See also the time ASCAP went after the Girl Scouts for royalties over campfire songs, which can hardly be construed as "commercial uses" under any reasonable definition. You will note their concern is over "public performance." Maybe I wasn't nitpicky enough when I said everyone, but I don't know any people who have only sung "Happy Birthday" privately and never sung it in school, a restaurant, or any other public place. Anyhow, as for the Girl Scouts:
"Things heated up in March [1995], when Ascap sent a mailing to 6,000 camps (out of 8,000 in the United States) and informed them that they had to pay royalties for public performances. But Ascap did not specify what it meant by ''public performance,'' and of necessity did not include a list of its four million songs. (Ms. Bergman says they are available on the Internet; a computer printout of the material is five feet high.)
It did, however, include a schedule of annual fees that went as high as $1,439 for large year-round camps."
And yes, ASCAP eventually backed off after the bad PR nightmare they generated by demanding that Girl Scout camps either pay them fees or tell the kids they're not allowed to sing. From the same article:
''What does the word 'nightmare' mean to you?'' she said. ''We're fighting for our lives. We have to do a lot of work to tell people that we're not greedy songwriters.''
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See also the time ASCAP went after the Girl Scouts for royalties over campfire songs, which can hardly be construed as "commercial uses" under any reasonable definition. You will note their concern is over "public performance." Maybe I wasn't nitpicky enough when I said everyone, but I don't know any people who have only sung "Happy Birthday" privately and never sung it in school, a restaurant, or any other public place. Anyhow, as for the Girl Scouts:
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/12/17/nyregion/ascap-asks-royalt...
"Things heated up in March [1995], when Ascap sent a mailing to 6,000 camps (out of 8,000 in the United States) and informed them that they had to pay royalties for public performances. But Ascap did not specify what it meant by ''public performance,'' and of necessity did not include a list of its four million songs. (Ms. Bergman says they are available on the Internet; a computer printout of the material is five feet high.)
It did, however, include a schedule of annual fees that went as high as $1,439 for large year-round camps."
And yes, ASCAP eventually backed off after the bad PR nightmare they generated by demanding that Girl Scout camps either pay them fees or tell the kids they're not allowed to sing. From the same article:
''What does the word 'nightmare' mean to you?'' she said. ''We're fighting for our lives. We have to do a lot of work to tell people that we're not greedy songwriters.''