Who Cares Whose Footprints Those Are In The Sand... The Real Question Is Who Gets The Copyright?
from the of-all-the-ridiculous-copyright-battles... dept
You've probably come across the infamous "footprints in the sand" poem at some point in your life. It's hard to avoid. It's usually used as a religious parable about having God/Jesus/something "supporting" you during the toughest period in your life. For many years, it was attributed to "anonymous" and found on all sorts of kitschy merchandise. Except, at some point, with all that merchandise, people started to realize that there may be money in "owning" such a poem, and suddenly, out of the woodwork, approximately a dozen different folks have shown up to claim authorship -- with a few filing for the copyright, and a legal battle now ensuing. If you thought the saga over the Happy Birthday copyright was confusing, you haven't seen anything yet.Some of the stories of alleged authors seem slightly more credible than others, while some are just downright bizarre:
"Meanwhile, there's Carolyn Joyce Carty, the other defendant in Zangare's suit. A self-proclaimed child prodigy and "world renowned poet laureate," Carty surfaced in the "Footprints" debate earlier this decade, saying she wrote the poem in 1963, when she was 6 years old, as an epilogue to a longer story she called "The Footprints of God." Actually, she claims her grandmother first wrote it in 1922, and then young Carolyn wrote it, and it is unclear, from a brief e-mail exchange with a reporter, if Carty understands what it means to have written something. She also filed a copyright on "Footprints," claiming it as her "contribution to society." She maintains a wondrously baffling "Footprints" Web site where, among other things, she claims she wrote the lyrics to "In My Life" before the Beatles did.The real kicker, though, is that research suggests none of the dozen or so claimants actually wrote the poem or deserve the copyright for it. One researcher has tracked the concept of the story back to a sermon in 1880 and it may go back even further. Even more amusing, that same discussion points to the poet Robert Louis Stevenson writing an essay in 1894, where he discusses tangentially the same idea of footprints in the sand... but uses it to explain why it's so difficult it is for a creative writer to avoid borrowing from the works of those who have come before. Indeed. But, thanks to copyright, there's apparently plenty of money in pretending you came up with the idea all on your own. For one of the many folks who "claim" that she wrote the poem, and who has been most aggressive about licensing it, it has turned into "best-remunerated poem in history," according to her lawyer. Those footprints in the sand sure can carry a lot of weight, but what good does it do if it doesn't come with a copyright and a boatload of cash?
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Filed Under: copyright, footprints in the sand, ownership, poetry
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RIAA
eleete
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I own them
I will also be submitting my 'Foot Prints in Snow, Mud, and plaster" patents soon.
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Re: I own them
all those Hollywood types owe me for all those ones on the "walk of stars". "Footprints in Concrete" c1971 K Robertson
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Re: I own them
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Re:
And lots of money to be made, someone should patent it before churches cash in.
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Oh my...
For example, who owns the English language? UK? Courts need to just throw these ridiculous claims out as its nothing but a waste of time for them, and waste of money which inflates the need for lawyers and essentially wastes money all-round.
If I could only find my stupid stick for beating these kinda of people?
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Re: Oh my...
check any dictionary you like. They all have the "no part of this work may be reproduced in any form..." BS copyright notice. So - all the dictionaries do, and EVERYONE who writes down ANYTHING is in violation of their copyrights to every word in the English Language.
Wanna take that one to court?
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Re: Re: Oh my...
"Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song? If so, whoever wrote that song, wrote everything."
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Magusyk
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MPAA
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Thats mine too
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Knock of this non-sense by
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Re: Knock of this non-sense by
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Re: Re: Knock of this non-sense by
On a slightly different tangent the same could be said for patents. I think requiring a 'working model' of your invention would clobber most of these overly broad patents issued for things like uploading a jpeg to a web page. Show us your 'invention' works before you get the patent.
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Re:
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Re: Re: Hotel drawers
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Blame Lawyers
Wait.. COPYRIGHT! The use of common sense in a court of law is MY idea. When they start using it I'll make a KILLING!
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Re: Blame Lawyers
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Footprints
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Society Rewards Immorality
However, this seems to be so obviously wrong that I can only conclude that the entire legal system must be encouraging this behavior by throwing out common sense under the guise of legal fairness - you can argue you own heaven as long as you pay the legal fees. I hope it comes with an option on hell.
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Patent ~= Copyright
Copyright has been extended to silly lengths of time. Meanwhile, patents have been extended to include silly *things*.
Anyhow, what does the poem say about the 20 sets of footprints, chasing after the single pair?
"Jesus answered: those were the times you tried to screw Me over, scrambling like wolves over a haunch of meat."
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You all owe me big time
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Infamous?
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footprints in the sand
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Carolyn Joyce Carty
These people are frauds, and outright lunatics!!
Carolyn also claims to be the secret love child of Marilyn Monroe, and JFK too..
I just thought Id share that lol!
She is a mentally unstable methamphetamine addict, who lives off the government ssi and welfare.
I didn't think she was" with it" enough to even make a claim like that lmao!
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