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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?
Because ASCAP, BMI and SESAC already handle payments for analog performances. Why they needed a 'new' orginization for digital frankly eludes me.
That the artists already have an orginization called The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP). Unlike that one, this 'new' one has partial RIAA control. The final irony is that the BBC used a graphic for WorldClassRock.com, a web site that I set the streaming up for (15 different streams)and is now down to a single mono 20k stream (in other words is practically defunct).
MSNBC has this article which is a pretty description of the origins of copyright in the US and how the system is currently completely out of whack.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
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.
In other news...
RIAA officials will be sending groups of up to 2,000 teenagers to any house party, block event, or apartment get-together where so-called "DJs" (i.e., pirates) are illegally performing protected works. By filling the space with RIAA agents, the hackers and pirates can't get in, thus protecting the vital intellectual property from misuse.
Also, the RIAA and MPAA are continuing their plans to merge and become the fourth branch of US government, overseeing the executive, legislative, and judicial branches. Especially the judicial branch. Look for the RIAA seal in a courtroom near you! You PIRATE!
If you celebrate Xmas, befriend me (538
My guess: artists will be issued certificates from RIAA authority. (CA)
Yes, I understand that keys is is all they need to encrypt their music and not actual certificates, but hey, maybe I want "certified" music. heh. Anyways, this is one way for RIAA to stay in the picture.
prediction: next they'll wanna sell their music to me encrypted with my own key.
I never used Napster... was this a feature?
I don't think permission is the right word. If I own the copyright then I don't have to get permission from anyone if I want to copy-protect my work.
Pedro
----
The Insomniac Coder
I like the scope of this. It starts to resolve the new problem of what a club (or radio station) is to to with the sound that went out to the public. We at N2IT Development (Yes, we do FinalScratch) have allways wondered about this problem. We all agree it isn't fair to pay the artists that can show the 'highest sales' (I'd be really surprised if fewer than 95% of the new Michael Jackson CDs go straight to the shreader.) See in the past, all you had to do was fake good sales and get other's compensation. If you are really good, you don't have to even press the CDs!
Well, here in Europe, artists 'have permission' to place 'copy prevention' techniques on media. This is not to say they will or if they do, how easy it is to crack such crackpot ideas. It also keeps it legal to crack copy prevention: --NO DCMA in EUROPE!--
In a sence, us geeks might actually buy a 'protected' CD just for the sport of it. We all know it is __absolutely impossible __ to protect anything with a key everyone has. This is called the "Broadcast delima" in the accademic circles. I
think players that refuse to play until a certain release time are quite a joke. Ofcourse it is easy to 'spoof' GPS with super-low-power devices and bypass the system. Fortunatey one doesn't have to even bother with a method that may interferre with navigation as the "Broadcast delima" makes for a simpler crack.
I am proud to be in a society that allows the personal freedom to both allow someone a lame way to "protect" their IP and at the same time makes it totally legal to 'crack and tell'. It is **ILLEGAL** in Europe to deny the user a backup. There is nothing in the law that says the 'backup' must be in the clear. (There is a "copy prevention" method that will not work on Windoze and/or IDE drives. It can be shown that it can be easily defeated with SCSI and UNIX systems, using the most popular tools.)
Perhaps it will be mandatory to state it will not work (or copy) from an IDE/Windoze box and perhaps, if they are with it, will require a disclaimer that the latest 'copy prevention' techniques require professional copying. INAL, but in a twisted way, if Windoze cannot cut it, but Unix can, it must be technically legal, as nobody is telling you that you have to use Windoze here!
Speaking of Warner Brothers, they've got one of my photos on two of their pages at the official Harry Potter website. You can include it in e-postcards you send.
They did not ask my permission. They did not pay for the use of my copyrighted work (this particular photo has been sold for publication several times).
Needless to say we'll be talking (they've already made an offer to another photographer in the same situation).
In all fairness, it's the web design firm's that at fault, but I find the irony quite humorous.
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
Wouldn't it have been easier just to post a link?
Okay listen guys this is good. Why is MP3 piracy a problem?? Because really when you get down to it, songs are just data, numbers on a disk, and nothing keeps you from copying a bunch of numbers, right??
SO HERE'S WHAT YOU DO (if you're an artist, otherwise don't do this because the FBI can't tap your phone).
ENCRYPT your music files!! But wait I hear you saying.. how can anybody listen to TEH BOOTY BEATZ if they are encrypted??????????
Well you have a secret key, and only the people with the key can lsiten to the music!!! So instead of worrying about people copying your files, you don't care any more, because only the people with the secret key can listen.
PROBLEM SOLVED!! Let the money roll in, bling bling.
cause see, you can just sell the keys, over the internet, or on CDs, or in music players, or computers, because they're just data, a bunch of numbe......OH SHIT.
Fuck. forget it.
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.
remember that the _purpose_ of copyright is to encourage many people to read the works, and eventually change and incorporate them in new works
If individuals want to incorporate copyrighted works into new works without a lawsuit or royalties bankrupting them, they have to wait for the copyright to expire. Yeah, right. Not in my lifetime nor in yours. Copyrights already last 95 years, and you can bet that by 2020, Di$ney will have contributed another $6 million of soft money to the Republicratic Party in exchange for yet another term extension. How the courts consider 95 years as sufficiently "limited Times" designed "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts" escapes me.
Boycott the estate of Sonny Bono, whose widow introduced and sponsored the bill. Boycott Cher, who has been quoted as favoring a term of "forever less a day." Boycott the Walt Disney Company, which bankrolled the bribes that got the bill passed. Boycott all color motion pictures produced by MPAA member studios, as the first commercial color film technology appeared in 1923, and all works created on or after January 1, 1923, are under an effective perpetual copyright in the United States.
May Sonny Bono rot in he11.
Will I retire or break 10K?
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.
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.