Goodbye to Sally Goodin'

Wow, another great article about the damage that the constant extensions of copyright law are doing to our culture and our economy. Sorry to harp on this, but this is a subject that's becoming more and more important to me, and I want you to know about it.

This article is by Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford University law professor who just argued a monumental copyright case (Eldred v. Ashcroft) in front of the US Supreme Court in October. I saw his keynote speech at OSCON (O'Reilly Open Source Software Convention) this past July, and I was stunned.

Even if you don't enjoy digital music media like MP3s, you should still understand and care about these issues if you care about old-time or Bluegrass music. As less and less old-time music passes into the public domain, the few old-time musicians of today have a harder time researching, refining, and learning from the past. (I was just reminded of this at last night's Reeltime Travelers' concert!) At best our knowledge and rediscovery of old-time music will be discouraged, and at worst it will be stifled or stopped altogether. The rich cultural traditions of our country and our ancestors could die out entirely because of our indifference to a few companies (like Disney) who lobby for these blanket public domain extensions.

To make this extremely clear, imagine what our music landscape would be like today if the songs Sally Goodin', Bury Me Beneath the Willow, or Barbara Allen had never been released into the public domain. With their original authors long dead, and the current copyright holders almost impossible to track down to get permission to remake, those songs could be gone. Pick up any of your favorite CDs or songbooks and look at the authors or licenses on each of the songs. Imagine that all the songs marked "Traditional" or "Public Domain" were gone. Think how that would make you feel. Now think of your grandchildren or their grandchildren, and think of the music you listen to today. Think of the greats of Bluegrass and Old-time. What will our tradition be for those future children if the songs of Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, the Carter Family, Woody Guthrie, and even Hank Williams were never to be preserved in the public domain? Think even farther into the future, and what if Lyle Lovett's and Gillian Welch's songs were lost?