The law says songwriters are entitled to royalties for copyrighted work used in ''public performance,'' which it defines as a place ''where a substantial number of persons outside of a normal circle of a family and its social acquaintances is gathered.'' The lawyer determined that Ascap was indeed within bounds, and that nonprofit camps, like the Girl Scouts, were not necessarily exempt from music licensing fees.

The camping group grudgingly entered into negotiations with Ascap, and agreed that large camps would pay $250 a year each, a discount of $1,000 a year or more. But the group remained angry at what it considered Ascap's zealotry, and in an October 1995 newsletter sounded alarms.

The letter said that according to the legal definition of ''public performance,'' Ascap could charge for singing around the campfire, even though the association now admits that Ascap never said specifically that it wanted to charge for campfire songs. The letter gave the highest possible penalty for copyright infringement: up to $100,000 per performance, and a year in prison.

It urged its members to pay the $250 fee. Among the 256 Girl Scout camps on its list, 16 did.

Things heated up in March, when Ascap sent a mailing to 6,000 camps (out of 8,000 in the United States) and informed them that they had to pay royalties for public performances. But Ascap did not specify what it meant by ''public performance,'' and of necessity did not include a list of its four million songs. (Ms. Bergman says they are available on the Internet; a computer printout of the material is five feet high.)

It did, however, include a schedule of annual fees that went as high as $1,439 for large year-round camps.

Although the letter was almost universally ignored -- Ascap says the mailing resulted in only eight licenses -- it did send one person into a panic: Sharon Kosch, a director of the San Francisco Bay Girl Scout Council who is a former board member of the American Camping Association. Ms. Kosch had read the association's October newsletter and was scared. She consulted Ascap's fee schedule and discovered to her horror that the 15 Girl Scout camps in her area would have to pay a total of $6,000 a year, which they could not afford.

Ms. Kosch decided to take a cautious approach, and in May, at a training session for summer counselors, said there were legal problems and suggested that campers sing only Girl Scout songs. Ms. Kosch did not get in touch with headquarters in New York, which is not unusual. The 321 local Girl Scout councils in the United States have their own boards and regularly make decisions on their own. The Girl Scout organization consists of 3.3 million girls and adults, including, in the interest of full disclosure, this reporter, a Brownie leader.