Where's Johnny Cash

[JeromeBettis]

A BCM reader is looking for the issue than ran an article on Johnny Cash and his bus.  He's looking to mirror the exterior paint scheme on his MC9.   Does anyone have this magazine and/or know the month and year it was published?

Thanks,

Treasure Hunter
Chad
BCM Editor

[Van]

this doesn't help with the issue you are looking for but might help in finding the bus in question ,http://www.imcdb.org/ cash's bus was used in a few movies and will be located on this site,hope it helps.

Van

[gmpd4104]

or you can go to the Rock and Roll hall of fame where it lives

[HighTechRedneck]

Also doesn't help find the issue, but Google image search has quite a few pictures located:

http://images.google.com/images?q=%22Johnny%20Cash's%20tour%20bus%22

[circusboy90210]

quick answer .... 6' under. I often remember pay toilets when I hear him sing. great aritis.. rip

[Sean]

...  He's looking to mirror the exterior paint scheme on his MC9.  ...

Just finding the article or some pictures will not be enough.

Paint schemes on coaches are nearly universally copyrighted works of the original artist.  In order to "mirror" the paint scheme of such a coach, you would need permission from the original artist (or his or her estate, if deceased).  Copyright protection in such works lasts for the life of the original artist plus 70 years.

In some cases, the artwork is considered a "work for hire" and the copyright then vests in the purchaser, or the original artist may have assigned the rights to the purchaser.  So, in the case of the Cash bus, it is possible that the design of the paint scheme may belong to the estate of Johnny Cash.  In this case, you would need permission from them.

In the case of "tribute" art, it is generally up to the courts to decide how much re-use of design elements, colors, and overall arrangement constitutes "infringement."

Bear in mind that, in the case of celebrities, many have registered their "likeness" as a protected property.  So if you are a Johnny Cash fan, even hiring someone to paint, say, a giant portrait of Cash on your bus may require written permission from the Cash estate.

This is all a very complex area of the law, and I am not an attorney.  But I strongly advise anyone interested in "copying" any coach, especially a celebrity coach, to consult one before proceeding, or to obtain the required permissions.

-Sean
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com

[luvrbus]

That MCI has been sold 3 times with the same paint scheme so who owns the rights to the paint scheme   good luck

[Sean]

That MCI has been sold 3 times with the same paint scheme so who owns the rights to the paint scheme   good luck

The fact that it has been sold (any number of times) does not "release" all copyright interest in the work.

If you go down to an art gallery and buy a painting by say, Thomas Kincaid, what you own is the canvas and the representation thereon -- not the design, which still belongs to Kincaid.  The fact that you bought the painting does not give you the right to, for example, copy it.

You do, of course, have the right to sell the painting to someone else.  But, even after the sale, Kincaid still owns the design, and neither you, nor the person you sold it to, can rightfully copy the painting.  The painting can be sold over and over again, but Kincaid, as the original artist, still retains the exclusive rights to the design -- only he can decide to make a copy of the painting.

A bus is no different than that "canvas" the painting is on.  The original artist holds the original rights, unless it is a "work for hire," in which case the "employer" of that artist retains it.  For example, John Stahr, now a fairly famous coach painter in his own right, used to work for Marathon Coach.  All the designs he created at Marathon belong to Marathon.  And, yes, those coaches have, in most cases, been sold many times over.  But no one else can copy those paint schemes onto another coach without express permission of Marathon, no matter how many times the original coaches are bought and sold.

To answer your question, "who owns the rights" now, the answer depends on how the original work was done.  Again, it will either be the original artist, the original converter, or the Cash estate, unless whichever of those three held them "assigned" them to the purchaser(s) of the coach (unlikely).

-Sean
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com

[luvrbus]

So what you are telling me is that the design of my paint job done by John Starr and Mike Wilson the rights belong to me even with their names on the paint job.   good luck

[Sean]

So what you are telling me is that the design of my paint job done by John Starr and Mike Wilson the rights belong to me even with their names on the paint job.

No, what I said was that the rights continue to belong to the artist, unless they have assigned them to you, or you were their "employer" as that termed is defined in the law.

-Sean
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com

[luvrbus]

I was the one that parted with the cash so that would make me the "employer"    good luck

[Blacksheep]

Man don't ya'll have anything better to do than to always find a way to discourage another from doing what he wants to do?

Sean the local bus shop just had a customer bring in thier XL for repaint and along with it, they brought in a picture of a bus with a particar paint scheme to copy it exactly onto thiers! Guess what? Job done and they are happier than 2 pigs in the mud!

When I was machining aftermarket race parts for our race cars, there were plenty of other racers that copied my pieces only to find that mine were better! Why? They only copied from a piece! They didn't have the actuall program to get them "exact" which brings up my point. Although copied, it will NEVER be EXACTLY the same!
Take counterfiet money for instance!
Looks good, feels good, and sometimes spends good but, there is ALWAYS that one little thing that keeps it from being EXACT!

Ace

[luvrbus]

Ace, that is the way my Prevost was done I took a picture of a Marathon I liked and Vogue did the same paint job colors and graphics     good luck

[Van]

Careful Ace ,other wise this copy right enforcer will start splitting hairs over something on your rig LMAO
Sean,will you please let it go,and quit pissin on some one's parade already.Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,and copying a deceased music stars bus paint job is an example of that! Unless there is some form of criminal intent associated with the copied paint scheme ,all that legal B.S you just posted ain't got a leg to stand on,and belongs some where else !

[Sean]

Sean,will you please let it go,and quit pissin on some one's parade already.Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,and copying a deceased music stars bus paint job is an example of that! Unless there is some form of criminal intent associated with the copied paint scheme ,all that legal B.S you just posted ain't got a leg to stand on,and belongs some where else !

That's absolutely not true.  Many, many people who copied another artist's work as a form of "flattery" found themselves in trouble over it -- a quick search of the Internet will reveal thousands of cases.

As I wrote in my original post, "tribute art" becomes a case-by-case judgment as to whether it infringes or not.  The same goes for "fair use."  And it has nothing whatsoever to do with "criminal intent" or even "commercial use."  A copyright holder has complete and undeniable control over what is done with his or her work, period.

If what you wrote was true, then anyone could make copies of, for example, a Thomas Kincaid painting, or a best-selling book (and I am not talking about, here, those allowed under "fair use").

Man don't ya'll have anything better to do than to always find a way to discourage another from doing what he wants to do?

I'm not "discouraging" it, Ace, I'm "informing."  I'd hate to see anyone spend ten to twenty grand on a paint job, only to find out later that they'll need to pay the piper for the copyright infringement.  If, after reading my post, and possibly conducting whatever research they choose on their own (up to and including consulting with an attorney, as I recommended), this person chooses to go ahead and copy the paint job, I'm not going to be the one to stop him or turn him in.  But he deserves to go into it with his eyes open, and full knowledge that he may be infringing on a protected work.

The fact that you choose not to enforce your intellectual property rights when someone, say, copies your part designs (when such designs are protectable -- copyright clearly applies to works of art, but works of engineering are a more complex matter), does not mean that no one else will.  Again, history is replete with cases where the artist chose to pursue enforcement, often at great expense to the infringer.  In many of those cases, the infringer did not even realize, at the time, that they were infringing on a protected work.  Courts have ruled that such ignorance does not preclude the copyright holder from being justly compensated for the infringement.

I was the one that parted with the cash so that would make me the "employer"

Not necessarily.  It depends on how your agreement, whether written or not, was worded.  In most cases, when you contract with an artist to produce a work of art, the artist still retains the original rights, and the purchaser does not.  For example, in quite a number of public and private buildings, even the city of Chicago, you will find mobiles and stabiles by famed artist Sandy Calder.  Generally speaking, Calder produced those works for the buyers on contract.  But that does not endow, say, the city of Chicago with the right to reproduce the famous stabile there, or Stevens Tech to reproduce the mobile hanging in its library.  Calder (now his estate) still retains the exclusive rights to those works.

If these guys were "working" for you in the sense that you paid them wages (reported on a W-2), paid employment taxes for them, etc., then, yes, they were your employees and you retain the rights.  Otherwise, they retain the rights, although they may choose to assign them to you, for example, if you had agreed to that in the contract.  Generally, when I commission a work, I insist on having the rights assigned to me.  I had a hell of a time, at my first wedding, finding a photographer who would agree to that (try it yourself -- tell a professional wedding photographer that you want the negatives and the rights to all the photos when she's done, and see what she says).

Look, folks, I don't make this stuff up.  I am just reporting to you the facts, facts which you may not have thought about (and with which I am intimately familiar through a career dealing in protected works).  You can choose to ignore them -- I won't stop you (right up until it happens to be my own intellectual property that becomes infringed).  I am not here to debate whether the laws are right or wrong, or whether or not they will be enforced.  But just as I won't sit quietly when someone proposes to do something dangerous with their electrical system, I felt I had to at least inform the (currently nameless) individual involved here what he might be up against.

-Sean
http://ourodyssey.blogspot.com