Campers can again sing around the campfire

INDIANA–Recreational camps will be allowed to use copyrighted music for a nominal fee following a mid-July agreement between the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) and the American Camping Association.

The settlement calls for the camping group to pay $1 per year for permission for each of its more than 2,200 member summer camps to use all ASCAP-licensed music, the camping association told the Wall Street Journal.

The controversy began in the summer of 1996, after several Girl Scout camps were forced to delete songs such as “This Land is Your Land” from their programs after being notified by ASCAP that they must pay a fee to use the copyrighted songs. A front page article in the Journal prompted ASCAP to reimburse the licensing fees paid by 16 Girl Scout organizations. The association also exempted the groups from paying licensing fees in the future.

Camps that do not belong to the camping association may still have to pay licensing fees, but only if there is economic gain from the performance of the music, ASCAP told the Journal.