Originally Posted By: Brad Williams
Basically, many, many moons ago my dad wrote an instrumental he called "Guitar Man." He played it for a guy who played it for another guy, who liked it, called it his own and sold it as his. This happened when I was either very young or before I was even born, so I don't remember the details of the story. It may or may not have been Duane Eddy that recorded it, but it was in that general time era (the person who recorded it was not the person that claimed to have written it). Dad never tried to get reimbursed. He wrote songs very occasionally, and as is typical of many instrumentalists, he was very dispassionate about it. He was more happy just playing his guitar. He once wrote a song and took it to Buck Owens who was publishing for a gal named Susan Rae (sp?). She'd just come off her hit "LA International Airport." Owens wanted the song for her, but wanted some changes to the melody. Dad never did it. He was more interested in learning the newest Chet Atkins/Jerry Reed song and building his first pedal steel guitar. I would have loved a chance like that, oh but such is life. My brother's much the same way. Sorry for the late reply, just saw your comment. I try to understand, but I'm much like David Snyder said, my eyes start to glaze over pretty quickly when it comes to this copywrite stuff. If possible, I'd find a reliable friend or some other trusted person who's been through this stuff and let them walk you through it. Until then, enjoy your music!

Brad


Thanks Brad for your response, sorry to hear the song got stolen, sounds like your dad wasn't too bothered about it, which is good. Always sucks though to hear about people stealing ideas though.

I agree, I just wanna play, I had a real big IP issue in the past, so just wanna make sure I do this right from the get-go, spend a few days up front figuring it out vs possibly weeks or years in the future (my friend, who's IP got stolen, is 4 years into litigation, not to mention the money he spent. $10k I think. I had to shut down my business (which I started to have time and funds to do music) because of the same issue).