Struggling Halifax folk musician Dave Gunning’s tribute to the vanishing Canadian penny has the Royal Canadian Mint seeing dollar signs.

The Ottawa-based Mint has told Gunning, 39, it wants a piece of the action after his new album No More Pennies is released Sept. 18 because there are images of pennies on the album cover, which it says contravenes copyright.

While the Mint has waived the $1,200 in royalties on the first 2,000 CDs because Gunning is a small-time artist, it is not prepared to be so generous if he makes another 2,000 copies.

“We have helped this guy out by giving him a break,” Alex Reeves, communications manager for the Royal Canadian Mint, said Tuesday.

“Now that we have explained the rules and the policy, it’s very clear what the implications are for using the penny’s image. And we’re certainly being consistent in the applications of our policy for any for-profit use,” he said.

Reeves said if Gunning can’t afford the royalties if and when he produces more CDs then he can always remove the soon-to-discontinued penny from the cover.

“It is pennies to them but is pretty substantial for me,” said Gunning, who won two East Coast Music Awards in 2011, adding “we really had no idea” the ode to the penny was going to land him in hot water.

The CD cover shows a person sitting at a lunch counter trying to scrape up enough change to pay for his cup of coffee.

“On the back cover is a sunset with the sun as a penny setting below the horizon. On the inside of the package is a lithograph image of an old steam train, which is another important part of our vanishing Canadian heritage. The wheels of the train are little pennies,” the singer, songwriter said on his website.

Gunning says it was a fan who works at the Royal Canadian Mint who inadvertently alerted it about his transgression.

“Recently, I was approached by a fan that works for the Royal Canadian Mint. He thought that they might support the project and sell copies in their Ottawa gift shop. He pitched his idea to co-workers and soon contacted me, feeling terrible as I was soon to be in breach of copyright by using the image of our Canadian penny,” Gunning explained to his fans.

Gunning said the penny wasn’t used to sell the 12-song CD, but rather was a metaphor for the passage of time. “I am not trying to hop on the back of the Canadian Mint to make money,” he said.

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Gunning is urging his fans to bring pennies to his fall concerts “to send a message to the Canadian Mint” and he, in turn, will make a donation of his own to the children’s hospital in Halifax.

Gunning said the artwork for No More Pennies was by Michael Wrycraft, a Juno award-winning artist who has created CD packages for artists such as Stompin’ Tom, Ron Hynes, Gordon Lightfoot and Bruce Cockburn.

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