In the last week there have definitely been a lot of people riled up about the Hockey Night In Canada theme. CBC announced that it was going to part ways with the company that licenses the iconic theme, which over the last 40 years has become part of the national fabric of this country. I understand why people would be upset, but in the end it’s just a song. You will still be able to tune in every Saturday night to see the Maple Leafs bungle their way through another game. That won’t change. What will change is now that iconic theme has been sold to the network with the deepest pockets, as today CTV ponied up the money to get the rights to the song for use on TSN.

The problem I see at hand is that this is a glaring example of what is fundamentally wrong with copyright here in Canada and around the world. How is it that something that was commissioned 40 years ago, by the CBC, has now been priced out of the grasp of our national network? Why is Dolores Claman, the composer of the piece, still getting paid our tax money 4 decades after she did any kind of work for the CBC? As a designer copyright has long irked me. I get payed, or commissioned, to do design work for clients. I’ve designed websites, brochures, stickers, pamphlets, wall hangers, pole signs, multimedia CDs, calendars, magazine covers and many other things where I have created custom art of my own creation and photography for my employers. I get paid a salary and that’s the end of it. I don’t get royalties when a client prints a logo I designed onto some letterhead. An artist, no matter how famous, doesn’t get a chunk of the action when their work goes to auction after they have originally sold their work. While I understand the purpose of copyright when it was initially created, it just now exists solely to line the pockets of licensing companies.

To me, the saddest part about all this is that Dolores Claman still made a mad amount of loot from all this. Do you think the person who designed the TSN logo is retired somewhere living off the ongoing profits generated from that? I doubt it.