Courtney Love Sues for Her Share

yibyab writes "Isn't this just sweet? I'm not a Courtney Love music fan, but I love her moxie. Upside is reporting in this article that Ms. Love wants her share of Universal's windfall from the MP3.Com case." Its pretty funny actually: since universal supposedly sued mp3.com protect the rights of their artists. Ms. Love figures she should be entitled to a slice of hundred million dollar pie. Of course she won't get it, but at least this will prove who the record industry is really out there working for. And I like Hole. I think Celebrity Skin was clean, well produced rock album. There isn't a lot of what I think of as "Rock" coming out any more either so thats saying something.

Comments

Damn, that's funny.

[pb]

Well, it makes sense to me...

1) You're an artist; the record company (henceforth referred to as "The Man") already screwed you over.
2) The Man is "protecting" your interests, and gets a lot of money; will you ever see that money? No.
3) Since The Man publicly states this "protecting the interests of the artists" bullshit, you call them on it, and ask for your fair share. After all, if this had been a class-action suit, you would have gotten your fair share; they're just representing you.
4) Either The Man realizes what's going on, and pays you off, or they suffer the negative press as everyone realizes that they don't give a FUCK* about the artists.
5) All hell breaks lose; everyone (who hasn't already) loses faith in The Man. I laugh my ass off.

* Although I consider this post to be informative, I understand that profanity is an alternative way to get modded up, and I want to be Enoch Root when I grow up. It's cool, daddi-o.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.

Good for her!, Copyrite Editorial

[Odinson]

Hello,

Sorry to do this but I wrote an editorial a week ago and I think it got lost in the shuffle when I submited it to the commander. It's on copyright and shrink wrap licences.

Oh..and yes I read the article, she is in the right, but she isn't reading this to the core.

In a few days this paper will live at www.warcloud.net/~odinson/14-years-and-your-quill. html ...but not yet.

Many Linux and open source advocates are upset about verdict on the MPAA vs 2600 DeCSS criminal case. Many people blame this exclusively on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This law was passed in congress in 1998 and gives copyright holders previously unmatched rights. I believe that if there is anything holy and fair in this country, that this slanted law will rejected by the copyright office, struck down by the supreme court, and protested into oblivion by anyone who takes five minutes to understand the numerous loopholes and the agenda represented by those loopholes.

But this isn't just about the DMCA.

The DMCA could have never been poised to do so much damage if it weren't for the other regular abuses of the American people, abuses that should have never been tolerated. The post purchase contract or license, and the extension to the time a party is allowed an exclusive control otherwise known as copyright are the real problem.

Copyright

Laws like the "Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act" have been extending copyright, (20 years in this case) in a fashion destructive to consumer and the artist. The original lifespan of copyright was 14 years, now it is life of the author plus seventy. Most people are unaware of this or think it is OK. It is not.

When copyright was created the idea was compromise. A reasonable amount of time to make enough money to offset printing costs and to make a fair profit. It was targeted specifically at books and maps. The idea was extended to provide a good living for artists and eventually song writers and movie makers and even computer programmers. This is all good. copyright is a moral idea, if you create something you get a government granted monopoly on that thing for period of time. It allows a person to dedicate their time to developing their skills of expression with out the risk of someone walking away with their creation and selling it as their own.

Copyright works do not compete during their monopoly period. If you do not want to break the law you adhere to the terms the author sets, or you don't view/use/listen to it. This is OK so long as information is not vital to the health of the society at large and someone else offers it. Over time, we have extended the monopoly period, and some companies began collecting Intellectual Property as a revenue source. It has gotten to the point that frighteningly few ideas in our society is not owned by some company. Some refer to this as pop culture.

Ideas go stale and die. Few complain about the communists anymore, most people publicly abhor drugs and wild sex, and I don't see much about the trickle down theory either `;), but copyrights don't fade away they just sit, accumulating more money with every movie remake and sometimes without one. Information needs to compete with the prospect that it will go stale. Only novel ideas contribute in a big way, but then why are we paying big bucks for the same old shows on cable?

Most people think artists benefit from the copyright extensions. Did you know the typical musician gets only a few cents a Compact Disc, and they only cost a few cents to make? Sure, Billy Joel or Madonna get a few dollars per CD, they are held up as examples of success. Such examples are rare. If copyright were reduced back down to 14 years, Record companies, Movie studios, publishers and every other kind of distributor would have to compete with the prospect that in 14 years anyone could compete with them, selling the exact same thing. Not so novel ideas look a lot less appealing, and unfair contracts not so binding.

Copyright's purpose used to be to protect the time and money of writers and the owners of the printing presses. Inevitably middlemen and distributors did get involved, but had to work against the clock. Now those same middlemen name whatever terms they want because they know that they will be dead before you can get their product through anyone else. The power that companies wield over artists seeking distribution and consumers who want to hear what the artist has to say is absolute. What better way to silence voices than to own the microphone wire through which they speak.

In a world of the 14 year copyright the MPAA would be far less likely to try to force you to adhere to their latest copyright license money grab. Policies like "You can't fast forward through the commercials", and "charge them as much as they can afford according to where they live." Would result in boycotts rather than complacency. This is what they are trying to do with DVDs, and any group of consumers could protest until they died and see no end to it. What recourse does a consumer have but civil disobedience? Perhaps if humans were immortal there would be no such dilemma.

Contract law

Are shrink wrap licenses legal? The question of the legal status remains unanswered. That unanswered question seems to have inspired to use contract lawyers and copyright lawyers to attempt unprecedented control not only over how copyrighted work is distributed but viewed. Some clear legal defense is needed here, the bad guys are getting meaner and the "Accepted Practice" for license and contract law just don't cut it.

The typically unviewed licenses that accompanies DVDs and DVD Players are setting an terrible precedent.

As an example, shrink wrap licenses are the cause of much pain to the typical computer professional. The business that uses software with such a license may actually have to adhere to it's absurd terms or face prosicution. In contrast, most consumers are rarely prosecuted, unless they are a political target like 2600. Isn't that one of the constitutions main themes, protecting potential political targets against things like torture, high bail or soldiers in their house?? A new article to Uniform Commercial Code could do the job, but if UTICA continues on the path to acceptance we may need constitutional power to threaten those who would strip us of our right examine a contract before entering into it.

Here's what an amendment might look like.

----------------

Article XXVII

Section 1.

A contract or license can not be binding until after the full text of said contract or license has been made available to all parties prior to any otherwise binding agreement. The availability of the contract or license text is the full responsibility any and all who are offering a good or service that are part of the exchange in the contract or license.

Section 2.

Failure to make the full text of a contract or license available prior to agreement of all parties on it's terms will void all terms of said license or contract.

Section 3.

The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

-----------

Sorry if the legalize isn't thick enough, I wanted it to be clear. Comments are welcome.

It's to bad they didn't think of adding this in amendment XIII (Ending slavery.)

We should remember the DMCA is not our only source of trouble. You might even find like I did that the evils we have long known are far more dangerous and a firm foundation for the DMCA and UTICA. Without the legs of absurd copyright stay and the post purchase contract/license agreement, this insidious empire would not have the strength to declare war on the American people. We need to acknowledge what laws gave these middlemen strength and attack them there. We will regain choice back only after we change our legal landscape. When we return copyright to its original state, the artists and world will thank us for it.

If you understand this, and you understand why the cost of digital data transfer and storage is growing neglegable, you understand why they look at the Internet and it's spawn Linux with mortal fear.

Matthew Newhall

Artist's rights? Bullsh*t!

[PopeFelix]

If Courtney Love's petition is denied, as I expect it will be, I think it will remove a good sized chunk of credibility from at least Universal's position, if not RIAA as well.

While I agree that individual artists should always have the right to decide how their music is distributed, I'm very leery of someone who is "acting for the good" of someone else.

Universal is in the business of making money. The way that they make money is to promote certain musical artists, and then take a percentage of the sales from their recordings. Obvious. But this $100M suit, IMNSHO, was for 2 reasons.

1) To attempt to reduce the distribution of their artists' recordings by means that pay no royalties. In other words, to protect their meal ticket.

2) To attack an organization that promotes something that might endanger their meal ticket. They could just as easily file suit against Maxell or TDK, because they make cassette tapes that people can record copyrighted music onto. MP3.com simply suffers from the disadvantage of being a new, and not widely understood, way of doing the same thing.

Universal couldn't care less about their artists. If an artist does something that causes their sales to drop, and continue to underperform, Universal would chuck him/her/them out on the street without so much as a "By your leave."

I know I'm preaching to the choir, here, but I figured I'd say my piece anyway.

Pope Felix the Scurrilous.

Missing the point

[kennedy]

You're all missing the point. Courtney is calling the RIAA's bluff. If they are suing on behalf of the artists, it would only be logical for the artists to recover "lost" money. We should all be glad that we've got her on our side. She is an extreamly outspoken person (imho on the level of Chuck D). Rip the fucking system courtney.

Go Offspring Go!

[Randy Rathbun]

Speaking of MP3s, The Offspring just royally pissed off Sony today. Here is the story about them putting their next album on the web.

Gotta love anarchy!


Vote Nader

The problem here

[Bouncings]

As I see it, the problem is that she doesn't actually own the copyright to her own music. Record Companies own the copyrights. They didn't actually breach any agreements with her, and since it's not her copyright, she could loose.

I think the way the record industry works needs to be adjusted. Prince had to change his name because his record company thought it owned it. One way to limit the power record companies have is to reform the system so that artists have the copyright. That's how I've seen it with most - say - shareware marketing companies -- the artists lisenses the work to the distribution company.

Down that road, if records didn't have exclusionary contracts, several record companies could release the same record from the same artist with the same royalties. Therefor, there could actually be a price way. Like what happened to the movie industry.

Re:How do the record companies GET the copyright?

[theonetruekeebler]

Do the record companies own the copyright to any works they produce automatically?

Briefly, yes. Look at the Copyright Act of 1978 (was it '78? Somewhere around then). It classifies recording as a musician "work for hire". Essentially, this means that the person for whom you do the work owns it, and contractually the record company "hires" you to record the music you wrote and performed, then distributes it. If they give you an advance, you have to pay it back through royalties. If you use studio time, you have to pay the label back for that, too. The artist will eventually see royalties that amount to a few dozen cents per album sold.

I was under the impression that artists own the copyright (and therefore have the right to control distribution) originally, and that in most cases they sign over this right to the record companies in their exclusive contracts.

A brief examination of the jewel box a CD came in can answer this question for you. Here--I'll go steal one out of the next cube over. Goodbye Jumbo by World Party. (C) and (P) Ensign Records Ltd. a sub. of Chrysalis Records Ltd. Dis. by Chrysalis Records, Inc. That's just one example, but I was confident enough to grab a CD off a desk for an example.

If that's the case, maybe artisits should not sign these contracts!

They're under no obligation to sign the contract. But if they don't sign the contract, the record company is under no obligation to distribute their music. And you know what? There are only four major record companies. They control 95% of the market. And they go to stores like Blockbuster or Whorehouse music or whatever they call it these days and they say, "Gee, we'd love to let you stock our albums, but we want to make sure you're a quality outfit, you understand, so let's make sure you only stock albums from, shall we say, reputable labels, such as ours, and these other three."

Things like Napster could shut down BMI and Sony and Universal and Time Warner forever, because Napster cuts them out of the artist/fan loop altogether. So they use their jointly-owned non-profit front organization, the RIAA, to file a lawsuit "on behalf of artists", to shut down Napster and Gnutella because they can be used to violate copyright, kind of like how Reynolds knives can be used to stab people.

If any other industry tried this sort of collusion, their executives would be locked away on racketeering charges and spend about a decade per count turning big rocks into little rocks. But the music industry has a lobby that would make the gun industry cream its pants, and so you get things like the Copyright Act of 1978.

Take a look at Salon's remarkable article Courtney Love does the math for further insight into what a record company contract is really like, and how there's no way around them if you want to be rewarded for your work.

--

The RIAA Police...

[Speare]

Every file you take,
Every scan you make,
Every net you quake,
Every song you play, I'll be watching you.

Every single day,
Every word you say,
Every game you play,
Every night you stay, I'll be watching you.

Oh, can't you see?
Those songs ain't free,
How can poor artists
Give every song you play?

Every scan you make,
Every sound you take,
Every phile you fake,
Every claim you stake, I'll be watching you.

Since you logged, I ping hosts without a trace
I query all night, bootlegged 'threes and WAVs
I look out for warez, hoping to make a case
Don't feel so sold out, a song you can't replace

Don't crack Ess Dee, Emm I, please...

Oh, can't you see?
Those songs ain't free,
How can poor artists
Give every song you play?

Every scan you make,
Every sound you play,
Every trial you stake,
Every LAME you break,
Every player you fake,
Every song you take,

I'll be watching you.

--(with apologies to the Police)

Re:"Her Share" / Royalties vs Profits

[jamused]

You are wrong in your assumption.

The record company cuts her a check as an "advance on royalties"

Against this they charge her:

• the cost of recording the album
• the cost of pressing and distributing the album
• the cost of promoting the album
• pretty much anything else they can think of

If, after all their creative accounting, there is any further "debt", they charge that against the next album as well. If the record makes money, the studio ends up not actually paying anything toward the production and distribution--it all comes out of the artist's share.

It's not only theoretically possible for the artist to owe the studio money after a profitable album, it happens all the time. Records go platinum, and the artist goes bankrupt.

So, yeah, Universal ought to owe all their artists a proportional chunk of that money, to show up on their royalty statements.

The REAL story

[sdo1]

The RIAA and member lablels aren't worried about priacy.

They aren't worried about losing sales.

They aren't worried about copyright infringement.

They ARE worried about their gravytrain, i.e. the artists that they make such a bundle off of, leaving town and going solo to promote themselves.

The mp3.com lawsuit was a convenient excuse to punish mp3.com for attempting to re-write the rules of artist promotion.

With the technology before us, artists like Courtney Love can give the record industry the big old "FUCK YOU!" and still distribute thier music.

Smashing Pumpkins just released their final album as a vinyl only release w/o record company involvement. They encouraged those few that got copies to record them, compress them into .mp3's, and spread them around. More and more artists are doing similar.

The real risk to the RIAA isn't the copying of copyrighted material, Napster, mp3.com, and the like. It's that the artists can promote themselves, distrubute their own music, and collect the profits without a record label being involved. The game's over.

-S