Open Letter to @TaylorSwift13 - Update

It has been less than 12 hours since the initial Open Letter to Taylor Swift and I wanted to comment on a couple of things.

The biggest item is that I have not heard back from Ms. Swift or any of her people. I look at it as a good thing because I have not heard a yes OR a no. It gives me hope for another day or so.
You guys helped my Tweet become a Top Tweet when you search @TaylorSwift13. That is amazing!

Also, I became a trending topic in Canada!

This really shows me two things. 1. There were no Hockey games anywhere in Canada Tuesday night. 2. Canada has some of the most amazing educators in the world and I'm proud to have them in my PLN.

I received some tweets that suggested I contact the record company and that Ms. Swift does not have the right to let you use the music. She might not, but if I am able to connect with her she might be able to persuade the record execs to let me use the two songs for the student production.

I was also connected with music lawyers and people were tweeting celebrities in the hope the would pass it on to their followers. I'm not sure if any RTed the post, but it was such a nice gesture from people that I do not even know.

Lastly, I want to say that if Ms. Swift never contacts me about the songs I am not going to be mad or tell kids what a terrible person she is. She is currently on tour in Europe and is a very busy young lady. I understood this was a long shot and have been blown away by the support I have received as it is.

This has been an amazing lesson for me. I see how strong the connection of Twitter can be for educators and hope others who saw what happened see it as well. This will also be an important lesson for my kids. It would have been easy to just put the songs in the production and nobody would have known outside a couple of small communities. I wanted to show the kids that it is important to try and connect with artists and get their permission. No matter how this ends, my kids and I are going to have learned a valuable lesson and that is why I'm a teacher.

Thanks again for all of the help PLN. Let's try this one more time today and see if we can reach Ms. Swift.

Open Letter to @TaylorSwift13 - http://bit.ly/eFOHHP - Please help students for a class project! Please RT!