Joe
Austin,#2Consumer Comment
Tue, January 20, 2009
I studied Intellectual Property Law as part of my Entertainment Law class and it is federal, not state, jurisdiction. You need to google the lyrics to Woodie Gutherie's song "This Land is Your Land" and you need to find out if it is registered to ASCAP or BMI or whomever... Then, you get on their website and send a link to your proof that this is what's going on and see how long they continue to use that song. Woody Gutherie still have family members who are very much alive and you can better believe that they have renewed the copyright on that song so that those guys will pay royalties --or else and they have probably taken care of worldwide copyrights to that song as well which means they can collecte royalties everytime the song is played anywhere ---especially by people who use it in commercials. NONE of Mr. Gutherie's songs are in the public domain to the best of my knowledge, incidentally. Good luck. His family needs the money!