Skip to main content

Nanny Ruth Ann and the General Assembly pass incredibly necessary legislation to protect us all from the Four Tops


Let's see--Governor Ruth Ann and the General Assembly couldn't manage to do eminent domain reform, and decided to balance the budget by cutting summer school funding for kids who couldn't pass the DSTP.

But--on the plus side, apparently--they came together to outlaw copycat bands.

And another victimless crime hits the books, much to the bemusement of club owners throughout the state:

Vicky Walls, who oversees booking national bands for the Bottle & Cork in Dewey Beach, said she has never heard of an instance when a band claimed to be an act it was not.

Walls said in addition to the real acts, the popular beach establishment sometimes has cover bands and tribute bands perform.

"Everyone knows that's not Fall Out Boy on the stage because the next song is a Duran Duran song and the next song is someone else," Walls said.

Walls said if bands seriously tried to impersonate famous acts, most people would think they were crazy.

"People know that the Beatles aren't here," Walls said.

Chase Hartwig, general manager of the Deer Park Tavern in Newark, said his establishment has live music six days a week during the school year and have never encountered a band claiming to be an act it was not.

Hartwig said he regularly attends concerts in the area and could not think of an instance he encountered or heard of that would fit into the new category of illegal impersonation.

"Most respectable bands would pay tribute and respect to the original band and wouldn't try to pose as someone they weren't," Hartwig said.


Of course, Nanny Roof Ann was ready to tell us all how she was protecting us from evil:

"This legislation arrived in a timely manner with our summer beach season in full swing," Gov. Ruth Ann Minner said at the signing event. "As many of you know, we have a number of musical performing acts that come to Delaware during the summer, so we will have to make sure now that all of them are abiding by this newly enacted law."


The irony, as usual, is that Senate Bill 45 potentially makes club owners in Delaware criminals for advertising a now-illegal copycat band (even if they don't know the band is a fake) because:

§3302A. Prohibition.
(a) No person shall advertise or conduct a live musical performance or production in this State through the use of a false, deceptive or misleading affiliation, connection or association between a performing group and a recording group....

§3304A. Penalty.
A person who violates §3302A of this Chapter is liable to the State for a civil penalty of not less than $5,000 nor more than $15,000 per violation, which civil penalty shall be in addition to any other relief which may be granted under §3303A of this Chapter. Each performance or production shall constitute a separate violation.”


Now, being a not-so-bright Libertarian, I'd have to wonder why the lost business, civil suits, and bad press of, say, advertising that the Rolling Stones have decided to play the Bottle and Cork wouldn't be penalty enough--both for the club owners and any customers idiotic enough to purchase tickets to watch Mick french-kiss Keith.

I'd also have to wonder at the motivation of Senators Connor, Amick, Sorenson, and Still, as well as Representative Thornburg and Maier--along with all the other happy idiots in the General Assembly who thought this was more important to do than protect my right and Ed Osborne's right to our own property.

You know what? I don't care who wins the Governor's race this year, whether it's John Carney, Jack Markell, Bill Lee, Mike Protack, or even (I swear) Rob Foraker.

With any of them we'll have a less embarrassing governor than we do right now.

Comments

Tyler Nixon said…
Glad you wrote this, so I didn't have to.

Good God, how twisted this woman is. She trumpets totally useless nonsense like this, days after stabbing the citizens in the heart, vetoing protection for our constitutional property rights.

Shows you what governance midgetry you are bound to get from mental dwarfs.

Any more, though, I feel like I am more anxious to see her gone than even Bush.
Jim Fryar said…
Wow, you remember the Four Tops? Next you'll be talking about the Kingston Trio.

Sometimes I just shake my head and wonder how it all came to this.
Tyler Nixon said…
Yeah, it is nice to know that rather than real property protections we get intellectual property protection legislation for the record label legatees of deceased Doo-Wop artists, by way of shutting down all the impostors benefiting from their trademark and copyrights. Hell, the record companies screwed these artists fair-and-square, 50 years ago. Why permit some nostalgic old black men who can sing to make a buck from it nowadays? We all can imagine how much money these impostors must pull down, what with such a massive vital market for Doo-Wop.

Also we have to protect all those Doo-Wop fans out there from showing up to see the "Temptations", only to find its four black guys they never heard of, who are about 4 degrees removed from the original band members.

Will AG Biden be swinging into action now with a "Fraudulent Musical Group Task Force"?

I can just see the looks on the faces backstage at the Grand when the federalies show up to bust up the illegal musical performance offenders befouling Delaware.

Gives new meaning to "band on the run".
Delaware Watch said…
Five years from now someone will write a book about dumb laws (or update an old one) and this law will easily make the book.

What justification did they give for this absurdist theater? Or did they just say straight out: we are groping for every bit of revenue we can squeeze out of groups are not large and active voting constituencies?

Popular posts from this blog

A Libertarian Martin Luther King Jr. Day post

In which we travel into interesting waters . . . (for a fairly long trip, so be prepared) Dr. King's 1968 book, Where do we go from here:  chaos or community? , is profound in that it criticizes anti-poverty programs for their piecemeal approach, as John Schlosberg of the Center for a Stateless Society  [C4SS] observes: King noted that the antipoverty programs of the time “proceeded from a premise that poverty is a consequence of multiple evils,” with separate programs each dedicated to individual issues such as education and housing. Though in his view “none of these remedies in itself is unsound,” they “all have a fatal disadvantage” of being “piecemeal,” with their implementation having “fluctuated at the whims of legislative bodies” or been “entangled in bureaucratic stalling.”   The result is that “fragmentary and spasmodic reforms have failed to reach down to the profoundest needs of the poor.” Such single-issue approaches also have “another common failing — ...

More of This, Please

Or perhaps I should say, "Less of this one, please." Or how about just, "None of them. Ever again. Please....For the Love of God." Sunshine State Poll: Grayson In Trouble The latest Sunshine State/VSS poll shows controversial Democratic incumbent Alan Grayson trailing former state Senator Dan Webster by seven points, 43 percent to 36 percent. A majority of respondents -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the job that Grayson is doing. Independents have an unfavorable view of him as well, by a 36/47 margin. Grayson has ignored the conventional wisdom that a freshman should be a quiet member who carefully tends to the home fires. The latest controversy involves his " Taliban Dan " advertisement, where he explicitly compares his opponent to the Taliban, and shows a clip of Webster paraphrasing Ephesians 5:22 -- "wives, submit to your husbands." An unedited version of the clip shows that Webster was actually suggesting that husba...

A reply to Salon's R. J. Eskrow, and his 11 stupid questions about Libertarians

Posts here have been in short supply as I have been living life and trying to get a campaign off the ground. But "11 questions to see if Libertarians are hypocrites" by R. J. Eskrow, picked up at Salon , was just so freaking lame that I spent half an hour answering them. In the end (but I'll leave it to your judgment), it is not that Libertarians or Libertarian theory looks hypocritical, but that the best that can be said for Mr. Eskrow is that he doesn't have the faintest clue what he's talking about. That's ok, because even ill-informed attacks by people like this make an important point:  Libertarian ideas (as opposed to Conservative ideas, which are completely different) are making a comeback as the dynamic counterpoint to "politics as usual," and so every hack you can imagine must be dragged out to refute them. Ergo:  Mr. Eskrow's 11 questions, with answers: 1.       Are unions, political parties, elections, and ...