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 Replies: 17 / Views: 3,361 |
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
590 Posts |
http://www.cbc.ca/news/offbeat/stor...g-penny.htmlMint charges musician pretty penny for use of coin image.Dave Gunning launches penny drive among fans to cover fees. Halifax folk musician Dave Gunning wanted to pay tribute to the soon-to-vanish Canadian penny in song with his upcoming album No More Pennies. But the Royal Canadian Mint was not happy about the image of the Canadian penny he is using on the album cover. It says Gunning is contravening copyright and must pay a fee. For every 2000 copies of the album he creates he has to fill out an application, wait for approval and be charged $1,200. So, Gunning has launched a penny drive, requesting that fans bring pennies to his fall shows so he can afford to issue his album. The Ottawa-based mint has waived the fee on the first 2,000 albums, to come out Sept. 18. But it is firm that Gunning must pay up for future releases. A mint spokeswoman confirmed that there is copyright on images of coins. "The Mint has an Intellectual Property Policy in place to protect its IP assets, which includes coin images, and ensure their appropriate use. In instances where an approved use is being made for commercial gain (as would be the case with an ad campaign or selling music CDs), royalty fees are applied," she said in a statement. Ironically, it was a fan trying to help who alerted the mint to Gunning's tribute to the penny. "Turns out I have a big fan who works for the Canadian mint. He got the idea, ‘the Canadian mint should get behind this. Maybe we could actually sell the CD in our gift shop,'" Gunning told CBC's Mainstreet. "But when he brought it to the attention of his co-workers, somebody in the intellectual property department picked up and said ‘wait a sec â€" Dave Gunning has never applied to use the image of the penny.' He was trying to do something good and it clearly backfired." Gunning said he had no idea the mint would charge for images of its coins. His album was already being produced so he quickly made an application. The artwork for No More Pennies was by Michael Wrycraft, a Juno award-winning artist who has created over CD packages for artists such as Stompin' Tom, Ron Hynes, Gordon Lightfoot and Bruce Cockburn. It was meant to be a tasteful tribute to the penny, which the mint will stop making in 2012. The image on the front cover of the CD is of a person sitting at a lunch counter trying to scrape up enough change to pay for his cup of coffee, while on the back is a sunset with the sun as a penny setting below the horizon. Inside is a lithograph of an old steam train and the wheels of the train are little pennies. No More Pennies features 12 original songs by Gunning and collaborators such as George Canyon, David Francey, Bruce Guthro, Lennie Gallant and Scottish songstress Karine Polwart. Gunning won two 2011 East Coast Music Awards for his last album, A Tribute to John Allan Cameron.
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Pillar of the Community
Mexico
1304 Posts |
Don't you just love it. :|
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3690 Posts |
Seems perfectly reasonable that the Mint owns the IP and can protect the image of it's coins.
The fee is 60 cents per album and the guy gets the first 2000 free. All in all, that is cheap. And now he's appealing to his 'fans' to give him money to cover this legitimate expense? I'm sure he'll collect more than 60 cents per album from this 'protest' campaign.
Imagine if you will, had he used a logo or image from Coke, Pepsi, MacDonalds, Apple etc etc. He'd be litigated into the stone ages.
Much ado about nothing IMO.
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Moderator
 Canada
10458 Posts |
If he glued a real 1-cent to each album cover instead, it will only cost him $20 per 2000 albums and he would not be in copyright violation by giving away free money. Remember when the banks (RBC and BMO come to mind) gave away little cards with a cent glued on them... they avoided all copyright issues with those.
"Discovery follows discovery, each both raising and answering questions, each ending a long search, and each providing the new instruments for a new search." -- J. Robert OppenheimerContent of this post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses...0/deed.en_USMy eBay store
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1581 Posts |
As the saying goes: Let no good deed go unpunished.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
870 Posts |
I wouldn't call it much ado about nothing. Guess things work differently in Canada. In the US most government works do not qualify for copyright and are public domain. Does not compare to "McDonalds" or "Pepsi" etc.
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
2301 Posts |
The Mint is a joke. Has been for a long time. Spending tens of millions of dollars to advertise "Granny Bait", but not one penny (or cent for the others) to combat counterfeiting of our Heritage. But put a sticker on a loonie or a picture on an album cover.....LOOK OUT!!
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
3690 Posts |
MartiVltori, this is not in the USA and yes a lot of things work differently in other countries. Copyrighted material and trademarks apply outside of commercial organizations in Canada (as they do in the US).
Reverse it. What do you think would happen if the Mint used a performers song in a media ad without paying SOCAN their royalty? You guessed it, aggressive threats of litigation.
This is not the big bad Mint picking on a small guy. This is an entertainer using the media to sell his albums and make money. Besides, does anyone believe that a folk artist in Halifax is going to sell more than 2000 albums? Really?
It makes for a good story and a headline but it really is nothing.
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Pillar of the Community
United States
965 Posts |
Quote:
If he glued a real 1-cent to each album cover instead, it will only cost him $20 per 2000 albums and he would not be in copyright violation by giving away free money. Remember when the banks (RBC and BMO come to mind) gave away little cards with a cent glued on them... they avoided all copyright issues with those. Then he could have glued loonies to the cover, it would have cost him the same as publishing the album.  |
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Pillar of the Community
United States
870 Posts |
CC-Ottawa, I realize copyrights apply to non-commercial works as well. And of course I realize (as I thought I had made clear) this is outside the US. I was simply pointing out that under section 105 of US copyright law, most government works in the US would not be covered under copyright law. I just found it interesting that govt. works are covered under copyright in Canada, that is all.
Edited by MartiVltori
09/11/2012 9:25 pm
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Pillar of the Community
United States
4897 Posts |
By the logic stated so far places like http://www.cdncoin.com/default.asp which is based in Ontario must pay royalties? They use IP images of Canadian coins all over their website.....it is a slippery slope.... Edited by amida17
09/11/2012 9:54 pm
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
815 Posts |
This guy is a Canadian artist, using an image of a coin produced by the Canadian mint, which is wholly funded by taxpayer dollars.
This is a perfect example of everything wrong with our country. People being asked to work for the government, not the other way around. What will this $1200 be used for? Programs specific to creating new coin IP's, or will it be deposited into a general treasury for use as the government sees fit? Ridiculous.
I love the "Penny drive" idea. The guy should start up a paypal drive, I would donate!
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Valued Member
Canada
319 Posts |
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Rest in Peace
Canada
1360 Posts |
OTTAWA, ONTARIO, September 13, 2012 â€" The Royal Canadian Mint has long supported the arts in Canada by working with talented artists on a daily basis, therefore we understand the challenges that artists such as Dave Gunning face. The Mint's recent interaction with Mr. Gunning has brought attention to our current intellectual property policy. We now recognize that our policy as it is today may not consider the individual needs and circumstances of those who request to use our images. As a result, the Mint has made the following two decisions. First, we will allow Mr. Gunning to use the image of the penny on subsequent reprints of his CD's artwork at no cost. We wish him the very best in his career. Further, we understand that intellectual property rights in Canada help to promote creativity and innovation by protecting the rights of those involved in the creative process, whether they are artists, designers, writers or musicians. For this reason, the Mint will assess our current intellectual property policy to determine if changes need to be made to ensure that it is being applied fairly on a case-by-case basis while protecting the interests of Canadians. |
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Rest in Peace
Canada
1360 Posts |
one of the 'comments' following the original news article suggested "instead of a picture of the penny, he should have adhered an actual penny to the album cover" a) it would have been only $0.01 per copy instead of close to $1 per copy, and b) no 'copy right' issues. Well, it looks like the fiasco has been settled in the musician's favour - good for him!
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Pillar of the Community
Canada
1581 Posts |
The mint smartened up and realized this was a net BENEFIT to them as free promotion.
Someone trying to derive direct profit from the IP is one thing (e.g. the knock-off tribute to the 1911 dollar, or the fake Titanic "coins"). But, this is an artistic endeavour where the image use is part of the artistic presentation, and not directly an attempt to derive profit from the IP.
For a change the mint has responded quickly. Imagine that.
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Replies: 17 / Views: 3,361 |
Posted 09/11/2012 3:06 pm
