz, the founder and guitarist of classic-rock group Boston, wants Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee to lose that "Feeling." The former Baptist minister and sometime bass player has been playing the 1976 Boston hit "More Than a Feeling" at his campaign rallies for months, and Scholz isn't pleased. In a letter sent to the Huckabee campaign that was obtained by Rolling Stone, Scholz asks the former Arkansas governor to help "undo the damage" he claims Huckabee has caused by the "misleading" use of his band's song. He adds that he was shocked that the candidate would use Boston's music without consent.

MTv does the Huck (http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1581658/20080215/boston_1.jhtml?rsspartner=rssColdFusion)

The chief songwriter and founder of the band Boston has more than a feeling that he's being ripped off by Mike Huckabee.

Scholz - who wrote, engineered, and laid down nearly all the instrumental tracks on the first album - countersued for the rights to the band's name and music. Three members of the original band, including Goudreau, testified for the record company, which lost.

In his letter, Scholz referred to Huckabee as the "straight talk candidate," but that label more often is applied to Sen. John McCain, who has had his own troubles when it comes to his musical playlist. Last week, McCain's campaign agreed to stop playing John Mellencamp's songs "Our Country" and "Pink Houses" at his rallies after the liberal rocker complained.

CBS NEWS take on it (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/15/politics/main3837321.shtml?source=RSSattr=Entertainment_383 7321)

MS-NBC Take on it (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23183663/%5Benter%20URL%5D)

For the past few months, presidential candidate and amateur bassist Mike Huckabee has been performing Boston’s “More Than a Feeling” at campaign events — sometimes even with onetime Boston guitarist Barry Goudreau. But now there’s a problem: Boston mastermind Tom Scholz, who wrote and played every guitar part on “More Than a Feeling,” is an Obama supporter, and he’s pissed off (a similar disagreement recently went down between John McCain and John Mellencamp). Click below to read his letter to Huckabee:

Scholz's Letter to Huckabee (http://www.rollingstone.com/rockdaily/index.php/2008/02/14/more-than-a-feeling-writer-says-mike-huckabee-has-caused-him-damage/)
http://img127.imageshack.us/img127/166/huckanutwr5.gif

[N5NPO]

OH NO!!! The Huck perfomed Boston's "More than a Felling'" bass part with the one and only Barry Goudreau?!?!?!

GAME OVER!!! I have to become a HUCKSTER now. I have no choice. I cannot control myself now. I have drifted over to the dark-side.

If only Obama had gotten on stage and played Ted Nugent's "Cat Scratch Fever" at an event or two I might have been saved....

[n2ize]

What do you expect from a Huckster-bee

[nz3m]

I wonder if all of the bar bands who play Boston's music share their political values. Hmmm

Ridiculous

[N9MOQ]

Why should Huckabee be excused from "stealing" music and not paying royalties, when even girl scouts have to pay for singing "happy birthday" around a campfire?

Copyright 1996 Star Tribune
Birds sing, but campers can’t - unless they pay up

Something is missing at Diablo Day Camp this year. At the 3 p.m. sing-along in a wooded canyon near Oakland, Calif, 214 Girl Scouts are learning the summer dance craze, the Macarena. Keeping time by slapping their hands across their arms and hips, they jiggle, hop and stomp. They spin, wiggle and shake. They bounce for two minutes. In silence.

"Yesterday, I told them we could be sued if we played the music," explains Teesie King, camp codirector and a volunteer mom. "So they decided they'd learn it without the music." Watching the campers' mute contortions, King shakes her head. "It seems so different," she allows, "when you do the Macarena in silence."

Starting this summer, the American Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers (ASCAP) has informed camps nationwide that they must pay license fees to use any of the 4 million copyrighted songs written or published by ASCAP's 68,000 members. Those who sing or play but don’t pay, ASCAP warns, might be violating the law. Like restaurants, hotels, bars, stores and clubs - which already pay fees to use copyrighted music - camps, including nonprofit ones such as those run by the Girl Scouts, are being told to ante up. The demand covers not only recorded music but also songs around the campfire.

"They buy paper, twine and glue for their crafts - they can pay for the music, too," says John Lo Frumento, ASCAP's chief operating officer. If offenders keep singing without paying, he says, we will sue them if necessary."

Are they going to sue Huckabee? Why not?

No more "Edelweiss" free of charge. No more "This Land Is Your Land." An ASCAP spokesman says "Kumbaya" isn't on its list, but "God Bless America" is.

Diablo, an all-volunteer day camp that charges girls $44 a week to cover expenses, would owe ASCAP $591 this year, based on the camp's size and how long it runs. Another composer group, Sesac, Inc., which owns copyrights to such tunes as Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind," says it plans to ask camps for another set of royalties in the fall.

So far, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., the national organization based in New York, isn't playing along with royalty demands. But the American Camping Association, in Martinsville, Ind., which includes many scout camps, advises members to comply. Diablo's regional Girl Scout Council in Oakland is low on cash and decided its 20 area camps can't afford the extra expense. Rather than risk a lawsuit, the council told camps to scratch copyrighted songs from their programs.

"At first I thought, 'You guys have got to be kidding,'" says Sharon Kosch, the council's director of program services. "They can't sing the songs? But it's pretty threatening. We were told the penalty can be $5,000 and six days in jail." So the camp's directors have scrutinized its official "Elf Manual" and, in the section headed "Favorite Songs at Diablo Day Camp," have crossed out the most popular copyrighted tunes with black Magic Marker. The Scouts know about only a few of the banned songs because ASCAP hasn't mailed out a complete list; it includes 4 million songs and runs 70,000 pages. ASCAP says it has put a list on the Internet.

After finishing off hot dogs and smores for lunch, the Elves - senior scouts charged with helping younger campers - gather in a circle with directors to decide what they can sing. "Is Row Row Row Your Boat' copyrighted?" asks Holly Foster, a 14-year-old Elf with a turquoise happy face on her cheek. "Row Row Row Your Boat" might float, the directors decide, but "Puff the Magic Dragon" is out. "How about Ring Around the Rosie'?" another Elf asks. The directors veto it.

Even harder than figuring out which songs are which is explaining it all to the younger Brownies. "They think copyright means the 'mean people,'" says Debby Cwalina.

ASCAP, which is based in New York, defends the royalties. "Songwriters are small-business people who write songs to make a living," Lo Frumento says. "The royalties allow them to send their kids to Girl Scout camp, too."

The federal copyright act allows composers and music publishers to demand payments for any public performance of copyrighted material.

The law defines a public performance as "where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered."

How is Huckabee getting away with this, no fines, while girl scouts are harrassed instead?

Although the law has been on the books since 1909, ASCAP began notifying large music users, such as hotels, only a little over a decade ago and more recently has worked its way down to small users, such as rodeos and funeral homes. This year, it negotiated a reduced annual fee of $257 with camps enrolled in the American Camping Association. For camps, such as Diablo, that aren't association members, the fees range from $ 308 to $ 1,439 a year.

Penalties for noncompliance can be stiff. The law sets fines up to $ 25,000 or a year in prison, or both, for major infingements. ASCAP, which sends monitors around the country, has successfully sued restaurants, retailers and private clubs. While the law hasn't been tested on camps, copyright lawyers say that even little girls would lose.

"If you make an exception for the Girl Scouts, you could set a practical precedent," says Russell Frackman, a copyright lawyer. "You give the impression that a particular use is not an infringement, and that can be used against you in the future."

Why does an exception for Huckabee NOT set a precedent?

After finishing the Macarena at the Diablo sing-along, one mother whispers that today is the sixth birthday of David Warneke, a camp volunteer's son. "We're not allowed to sing 'Happy Birthday,' " warns a codirector.

Huddling with the Elves, the directors come up with a plan: Sing a modified "Happy Birthday" to the tune of "Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall."

But Jansen is worried. "I hope that's not copyrighted, too," she frets.

-----------------------------------------------
Copyright 1996 The Washington Post

ASCAP Changes Its Tune; Never Intended to Collect Fees for Scouts' Campfire Songs, Group Says

Reeling from the worst public relations disaster since Dan Quayle misspelled "potato," the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) now says that "ASCAP has never sought nor was it ever its intention" to make Girl Scouts pay to sing around a campfire.

Oh? So this was just a misunderstanding? What about...

Vincent Candilora, ASCAP's vice president and director of licensing said Lo Frumento had been quoted out of context when he promised to "sue them if necessary" if they didn't pay for their campfire songs. And he was particularly insistent that ASCAP wasn't picking on the Girl Scouts, even though it has already collected fees from 16 Girl Scout camps this year.

Why did they collect the fees from 16 Girl Scout camps in the first place then? Shouldn't they have refused the money?

Any fees collected from the Scouts will be returned, he said.
In the wake of news stories and editorials picturing ASCAP throttling tiny, hopeful renditions of "Puff the Magic Dragon," Candilora said the organization had been besieged with protests from both the public and its songwriter members.

Ah, so this is why they are now returning the fees from the Girl Scouts. They would have kept the fees they collected, had the public not been outraged.

Lo Frumento was reported unavailable for comment yesterday on the protests, but his son Peter, a salaried ASCAP spokesman, released a statement from ASCAP President Marilyn Bergman saying, "It has always been in the interest of our members to encourage the use of music anywhere -- particularly by young people."

Candilora said ASCAP still intends to collect what fees it can from large, profitable summer camps -- "the sort that bring in bands for square dances, have music by the pool ... and are like sending your kid to a resort."

It sickens me that while Girl Scouts are being harrassed for singing songs around a campfire, politicians like Huckabee feel they have the right to use recordings of a band without their permission, to promote a regime or product that the band is strongly against.

[KD6NIG]

I wonder if Karaoke bars get nailed for this stuff too.

You want to talk about BAD renditions of songs....

[KG4JYD]

I wonder if Karaoke bars get nailed for this stuff too.
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