Via a link from Darleen Click, I was drawn to a discussion of copyright law at Rolling Stone. The lefties are pissed that the Republicans played the song "Barracuda" -- because it turns out that the copyright holders don't like Republicans:

Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin has the nickname "Barracuda," which inspired the use of the Heart song of the same name during Palin's speech at the RNC on Wednesday night. Heart sent out a statement Thursday afternoon announcing they had sent a cease-and-desist letter asking the campaign to stop using the song. "The Republican campaign did not ask for permission to use the song, nor would they have been granted that permission. We have asked the Republican campaign publicly not to use our music. We hope our wishes will be honored." Their wishes were not honored, as after John McCain's RNC-ending speech last night, Palin joined him onstage to the sound of "Barracuda." This set off Nancy Wilson, who told EW.com "I think it's completely unfair to be so misrepresented. I feel completely fucked over."

Here's the way it's supposed to work:

....organizations don't have to go directly to the copyright holder to get permission to use their work. They can get a license from ASCAP, the American Society for Composers, Authors and Publishers. (Someone should tell the London Guardian editorial writers this inconvenient truth.)

According to The London Telegraph (and the Guardian), that's exactly what the the Republican National Convention did. A spokesman says that the RNC "paid for and obtained all necessary licenses" from ASCAP for all the music used at the event.

Assuming that the RNC did indeed get an ASCAP license (and why wouldn't they?), then they could legally use the song, assuming it's in the ASCAP database. (It is.)

ASCAP "licenses the right to perform songs and musical works created and owned by the songwriters, composers, lyricists and music publishers who are ASCAP members..." It's not clear to me which agreement would be used by a political organization... but in their brochure, "ASCAP Keeps You In Tune With Copyright Law" (pdf available here), ASCAP writes:

All public performances, even most non-profit ones, must be licensed... Although you can obtain permission directly from the copyright owner, it is generally less expensive and more convenient to obtain it through ASCAP.

Naturally, if the Democrats had played this song at their convention, it would have been fine with Heart. But by their way of thinking, suppose they decided they didn't like Joe Biden at the last minute. They seem to think it's just fine to withdraw permission after the fact, by claiming that they "never gave permission."

This is about as ridiculous as an author claiming that even though you paid for it, you had no right to read his book!

Maybe I should announce a new rule that if I don't agree with you, you have no right to read this blog!

OTOH, none of you have the right to hear or watch this:

High time we put some teeth into the copyright laws!