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RIAA, Music Unions Agree On Payments For Digital Play
Anonymous Brave Guy writes "BBC News is reporting that musicians and artists will now be paid directly for broadcasts of their work in the U.S., without the cash going to record company middle men, as a result of a deal struck between trade unions and industry representatives including the RIAA." Note the tidbit toward the end of the story mentioning the new European copyright directive, and saying "It gives copyright owners permission to use encryption to block the duplication of copyright-protected works." Permission?
why would they need permission? At least they haven't made it illegal to break teh encryption. I never had a problem with the DVD folks using CSS, it was just the "cracking it is illegal" part that bugged me
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WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
What? The record companies actually relinquished any control of anything? You're kidding. What's the catch?
The RIAA's large-scale actions of recent years -- first and foremost the DMCA! -- have been designed not so much with an eye to profit as an eye to control. They are a very powerful cartel, and they'd like to keep it that way -- even at the expense of immediate profits.
So what's the catch here? Could it be that they're suddenly worried about anti-trust action? Were the two artists' unions involved actually that effective?
If the unions were effective, it might be worthwhile to start making the anti-DMCA case to them. The kinds of controls on copyright the DMCA creates are ultimately to the benefit only of the copyright holder -- which, in the case of most recordings, is the record company and not the artist. Although it appears to benefit artists by protecting their work, the DMCA actually takes music out of the hands of musicians.
It would be a long, difficult, argument, but perhaps it's time to start making it. I'm a musician, and I'm convinced; I think others could be as well. If the artists' unions can pull off a deal like that, they might also be able to pull the rug out from under the **AA's run on the constitution.
Given that, every grant of copyright is a "permission".
The line from the article is misleading, however: the author may understand the constitutional issue but misunderstand what the specific American law says.
davecb@spamcop.net
Because he signed a contract and 'Prince' was a trademarked name...by the singer himself.
/.'rs think that they should be able to screw musicians just because musicians think they are getting screwed by their lables, which is tantamount to saying yer already screwed, so we're just going to join in with the rest of the guys.
/. have a spell checker...everytime I preview this I find a few more...)
Its a crying shame when I sign a contract that the gov't actually allows the countersigners to actually force me to abide by this. What jerks.
I think I'm going to change my name because I don't agree with the contract that let me get student loans. I mean, 10 years ago they seemed like such a good deal. I got money at an affordable rate and didn't have to pay it back for years to come, and NOW they expect me to give them money in return for it.
Give me a fricken break. I understand California putting a 7 year limit on contracts Actors / Musicians / Etc BUT when someone signs a contract because a company is willing to give them money and then doesn't like the terms of it AFTER they strike it big and realizes that what was a good deal before no longer is such a good deal (ie., the Record Company took a MAJOR gamble in the first place...or you just didn't care to realize your own potentional...whatever) which essentially is because of the chances afforded by the original contract, then tough fucking shit. BooHoo, a musician -- that has made far more money than most of us here even in the last several years that he hasn't even had a song on the charts -- had to wait for the contract he was in to expire not even paying off the record company that gave him millions.
Anywho, this is essentially off topic and SHOULD be moded as such...and so should the parents...as too many
clif
editor sonikmatter
(heh! Why doen't
Arguably, copyright holders who encrypt their works aren't living up to their side of the deal. If copyright holders don't live up to their side of the deal, why should society live up to its side of the deal?
I understand why the Europeans ultimately gave in to industry demands, and this is not a simple decision. But I think in the long run, this is a mistake. Content creators should choose between either free and open distribution coupled with legal protection, or technological protection. If you give them both, they will use technological protection to exclude both fair use and ultimately transition into the public domain. Less and less of what is protected by copyright today will make it into the public domain eventually, because of technological protections, and fair use is already greatly restricted.
As if everyone did not already know that the music industry is a bloated boorish monopoly, things like this serve as a reminder of their ignorance of any technology beyond the record player and their unwillingness to accept that music swapping is actually proven to increase sales of their music, and that the new copy protection and inability of future cds to be played in a PC is actually detrimental to their bottom line in the long run, and could quite possibly alienate even more people than they already have, people who for some strange reason like to back up things so that they wont have to spend another 20 dollars to listen to the music that they want.
I hate sigs.
I'm not sure I understand this story. Surely the artist won't get paid for cable, satellite, and internet play of their songs if they don't own the copyright to the song? Most artists sign their copyrights away as a part of their contract.
The author states that the intellectual property laws envisioned by the Founders aimed to strike a balance between authors, publishers, and readers. This is well and good. However, in his criticism of DCMA and other means to shift the balance towards the creators, he neglects the fact that there is more to this balance than just written law. There are many other forces at work which absolutely must be considered, but the author gives them no consideration.
For one, the nature of digital media enables people to pirate goods in a way that is totally unprecedented. No time before could a work of art, say a book, have been distributed by one lone pirate. It would have required transcription, printing presses, distribution networks, and so on. Even his concept of the so-called "fair use" as it is viewed today is extremely different from the "fair use" of 200 some years ago. When a professor today wants to do a lesson he can merely (many actually do this) photocopy whole chapter(s) and give them to his students, there was no equivelent of this in Jefferson's time. In other words, technology shifts the balance of power drastically into the pirates court. The same work that would have recieved balanced protection in Jefferson's time could be easily ripped off wholesale today.
Second, the author fails to consider the changing nature of the works produced and the markets that they are sold into. For instance, he mentions database producers recieving protection, yet he neglects that they are serving a unique function, a function unparalleled in Jefferson's time, that adds substantial value to the consumer, which is, in fact, very necessary in the digital world. There is little comparison between the levels and kinds of publications in Jefferson's days and that of today. The rate of creation, the shelf life, the specificity of published works, the amount of resources poored into development, and many other things have changed DRASTICALLY.
In short, the author takes means that were sufficient and proper in Jefferson's times to be a universal statement of what is right for all of time. Laws change for a reason. While I take issue with parts of the DCMA, it's simply ignorant to ignore the reasoning behind it. What's more, I disagree with the assertion that Jefferson would have supported the likes of Napster; Jefferson was a reasonable and intelligent individual, not an absolutist.