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RE: Saving Capitalism, More Like Saving Crony Capitalism
so you think you should be compensated for people knowing words that you knew first? If I sing happy birthday dear whoever should I have to compensate the creator if he demanded it?
No one's going to charge you or anyone else for singing any song. But if you use the song for commercial gain the copyright holder of the song can demand a share of the profits you derive from it.
Thats horrible so if I sing happy birthday to someone for money or any song I should I have to give the guy who thought of it money? the words are not the valuable thing the person who says those words in a certain way makes it have value.
Song copyright used to be limited to 50 or 70 years (I think). So Happy Birthday should now be public property but as far as I know in the US that were discussing extending it to indefinitely. I don't if they passed a law or not.
I wouldn't agree with that law (even though I'm a song writer) but think it should be reduced to say 5 or at most ten years.
Copyright is not meant to stop singing or playing songs at parties, clubs etc. but mainly to stop big players like record companies, music publishers and other large corporations like radio and TV stations, film studios etc. from taking peoples songs and making millions on them and not paying the writers anything.
On your second point about the words I agree 100%