Who Cares Whose Footprints Those Are In The Sand… The Real Question Is Who Gets The Copyright?
You’ve probably come across the infamous “footprints in the sand” poem at some point in your life. It’s hard to avoid. It’s usually used as a religious parable about having God/Jesus/something “supporting” you during the toughest period in your life. For many years, it was attributed to “anonymous” and found on all sorts of kitschy merchandise. Except, at some point, with all that merchandise, people started to realize that there may be money in “owning” such a poem, and suddenly, out of the woodwork, approximately a dozen different folks have shown up to claim authorship — with a few filing for the copyright, and a legal battle now ensuing. If you thought the saga over the Happy Birthday copyright was confusing, you haven’t seen anything yet. Some of the stories of alleged authors seem slightly more credible than others, while some are just downright bizarre: “Meanwhile, there’s Carolyn Joyce Carty, the other defendant in Zangare’s suit. A self-proclaimed child prodigy and “world ren
