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I for one wait to see the lawsuit the RIAA is drawing up to bring down upon Amazon for squelching their draconian business practices by violating their 'copyright' on 'distribution of artistic works of an audio based nature'

You're thinking of the National Music Publishers' Association, which controls the rights to record cover versions and licenses them through its Harry Fox Agency. Your "RIAA" guess was close because a lot of labels in the RIAA are under the same management as publishers in the NMPA.

According to the codified portions of Chabot's donations on OpenSecrets, he actually did not receive much money directly from the TV/Movies/Music industry. According to Chabot's 2006 Industry Breakdown it was his 19th greatest contributor, giving $31,000.

However, a mischievous explanation of his manipulation can be found by looking to his revolving door(*). Chabot's recently departed Counsel, Etheridge Berkley, was named Vice President and Counsel of the NMPA (Nat'l Music Publishers Assoc'n) in March of 2005.

For more, see Berkley's revolving door profile and the NMPA press release of Berkley's appointment[pdf] ("I know that the U.S. music publishing industry will find her to be a terrific champion on their behalf").

(*) - "Revolving Door" in this context refers to those who go back-and-forth between working on K Street (lobbying) and Capital Hill (congressional committees). For more, see Time Magazine's The Lobbying Game: Why the Revolving Door Won't Close .

Another example of people making articles about things they don't have the foggiest idea about. Please don't flip out.

This legislation is actually needed. As things stand, net broadcasters can be hit twice, once for a public performance and again for distributing a copy. This will clear that up, along with providing for a simple blanket license for them. It will also help the songwriters to actually get a little money from the licensing for online broadcasts of their works. It appears there is some loophole that lets the record labels collect money for digital copies without paying the songwriters/songpublishers.

see http://www.nmpa.org/pressroom/showrelease.asp?id=1 16

Of course there are problems with this draft bill. The US Copyright Office has identified some, including the foggyness on server copies... http://www.copyright.gov/docs/regstat051606.html

iPac looks like another fledgling advocacy group fanning flames trying to get some attention. a little short on clue methinks... look for their misuse of hacker stereotypes in 'Hollywood Hackers' :(

"Heck, there is no requirement that artists get compensated in the US!"

Unless an artist goes out of their way to make it happen otherwise (such as by releasing their own stuff for free), royalties are fixed by law at about $0.07 per track in the US for songwriters and composers (there are royalties beyond that for performing artists which generally start at a % of the selling price).

Here's a PDF chart of what the payment is in various countries. Note that in the US, UK and Japan it's set by law. In other countries it's set by MOUs (memoranda of understanding) or by the local equivalent of the RIAA. In Russia -- luckily for all the clever Slashdotters who love allofmp3.com -- it's an N/A.

I've noticed that Slashdotters tend to fall in two camps on this issue -- the "artists are needy" camp (artists good, record companies bad) and the "artists are greedy" camp (artists and record companies bad). allofmp3.com should appeal to those who identify with the former. If there are any moral ambiguities, 30 minutes of watching music videos should clear that right up. Whenever you see that 300M with the dubs and the custom grill in the hip-hop video, just tell yourself that the person who wrote the song, the person who sat behind the mixing board, and the person who did the CD cover art also have an equally nice car -- maybe even two of them. They are much better off than, say, your average Russian mobster.

However, the answer to bad laws is to get them changed. If a population in a country that claims to be democratic can't even work out how to do that, then it has far greater problems than abuse of the law to extend copyright.

The problem is that the apathetic "I vote for whom I see on TV" voter bloc is much larger than the pro-commons voter bloc and that the movie studios own all the commercial TV news channels (MSNBC -> Universal; CNN -> Warner; Fox News -> 20c Fox; CBS -> Paramount; ABC -> Disney). Therefore, any candidate that wants support from the apathetics will have to support the agenda of the movie studios in order to get favorable mentions on TV.

As for stifling creation, well, we don't have a control group

The music publishers in NMPA and foreign counterparts are your "control" group. They control copyright in just about every possible melody. So if I'm writing a song, what steps should I take to avoid getting hit with lawsuits alleging subconscious infringement?

My bandwidth is sponsored by AOL/TW since i'm like the only guy not broadcasting porn or pirated movies.

Oh, I thought it was sponsored by viewers like you.

a. I define karaoke as a parody, and im sure others would agree with me.

While it's true that few people would enjoy ripping karaoke versions of Garth Brooks for their IPods, it certainly isn't legal parody.

b. Do tribute bands pay licensing fee's?

Absolutely! But that money goes to a different set of agencies, primarily Harry Fox.

c. Karaoke tracks are never performed by the original artists, why are they getting royaltees for music they do not produce?

That's an ambiguous statement. You might've meant that your singers are volunteers who give permission to stream their singing, but there's still the instrumental track you're infringing on. Those instrumentals may or may not be by the first people to publish that song, but even cover bands are original in some respect. (A first generation copy is "more original" than ones copied from it, etc)

As to why the big-name performers get more money than the band who actually made the karaoke CDs, that's a valid objection. It's really just a matter of bookkeeping overhead- it would be too hard for you to submit a list of all songs you've streamed over the year, so they just average it out and assume your playlist mirrors the Billboard 200. For more info, jwz wrote a complete article. (It's on webcasting, which you're still doing, even though you overlay other peoples' vocals)

I'm one of only 2 in the world doing this.

There is no such thing as "legality through obscurity". Sure, the rareness of the activity means you are unlikely to be the target of a lawsuit, but it doesn't mean you can honestly describe your site as a "legal use" for statistical analysis of a protocol.

Does Sony Electronics outsell both the music industry and the record industry along with the movie and video game industries that Sony's in as well? Does Sony own any book publishers?

I would like to know how they differentiate between files that are copyrighted and pirated vs. those that are either not copyrighted or are being stored legitimately.

NMPA will argue that almost any recording that is not owned by an RIAA affiliated label is either a cover of an NMPA controlled song or an infringing subconscious copy of an NMPA controlled song.

Sampling is a big deal, because you are using a chunk of the master recording, which is the end-product of many, many dollars of recording, mixing, mastering, promotion, artist development, etc. I worked for a while in New York with the guy who produced Rump Shaker and he had an attorney that dealt with all of his sample clearances. Moreover, there is no standard licensing charge for samples. The owner of the master recordings can charge you whatever they want, or not let you use it at all, because it's their product, and using their product to make your own product is not "fair use", it's profiteering.

On the other hand, re-recording a piece of a song is a lot cheaper and is subject to compulsory mechanical licensing, meaning that you pay 8 cents per re-recorded song for every CD you sell. Nobody can stop you from doing that. Dre did that with many P-Funk tunes on The Chronic.

It's one thing to re-interpret someone's idea. It's another thing to appropriate their implementation - the creator has every right to control that as they see fit.

Fuck that, they need to charge a more reasonable price, like $0.05 a song or $1 an album.

That's not financially possible. Under U.S. copyright law, the songwriter's publisher gets about 8 cents per copy in addition to what the label gets.

I am free to share my creative output (books, music, poetry, etc.) with whomever I want, and exclude whomever I want.

Actually you are not.
You can write a song, and keep it a secret, but if you ever sell or give away recording to the 'public' you no longer have the right to prevent others from recording the same song or making a MIDI file of the song and selling it as well. link A royality is required, but the value is capped by law.
You don't have the right to prevent someone creating braile copies of a book, for example. And they don't have to pay any royalites either. Copyright is a limited power, and for a good reason--it's a LIMIT on freedom, not an enhancement to it.

Epmos (posting as an AC b/c this is an old article and I don't want to bother to login)

> Because a lot of European states, including the UK, do not have any meaningful right of Fair Use for consumers.

In Germany, IRC, it is (or was) not only allowed to make copies of CDs, it is even allowed to give them to people you have a close relationship with. It is (or was) even explicitly allowed to circumvent copyright measurements for personal uses.

The downside is, that in Germany you pay a certain fee for every blank media (CD-R, cassette, MD: 6/h of recording time) and device (CD-Burner, tape-deck, MD-player) to compensate the artists for the estimated losses.

I'm not quite sure about the current situation, therefor "(or was)". I've found some an article, which mentions Germanys copyright legislation.

It's odd how the RIAA are stamping down on P2P but not on TAB and sheet music.

Published non-recorded copies of musical works are the NMPA's domain (national music publishers association), not the RIAA's (recording industry association of America). And yes, the NMPA does tag along when the RIAA sues P2P service operators.

The original lyrics are also copyrighted and can't be reproduced for wide distribution (even as a vocal transformation) without consent.

Not exactly. A cover song can be publically performed with a simple ASCAP (or BMI or whatever) compulsary license. To be on the safe side, they should definately have an ASCAP license, that's not all that expensive. They still could run into problems because of the fact that they are allowing the songs to be downloaded. Technically, they should probably be paying Harry Fox (or someone similar) "7.1 cents per CD sold if the song is 5 minutes or under. Songs over 5 minutes cost slightly more, based on a rate of 1.35 cents per minute."

Aren't the Democrats supposed be the party that sticks up for the common people as opposed to big media interests like Disney and the MPAA?

Oh you mean like Sonny Bono.

You mean the dead Republican, Sonny Bono? Or were you talking about another one?

-chris

For some background reading, check out this press release where the music publishers sued Universal for trying to put (Universal) music online without the permission of the publishers.

The first step was MIDI - a score goes in, and music comes out. No musicians required. It doesn't sound all that great; we need smarter performance generators. There's research underway on this.

Next step is to eliminate singers. Voice synthesizers exist now, and there are ones that will accept a MIDI track as prosody. Again, this needs to get better.

The best part of this is that there is a compulsory license and statutory royalty rates for this, so the record companies can't say no. The current royalty rate is is $0.0755 per song plus $0.0145 for each additional minute after the first five. Per copy.

It's coming. Click here for examples. Even runs on Linux.

LyricsDot which is not going to close

If there's one thing the Slashdot crowd has figured out, it's to not count one's chickens before they've hatched.

As soon as the Harry Fox Agency gets wind of this, I'm sure they'll go after this new variant with just as much zeal.

However, since it appears as though the site truly IS hosted in Russia (rather than having a North American-based site with a .RU address), it just might stick around for a while after all!

[ 8 ]

RIPE whois query for www.lyricsdot.ru (195.34.224.76):

inetnum: 195.34.224.0 - 195.34.224.255
netname: AOR2-1-NET
descr: Lipetsk regional network
country: RU
admin-c: AOR2-RIPE
tech-c: AOR2-RIPE
rev-srv: ns1.lipetsk.ru
rev-srv: ns2.lipetsk.ru
rev-srv: ns.vrn.ru
status: ASSIGNED PA
mnt-by: AOR2-MNT-RIPE
changed: aor@takthq.lietsk.su 19980321
source: RIPE

route: 195.34.224.0/19
descr: Lipetsk Regional Public Network
origin: AS8570
mnt-by: AOR2-MNT-RIPE
changed: aor@takthq.lipetsk.su 19971207
source: RIPE

person: Alexander I Ostankov
address: JSC "Lipetskelectrosvyaz"
address: Lipetsk regional NIC
address: 5, Plekhanova str.
address: SU-398000 Lipetsk, Russia
phone: +7 0742 470909
phone: +7 0742 470916
fax-no: +7 0742 744823
e-mail: aor@lipetsk.ru
nic-hdl: AOR2-RIPE
mnt-by: AOR2-MNT-RIPE
changed: aor@takthq.lipetsk.su 19981223
source: RIPE

So by this ruling if I made a cover song and distributed CDs paying the mechanical licensing fees, I wouldn't be permitted to distribute that cover song over the internet without a negotiated license. That's bullshit.

Before the CD, music was distributed on platters of (supposedly) vinyl consisting of a spiral groove of two orthogonal analog waveforms. This was the medium for most of the 1900s. The effect of the music monopoly on this medium was that only one manufacturing company, usually owned by record company itself, made the medium. Due to this monopoly, there was no incentive to produce good quality records as that did cost a few cents more per unit. The end results was bad quality, with some major record companies like RCA producing total shit (I bought several, and every one of them was horrible quality).

I believe one reason the CD rose in popularity so fast was that the quality was so much better, not just because of the vinyl hiss, but also because of all the clicks and pops from the garbage embedded in the vinyl. The CD wasn't totally immune from this damage, but it could correct a lot of it, and quietly skip a lot more, and you never noticed it.

Also, in the early days of the CD, record companies hadn't yet learned how to cut corners and reduce costs without completely destroying the product. Now days they are learning. The quality of CDs is going down and down as the record companies are trying to push the edge of what consumers will accept.

If there was competition in the media production phase of music production, with a compulsory licensing that allowed anyone to produce the medium and change whatever they wanted to consumers, and simply pay the publishing company that owns the rights to the recording (or the artists directly if they own it) the statutory or arbitrated fees, then the consumer would have a free market choice on who makes the CDs they buy.

In the day of vinyl (and even still today to some degree) a few companies were making reproductions of music on quality media. Usually the costs were very high, almost double. I soon found out that the original record company demanded a fee that was at least equal to, and in some cases more than, the retail cost of their own garbage. This would be a fee they would collect for not even producing the media at all. Compulsory and/or statutory licensing would have prevented this rip off.

There is precendent in statute now. This is already how the law works for certain kinds of reproductions (see The Harry Fox Agency and this licensing information page) and performances (see ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC), although it still does not work perfectly as reported in links found via Google.

Still, I think this would be a good step forward to have this kind of law in place not only for media reproduction, but also for digital online delivery.

Before the CD, music was distributed on platters of (supposedly) vinyl consisting of a spiral groove of two orthogonal analog waveforms. This was the medium for most of the 1900s. The effect of the music monopoly on this medium was that only one manufacturing company, usually owned by record company itself, made the medium. Due to this monopoly, there was no incentive to produce good quality records as that did cost a few cents more per unit. The end results was bad quality, with some major record companies like RCA producing total shit (I bought several, and every one of them was horrible quality).

I believe one reason the CD rose in popularity so fast was that the quality was so much better, not just because of the vinyl hiss, but also because of all the clicks and pops from the garbage embedded in the vinyl. The CD wasn't totally immune from this damage, but it could correct a lot of it, and quietly skip a lot more, and you never noticed it.

Also, in the early days of the CD, record companies hadn't yet learned how to cut corners and reduce costs without completely destroying the product. Now days they are learning. The quality of CDs is going down and down as the record companies are trying to push the edge of what consumers will accept.

If there was competition in the media production phase of music production, with a compulsory licensing that allowed anyone to produce the medium and change whatever they wanted to consumers, and simply pay the publishing company that owns the rights to the recording (or the artists directly if they own it) the statutory or arbitrated fees, then the consumer would have a free market choice on who makes the CDs they buy.

In the day of vinyl (and even still today to some degree) a few companies were making reproductions of music on quality media. Usually the costs were very high, almost double. I soon found out that the original record company demanded a fee that was at least equal to, and in some cases more than, the retail cost of their own garbage. This would be a fee they would collect for not even producing the media at all. Compulsory and/or statutory licensing would have prevented this rip off.

There is precendent in statute now. This is already how the law works for certain kinds of reproductions (see The Harry Fox Agency and this licensing information page) and performances (see ASCAP, BMI, and SESAC), although it still does not work perfectly as reported in links found via Google.

Still, I think this would be a good step forward to have this kind of law in place not only for media reproduction, but also for digital online delivery.

There is valueable research involved in these various codes. If these codes were not prepared in advance, governments would have to carry out expensive research to determine technical specifics to write into these codes. Multiply that cost (millions of dollars) by the huge number of jurisdictions (conservatively tens of thousands), and you end up with a tax expense in the high billions to possibly beyond a trillion dollars. Obviously that is not something that would be acceptable.

If all the jurisdictions got together and pooled money proportionally and shared the costs of carrying out this research, obviously the costs would be way less. But this isn't what happened.

Instead, there is a business model involved that fools taxpayers into thinking they are getting something for (nearly) free because the governments are not charged much (a few copies they have to buy) to adopt these codes. But the taxpayers actually are charged even more, overall, through commercial costs passed through from businesses that have to buy these overpriced copies. And that doesn't count the pricing people who want to express their 1st amendment rights to argue that flaws exist in proposed laws (the code).

There are two parts to the cost. One part is the cost of copying to which I will add a reasonable profit margin for a copying operation. The other part is the distributed cost of the research, that is, the whole research cost divided by the number of sold copies. Beyond that is excess profits. How can we know if there are excess profits or not?

Even the music industry is not this bad. While there is a "monopoly" on the ownership of a specific piece or performance of music, there is also a statutory rate for legally copying music which you can arrange to get a license for through the Harry Fox Agency (this applies to the composition, not a specific recording, and the rate is a bulk rate for mass production, not single copies).

And unlike music, which I can elect to totally ignore or boycott, I cannot do the same for laws. So this is particularly bad.

What we need is for some kind of statutory rate structure that allows others to make their own copies of the "composition work" involved in the code. The basic share cost of the original and continuing research still needs to be paid for, but without such a system, that is something that would be paid for directly by governments, anyway, in proportion to their applicable size, so IMHO that's where that part of the cost should be paid. This still allows governments to get quality research, and people to be able to have copies of what the law is at a fair and reasonable price for the copying, and prevents someone from extorting excess profits from the public because the public isn't given a choice either of who to buy copies from, or to opt-out of using the code.

There is valueable research involved in these various codes. If these codes were not prepared in advance, governments would have to carry out expensive research to determine technical specifics to write into these codes. Multiply that cost (millions of dollars) by the huge number of jurisdictions (conservatively tens of thousands), and you end up with a tax expense in the high billions to possibly beyond a trillion dollars. Obviously that is not something that would be acceptable.

If all the jurisdictions got together and pooled money proportionally and shared the costs of carrying out this research, obviously the costs would be way less. But this isn't what happened.

Instead, there is a business model involved that fools taxpayers into thinking they are getting something for (nearly) free because the governments are not charged much (a few copies they have to buy) to adopt these codes. But the taxpayers actually are charged even more, overall, through commercial costs passed through from businesses that have to buy these overpriced copies. And that doesn't count the pricing people who want to express their 1st amendment rights to argue that flaws exist in proposed laws (the code).

There are two parts to the cost. One part is the cost of copying to which I will add a reasonable profit margin for a copying operation. The other part is the distributed cost of the research, that is, the whole research cost divided by the number of sold copies. Beyond that is excess profits. How can we know if there are excess profits or not?

Even the music industry is not this bad. While there is a "monopoly" on the ownership of a specific piece or performance of music, there is also a statutory rate for legally copying music which you can arrange to get a license for through the Harry Fox Agency (this applies to the composition, not a specific recording, and the rate is a bulk rate for mass production, not single copies).

And unlike music, which I can elect to totally ignore or boycott, I cannot do the same for laws. So this is particularly bad.

What we need is for some kind of statutory rate structure that allows others to make their own copies of the "composition work" involved in the code. The basic share cost of the original and continuing research still needs to be paid for, but without such a system, that is something that would be paid for directly by governments, anyway, in proportion to their applicable size, so IMHO that's where that part of the cost should be paid. This still allows governments to get quality research, and people to be able to have copies of what the law is at a fair and reasonable price for the copying, and prevents someone from extorting excess profits from the public because the public isn't given a choice either of who to buy copies from, or to opt-out of using the code.

There is valueable research involved in these various codes. If these codes were not prepared in advance, governments would have to carry out expensive research to determine technical specifics to write into these codes. Multiply that cost (millions of dollars) by the huge number of jurisdictions (conservatively tens of thousands), and you end up with a tax expense in the high billions to possibly beyond a trillion dollars. Obviously that is not something that would be acceptable.

If all the jurisdictions got together and pooled money proportionally and shared the costs of carrying out this research, obviously the costs would be way less. But this isn't what happened.

Instead, there is a business model involved that fools taxpayers into thinking they are getting something for (nearly) free because the governments are not charged much (a few copies they have to buy) to adopt these codes. But the taxpayers actually are charged even more, overall, through commercial costs passed through from businesses that have to buy these overpriced copies. And that doesn't count the pricing people who want to express their 1st amendment rights to argue that flaws exist in proposed laws (the code).

There are two parts to the cost. One part is the cost of copying to which I will add a reasonable profit margin for a copying operation. The other part is the distributed cost of the research, that is, the whole research cost divided by the number of sold copies. Beyond that is excess profits. How can we know if there are excess profits or not?

Even the music industry is not this bad. While there is a "monopoly" on the ownership of a specific piece or performance of music, there is also a statutory rate for legally copying music which you can arrange to get a license for through the Harry Fox Agency (this applies to the composition, not a specific recording, and the rate is a bulk rate for mass production, not single copies).

And unlike music, which I can elect to totally ignore or boycott, I cannot do the same for laws. So this is particularly bad.

What we need is for some kind of statutory rate structure that allows others to make their own copies of the "composition work" involved in the code. The basic share cost of the original and continuing research still needs to be paid for, but without such a system, that is something that would be paid for directly by governments, anyway, in proportion to their applicable size, so IMHO that's where that part of the cost should be paid. This still allows governments to get quality research, and people to be able to have copies of what the law is at a fair and reasonable price for the copying, and prevents someone from extorting excess profits from the public because the public isn't given a choice either of who to buy copies from, or to opt-out of using the code.

You still pay royalties on a "reinterpretation" of a song. I've performed a cover on each of my last two albums, and in both cases my record label paid about 7 cents per CD manufactured in royalties to the publisher of the song.

The law establishes what's called a "compulsory mechanical license", essentially saying to the owner of publishing rights on the song "yes, you own the rights, but if someone wants to cover your song, you MUST grant them that right so long as they pay the current per-use royalty rate."

You can check out more info at:

• http://www.nmpa.org/hfa/mechanical.html

I am so sick of laws that have no purpose other than to enrich a few scumbags by creating artificial markets:

• "We can't make a business out of that; it is already conveniently available for free."
• "Ah, but we get the convenient, free service declared illegal and then we get rich!"

How can executives at these companies not look at themselves in the mirror each morning and think, "I am a disgusting parasitic leech of a human being"?

I just don't know. Maybe they just need a reminder.

ASCAP & BMI, which are Performance Rights Organizations, both have started to establish internet distribution licensing. The major difference (and the reason they're not getting involved in this melee) is that PRO's manage the rights of music performances, for example: radio, tunes played in bars, or streaming audio. They handle licensing and pay the songwriters and publishers.

They don't handle the rights to the actual product that is a sound recording (such as a cd, or an .mp3) of a specific piece of music -- that's done by folks like the Harry Fox Agency (spawned from the NMPA, National Music Publishers Association) and the RIAA. They pay the artists (or more often, companies) who record the music, sometimes the same thing as the songwriters, but not universally. Both of whom are indeed involved in this and other litigation.

In other words, as I understand it, companies that stream their audio can pay licensing fees to ASCAP & BMI to cover the songwriters' royalties, but companies that distribute products (you possess the .mp3 file) are expected to pony up to HFA & the RIAA, and aren't -- thus the lawsuits. A relatively smooth system like the PRO's, transparent to the user, would be welcome.


---
"The Constitution...is not a suicide pact."

ASCAP & BMI, which are Performance Rights Organizations, both have started to establish internet distribution licensing. The major difference (and the reason they're not getting involved in this melee) is that PRO's manage the rights of music performances, for example: radio, tunes played in bars, or streaming audio. They handle licensing and pay the songwriters and publishers.

They don't handle the rights to the actual product that is a sound recording (such as a cd, or an .mp3) of a specific piece of music -- that's done by folks like the Harry Fox Agency (spawned from the NMPA, National Music Publishers Association) and the RIAA. They pay the artists (or more often, companies) who record the music, sometimes the same thing as the songwriters, but not universally. Both of whom are indeed involved in this and other litigation.

In other words, as I understand it, companies that stream their audio can pay licensing fees to ASCAP & BMI to cover the songwriters' royalties, but companies that distribute products (you possess the .mp3 file) are expected to pony up to HFA & the RIAA, and aren't -- thus the lawsuits. A relatively smooth system like the PRO's, transparent to the user, would be welcome.


---
"The Constitution...is not a suicide pact."

ASCAP & BMI, which are Performance Rights Organizations, both have started to establish internet distribution licensing. The major difference (and the reason they're not getting involved in this melee) is that PRO's manage the rights of music performances, for example: radio, tunes played in bars, or streaming audio. They handle licensing and pay the songwriters and publishers.

They don't handle the rights to the actual product that is a sound recording (such as a cd, or an .mp3) of a specific piece of music -- that's done by folks like the Harry Fox Agency (spawned from the NMPA, National Music Publishers Association) and the RIAA. They pay the artists (or more often, companies) who record the music, sometimes the same thing as the songwriters, but not universally. Both of whom are indeed involved in this and other litigation.

In other words, as I understand it, companies that stream their audio can pay licensing fees to ASCAP & BMI to cover the songwriters' royalties, but companies that distribute products (you possess the .mp3 file) are expected to pony up to HFA & the RIAA, and aren't -- thus the lawsuits. A relatively smooth system like the PRO's, transparent to the user, would be welcome.


---
"The Constitution...is not a suicide pact."

ASCAP & BMI, which are Performance Rights Organizations, both have started to establish internet distribution licensing. The major difference (and the reason they're not getting involved in this melee) is that PRO's manage the rights of music performances, for example: radio, tunes played in bars, or streaming audio. They handle licensing and pay the songwriters and publishers.

They don't handle the rights to the actual product that is a sound recording (such as a cd, or an .mp3) of a specific piece of music -- that's done by folks like the Harry Fox Agency (spawned from the NMPA, National Music Publishers Association) and the RIAA. They pay the artists (or more often, companies) who record the music, sometimes the same thing as the songwriters, but not universally. Both of whom are indeed involved in this and other litigation.

In other words, as I understand it, companies that stream their audio can pay licensing fees to ASCAP & BMI to cover the songwriters' royalties, but companies that distribute products (you possess the .mp3 file) are expected to pony up to HFA & the RIAA, and aren't -- thus the lawsuits. A relatively smooth system like the PRO's, transparent to the user, would be welcome.


---
"The Constitution...is not a suicide pact."

Copyright proctection is much longer than 30 years. The formula is kind of complicated but from this summary from the NMPA the term is somwhere between 70 and 120 years.

In general, the bill extends the term of copyright protection in the United States by 20 years for all works still in their term of protection. Specific provisions of the bill provide that:

for works (other than works made for hire) created on or after January 1, 1978, protection will endure for the life time of the author plus 70 years after his or her death;

for works made for hire created on or after January 1, 1978, protection will endure for 95 years from first publication or 120 years from the year of its creation, whichever expires first;

for works created but not published or copyrighted before January 1, 1978, the term of protection will endure until December 31, 2047; for works in their first 28-year term on January 1, 1978, the automatic renewal term is extended from 47 to 67 years (for example, a work first published in 1975 would be protected through the year 2070, or a 28- plus 67-year term);

for works in their renewal term on the effective date of the new law, protection will endure for a term of 95 years from the date copyright was originally secured (for example, a work first published in 1955 would be protected through the year 2050).

They can keep track of all your downloads, and bill you at the end of the month.

Napster can then pay the record label, the publishers, the managers, the producers, the laywers, the street promotion team, the direct radio promotion staff, and, in some rare cases, the artists.

They could turn themselves into something similar to the Harry Fox Agency.
- daniel

In general you *can* perform John William's works - you just need to pay appropriate royalties. This doesn't mean you could use this music in your own commericial or movie - I believe you'd need to negotiate a license in that case. But for many other uses (like making a records) there are set mechanical royalities, and for other cases, like public performace, there are set fee schedules. Whatever the case you buy a license, you don't go to 20th century fox!

See ASCAP or BMI. for more info on public/internet/brodcast licensing.

See Harry Fox for mechanical licensing (used when your group records John Williams compositions for release).

Anyhow, the money ends up going to John Williams or whoever own the rights to his catalog (if he sold his publishing).

hasdi at bigfoot dot com

Goddamn! I loved the international lyrics server.