American Folk Songs, Copyright NMPA.
By jimrob | August 7, 2008
I was watching City Slickers on Hallmark Movie Channel. The part where Jack Palance and Billy Crystal are out on a log singing and playing harmonica inspired me. I decided to come out here to the office and get the guitar tabs for “Home on the Range” so I could try playing that song sometime.
I encountered one of those modern-day American legal gray-areas, apparently. The first site turned up in Google had a simple note:
Due to legal threats from the MPA and the NMPA (National Music Publishers Association), we currently can not show you this tab/lyric. We are doing our best to bring you free guitar tabs and lyrics available again in the near future, so please check back regularly.
Okay. “Home on the Range” is a song much older than the NMPA, the MPA, and just about anything else from the past, oh I dunno, 145 years since it’s first incarnation in the form of a poem. Why would the lyrics and tabs be subject to copyright?
It seems country singer Michael Martin Murphy recorded the song at some point. He put it on an album and released it. Somehow, this makes the song a property of the MPA and the lyrics a property of the NMPA.
We’re talking about the flippin’ state song of Kansas. Can this clearly public-domain work be subject to copyright? It originated in 1873 as a poem, then was arranged to music in three different forms in the years of 1876, 1904, and (in it’s most recognized form) 1910. Yet a simple thing like someone recording (not writing, just recording) the song makes publishing its lyrics and notes subject to copyright infringement.
Could someone please explain how this works? Can I record “Amazing Grace” and then sue anyone who tries to sing it without compensating me? Can I publish the sheet music to “America the Beautiful” then file legal threats against sixth-grade music classes who don’t pay me before playing it?
The stupidest part of all this is that the website, which I refuse to link to, doesn’t even credit a singer, songwriter, or anyone at all! The tab simply states “Home on the Range, by UNKNOWN ARTIST”. I’m completely befuddled, bewildered, and stupified.
God Bless you, entertainment industry, for monetizing and profiting from American culture and folklore. Where there’s money to be made, you’ll be there. Send me a letter. I dare you.
Look Ma, I’m breakin’ the law by reprinting the lyrics and chords to a song that’s been around since before your great-grandma was born! (The chords aren’t spaced properly, so you’ll have to go here to see where you need to change.)
Home On The Range
Traditional Cowboy SongHome On The Range
G G7 C Cm
Oh, give me a home where the buffalo roam
G D7
Where the deer and the antelope play
G G7 C Cm
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
G D7 G
and the skies are not cloudy all dayChorus:
D7 G
Home, home on the range
D7
Where the deer and the antelope play
G C Cm
Where seldom is heard a discouraging word
G D7 G
and the skies are not cloudy all dayThe Red Man was pressed from this part of the west
It’s not likely he’ll ever return
to the banks of Red River, where seldom, if ever
his flickering campfires still burnRepeat chorus
How often at night when the heavens are bright
with the light from the glittering stars
Have I stood there amazed and asked, as I gazed
if their glory exceeds that of oursRepeat chorus
Oh, give me a land where the bright diamond sand
flows leisurely down the stream
Where the graceful white swan goes gliding along
like a maid in a heavenly dreamRepeat chorus
It’s ironic that a song which pines about wide open spaces and optimism has a legal threat hanging over it.
Topics: Judicial Lunacy |
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