Hi-Ho The Derry-o The Governor Takes A Song

by Ken Davies

Poor Florida governor, senator wannabe, Charlie Crist. Maybe he should have taken a lesson from Senator John McCain regarding art stealing and copyright infringement. You may remember that McCain misappropriated—with no thought to permission, license or payment—Jackson Browne’s song, “Running On Empty,” as a theme for his failed 2008 presidential campaign. While the title evidently fit, McCain’s disgraceful action was illegal. Browne sued him and his political party, winning a settlement along with a promise from the Republican honchos to acquire permission and a license next time.

Not Charlie Crist, though! This U.S. Senate candidate just blundered right in and grabbed Talking Heads band member David Bryne’s song “Road To Nowhere” for an advertisement and thus got himself sued for a cool $1 million. Meanwhile Crist’s opponent, Marc Rubio, stole a Steve Miller song for his own campaign. Gosh! Are there any Florida senate “contestants” who aren’t arts copyright crooks?

Nice going, Guv. First you starve your state’s arts funding down to less than a million bucks out of a $70.4 billion state budget making Florida 49th in U.S. per capita arts funding. Florida’s Herald Tribune reported that. Then you blatantly steal a song to sell your sorry senate campaign. That is not a “free market principle.” Please don’t tell us you didn’t know about copyright infringement. After all, you were the Florida State Attorney General! Many in our artist community commend and applaud Mr. Bryne for taking this action and, also, for hiring the same legal firm that helped Jackson Browne beat McCain.

Perhaps this writer is a little too vehement. But it’s hard enough to make a living in the arts in the United States. Most of us artists aren’t wealthy enough to sue when you political and business “leaders” steal our work. And when you marginalize our lives and reduce our already tiny funding only to give larger subsidies to banks, oil companies and other industries on your Appropriations lists, it make it very hard to vote for you, much less to even respect you.

Ken Davies is a composer, trombonist and former board member of the Denver Musicians Association.