Slashdot Mirror
BBC In Trouble Over Free Music
Take a Byte Out of Crime writes "According to this article, British classical labels are claiming that the BBC giving away the these symphonies, which were performed by the BBC Orchestra for free, constitutes unfair government competition. Apparently all free music really is illegal these days, or soon will be, public domain be damned."
Time to get the Ouija board out and see what Beethoven has to say about all of this. He says...
"First post!"
Hmmmm...
IF THEY LISTEN TO REASON:
Claim prior art. You know, by Beethoven/Mozart/Bach/whoever.
IF THEY DO NOT LISTEN TO REASON:
Claim parody. Like Wierd Al does. I know its british, but I'm making the assumption here that there's a law protecting parody works in the big UK.
That no good deed goes unpunished.
Cant anything good be free?
If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us.
--Kurt Vonnegut
So much for going to a park now and listening to the musicians playing music there -- after all, they're producing unfair competition!
...any one care about how copyright laws actually work...
is that corporations will sue private citizens giving things away for free, claiming "unfair competition by [those people who damn well should be] the buying public."
Corporations = have rights.
Anyone/thing else = "with the terrorists."
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
From the article: "There is the obvious issue that it is devaluing the perceived value of music. You are also leading the public to think that it is fine to download and own these files for nothing."
Gee, maybe I'm wrong, but aren't Beethoven's symphonies public domain? How dare the BBC introduce a great composer's copyright-free works to a larger audience! They're devaluing it! And by "devaluing the music", you mean "devaluing your stock value", right?
Ron dies in chapter 9 of book 7.
Is it for the protection of the original ideas?
Or the protection of individual performances?
===
Can you play only public domain songs, sell it, and then have people trading your performances withouit purchasing them be pirates?
Does anyone know?
[I legitemately don't but would like to]
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
The complaint that this is unfair strikes me as being very nearly as absurd as the situation in the US where there are private companies complaining that only they should be allowed to have the data collected and generated by the taxpayer-funded National Weather Service, and that taxpayers should not be able to get the data directly from the government.
If these are the same ones I downloaded, they spent a few minutes chatting before they started the music. Not quite as bad as ads, but still, nothing that would cause folks who just played music anything to worry about.
Too bad - but made me take the time to rip a couple CD's for my MP3 player.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
Claim prior art. You know, by Beethoven/Mozart/Bach/whoever.
Prior art applies to patent law, not anti-competitive behaviour. Similarily, parody applies to copyright works, and not anti-competitive behaviour.
Not only the music industry, even the UK newspaper's are facing tough competition from the BBC's news website.
They'll be banning MIDI in soundcards soon.. Cant have MIDI reproducing music without loss.. holy crap..
Its time to get your handbaskets organised people, cause we're all about to go to hell..
-- Jim.
-- If at first you don't succeed, lie!
At first I thought this was ridiculous because music isn't a commodity, it's not like the government is selling the same thing as the music companies. But when I thought about it some more, in ways, most classical music is a commodity. I mean, when you're looking for Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2, for the most part people don't care about who plays it, the just care that it's a recording of the piece they're looking for. That said, it's not entirely commoditized, I mean, there are differences between recordings, there are different arrangements, different qualities of recording, etc.
It seems very odd though that record companies dealing in classic music would be of the opinion that classical recordings are commodities or that even if they weren't of that opinion, that they would encourage people to think of it that way. It just seems like bad business.
If you not good enough to compete with the public domain, then it's time to rethink your career.
Here in Atlanta there are occasionally "free" concerts and even "free" symphonies. I have never been strip searched walking into an outdoor concert in a park. If the initial investment (organization, advertisement, etc.) has already been made and no recordings are going to be sold of a given concert/symphony, who is losing out? Those people who missed the "free" show are not harming other performers by listening to my bootleg of the show.
The show is not free at all, but rather gifted to the listeners and paid in full before the actual performance.
I'll be your candy shop of infinite deliciousity if you'll be my discotheque of endless rump-shaking.
Is there any intrinsic difference between making the performances available for download and broadcasting the performances on digital radio.
If you have the right equipment (such as a Psion Wavefinder) and a reliable signal (not so easy for digital) you can record all the Proms at MP3 equivalent quality.
...I can deploy my private Army now? My shareholders have been itching for some action, and the government's got it all sewn up!
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
that the BBC isn't really run by the government. It's an independent Crown corporation like the CBC in Canada.
I don't understand how giving something away for free could be seen as competition. It's not like you can buy the exact same thing from a someone else. On the other hand, if this was something like Mozart/Bach/any|other|classic|artist where no one owns a copyright, then I guess giving it away while someone was selling it could be seen as an unfair buisness practice.
I still take the side of BBC on this one, though. They recorded the music with their own in-house orchestra and therefore should be able to distribute it any way they like. Period.
Software is like sex. It's better when it's free. -Linus Torvalds
Just more insight into why the recorded music industry is dieing.
I subscribed to BBC music magazine for quite some time - just for the music. Three bucks a month and it came with a CD attached to every cover. This isn't the first time the classical music fuzzheads have shown their cluelessness - when Sarah Brightman first started gaining popularity many decried how she was "corrupting the form." And when classical compilation CDs produced by small publishers (usually recordings of performances by east euro orchestras) many of these dying purists attacked them - again - for "diluting the value of these works."
This really is pretty standard fare for those old school classical publishers. It's not about copyright, it's about fox hunts and cardboard people and preserving their "high end" market image.
It is free music, alright. The objection is to the government entity (BBC is a government entity) distributing it.
I don't necessarily agree with their objections, but timothy's shrieking is annoying. At least, Mr. Katz was funny...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
First of all the music industry is consipiring to strangle the very human instinct of music. It is in us, and we are genetically programmed to appreciate it.
The reason this industry is fighting so hard is greed. Pure and simple greed.
They have a way of life/business model that can't addapt to the quickly changing digital world around them so like vultures they are clawing at their food supply.. namely your dollars.
So whats to do? Namely the copyright holders of each song/piece of music ulitmately control if it is placed in the public domain. Currently most are being greedy.. or are just clueless.
Its pyrimid ponzi scheme of artistic and corporate collusion, and its only getting worse.
They are the music nazis, and if you want it you must join their party and play their game.
We need to continue to encourage folks to step up to the plate. Bands, artists, songwriters of all flavors should make thier stuff availible online with one CC stipulation.. It can't be sold/profitted from unless the copyright holder changes the license.
Most of the stuff from the big labels is corporate shit anyway.. the only reason folks buy it is they are told its cool.
So those of who do make music cause you frelling love it, and not because you want a damn easy check fight on.
Live it, love it, make it real.
Even if you suck its better than canned spam coming out yer radio.
Peace, D
or could it be because they haven't got a leg to stand on and the BBC is perfectly within it's rights to have done this... having copyright anyway in the performance that they did, and therefore, they could dispose of it exactly as they wished, including making it available for free download so nya... nya...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
I'm sure many of us understand how the BBC works, it's funded in majority by the license fee we Brits have to pay per household every year. I think I paid 130UKP last year (220USD).
The argument about value for money is a can of worms I'm not going to touch, however, it smacks a little bit of unfairness if my US based cousins can enjoy what is arguably the best part of the BBC (BBC Online) without having to contribute a penny.
BBC Online should be protected in-line with the rest of the BBC, the content should be un-lockable via entry of my license number.
The same goes for the recent deal done to broadcast Radio 1 on Sirrius. Presumably the profit goes back in to creating the BBC, however, I'd prefer it to go back in to my already stretched pocket.
In NAFTA countries, this kind of lawsuit would actually be successful, and the Government would be liable for all potential losses. In the US/Canada it's very common for Corporations to sue States/Provinces - surprisingly Canadians sue American states more than the other way around.
According to the @!&*head of one label:
...ummm, a huge portion of the public already thinks that's fine.<br>
"There is the obvious issue that it is devaluing the perceived value of music."<br>
I guess we're only allowed to place a <b>monetery</b> value on music. To hell with any educational value it might instill.<br>
He continues... "You are also leading the public to think that it is fine to download and own these files for nothing."<br>
When will it end?
Quoth that source:
... so which one takes precedence?
WHAT IS NOT PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT?
Works consisting entirely of information that is common property and containing no original authorship (for example: standard calendars, height and weight charts, tape measures and rulers, and lists or tables taken from public documents or other common sources)
===
Technically those symphonies DO have original authorship but are now public domain, correct?
Is that original authorship a registered copyright, or is that just that it was created by a human and would have been protected by copyright (if they had applied)?
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
I wonder if their Anti-Trust laws work like ours...everybody's guilty, so it's left to the whim of whoever (*cough* anyone BIG *cough*) the bureaucrats decide to go after. - Charge more than your competitors...guilty of "price gouging" or "monopolizing" - Charge less than your competirors...guilty of "predatory pricing" or "unfair" competition - Charge the same as your competitors...guilty of "collusion" or conspiracy
A French bus company sues cleaning ladies who carpool.
Guardian article here.
What is up with Europe these days? We were glad when they rejected software patents, but these sorts of legal actions? They make the US look like a country where nobody ever sues anyone without reason ever....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The BBC's own symphony recorded them. It's the fact that the government is giving them away that's under debate.
Without a proper flamewar, Anonymous was undecided on what shell to run.
I thought all the classical music works (Mozart, Beethoven, et al) was free from Copyright? I dont think Beethoven or Mozart ever copyrighted their work(s). If so, who legally "owns" these? Maybe thei families have a case on ownership. But if they have no problems, why are some a**holes bitching over this?
Since the BBC (radio and TV) broadcast their programming for free and without advertising, all their works, past and present, constitute "unfair government competition."
Nevermind that they are essentially the vanguards of British culture the world over. That's not important at all.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
Submiter should have put a warning, Caution slippery sloaps ahead.
500 dollar reward for tip(s) leading to the arrest of the person(s) who stole my sig.
the govt is constantly giving this stuff away, should 3M file a lawsuit? seriously though, unless the govt is signing artists and setting up their own promo/disto channels, i don't see how they are competing with them. I would actually be against the govt doing so, even if they gave the music away for free. makes censorship that much easier. but giving away a few free songs? i wonder if we will send the US DOT after them too. Orrin Hatch probably thinks the british govts computer system should be put on fire.
So if you compose a song, it is protected under copyright. People cannot go and repreform that song without giving you royalties. Now in the US, reperformances, called covers, have statutory royalties, so the copyright holder doesn't have much say in it, but you still have to pay them.
However the performance is seperate, and also copyrighted. While osmeone can do a cover of your song, they can't just copy your performance without permissions.
This also means that though a given song may be public domain, a particular performance isn't. So all Motzart's works are public domain, you can post the sheet music on the net freely, without fear. However a specific performance of that music may be copyrighted. You can, of course do your own performance, or comission to be done, but you can't just (legally) copy their performance.
Both are seen as creative works. It is a creative work to create a song, but it is also a creative work to play that song. The musicians have a lot to do with the rendition of it, espically with classical music and I can say as a former classical musician, it's not easy.
Now in this case, you are allowed to trade the specific performance freely as well. The orignal songs are of course long out of copyright, and the BBC has chosen to give their work in to the public domain, which is their right.
The challenge is from greedy labels, not over copyright, but over unfair competition. They claim it's unfair that the BBC, which is taxpayer funded, is giving away works that compete with ones they sell. However the status of the copyright isn't being challenged. The BBC Orchestra performed it, and the BBC chose to relinquish the performance to public domain, that's a done deal.
interesting who submitted this post...
to get your free http://hebb.mit.edu/FreeMusic/ classical music.
Lawsuits of this type aren't always without merit. The idea is that in a capatalism, the government isn't allowed to unfairly compete with private corperations. I mean the government can basically always win out in a price war if they want since they can cover costs through taxes, which people don't count in the price since they aren't a direct charge. Since in a capatalism it is undesirable to have the government run everything (wouldn't be a capatalism if they did) it is generally illegal for them to unfairly compete with the private sector.
Now I see this as very differnet. The government isn't competing, they are doing a public service. They aren't trying to have CDs put in stores next to other classical works but for a lower price, they are just releasing some electronic music to the masses. Private entities aren't precluded form competing, they can produce different/better versions of these symphonies (like a DVD-A or DTS CD or something). This is just record companies being whiny.
Personally I say distribute more classical music, or shut the fuck up. It's truly pathetic the selection of classical available. Record labels don't like it very much since it's fairly expensive to produce (an orchestra has a lot of musicians, all who need to be paid, usually up front) and it doesn't sell nearly as much as pop music.
Thanks for clearing that up, that is a bit more clear...
MoM++ - A Classic Expanded - [Master of Magic 1.5]
http://mompp.sourceforge.net/
Laughing aside the argument that giving away something provides a justification(1) for stealing, lawyers could argue the following:
So, is this like when Microsoft first gave away Internet Explorer, in an attempt to shut down Netscape, which ultimately succeeded. What happened to them? Well, the Justice department decided that Microsoft was a monopoly and was unfairly using its monopoly powers. In the end, in spite of being found guilty, no punishment was enacted and the give away of Internet Explorer continues to this day.
This argues that BBC should be allowed to give away music.
Your opponent might then argue that BBC is a government entity and that private music producers have to compete against an entity giving away product subsidized by taxpayers money.
You could then counter and compare it against the situation where a government gives away medicine in an attempt to wipe out a disease affecting its citizens. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't know of any cases where giving away medicine in such circumstances has been prohibited. There are even case of patent violations where countries have copied drugs (I seem to remember this has occured in South Africa and Brazil) in order to reduce the cost.
In this case you might argue that the drug is music and the disease is modern culture.. but let's not start up that old argument.
In any case, this also argues that BBC should be allowed to give away music.
-----
(1) Think about the free product samples you see in stores occasionally. Do you think that this makes people believe that they can take home large packages of the same product being offered for sale without paying?
---- It won't be as bad as you fear or as good as you hope, but it will take twice as long as you plan.
I fear we are beginning to see the problems of diseases on capitalism really rearing their heads these days. The greed recently is overwhelming! Perhaps it is because most Western nations have lost their tangible manufacturing base to countries like India, Taiwan and China. Now instead of manufacturing goods, all that Western companies can do is manufacture "intellectual property". Since such "property", be it movies or music, isn't tangible in any way, it is often quite easy to reproduce and distribute. As such, these corporations and groups must resort to legalities to make a living.
Indeed, what we are seeing is a disease on capitalism and the free market. Our capitalism has been infected with intangible goods that are being treated as if they were tangible by the forces of law. The free market is not being allowed to work, and trouble is the result. Indeed, one cannot have an effective capitalistic society without a free market. Our free market has become diseased with intellectual property legalities, and as such fails to work to the benefit of society.
Cyric Zndovzny at your service.
BSKYB is claiming that the BBC broadcasting TV shows for free, constitutes unfair government competition.
"Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
"The Stupidest Lawsuit since the World Began"
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
BBC has these interesting Terms of Use here. Obviously they can't enforce these Terms, so I wonder what their purpose was:
h tml
From:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/beethoven/downloads.s
The BBC granted you a 7-day, non-exclusive licence to download this Beethoven Experience audio.
You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use.
"Can of worms? The can is open... the worms are everywhere."
If you compose a song, it's protected under copyright. People can't go and repreform that song without giving you royalties. Now in the US, reperformances, called covers, have statutory royalties, so the copyright holder doesn't have much say in it, but you still have to pay them.
However the performance is seperate, and copyrighted. While osmeone can do a cover of your song, they can't just copy your performance without permissions.
This also means that though a given song may be public domain, a particular performance isn't. So all Motzart's works are public domain, you can post the sheet music on the net freely, without fear. However a specific performance of that music may be copyrighted. You can, of course do your own performance, or comission to be done, but you can't just (legally) copy their performance.
Both are seen as creative works. It is a creative work to create a song, but it is also a creative work to play that song. The musicians have a lot to do with the rendition of it, espically with classical music and I can say as a former classical musician, it's not easy.
Now in this case, you are allowed to trade the specific performance freely as well. The orignal songs are of course long out of copyright, and the BBC has chosen to give their work in to the public domain, which is their right.
The challenge is from greedy labels, not over copyright, but over unfair competition. They claim it's unfair that the BBC, which is taxpayer funded, is giving away works that compete with ones they sell. However the status of the copyright isn't being challenged. The BBC Orchestra performed it, and the BBC chose to relinquish the performance to public domain, that's a done deal.
I sure am glad the Berman Hack-Back bill went down to defeat, because I downloaded all of the symphonies. Wouldn't want someone from the RIAA going into my network because they think I'm taking bread from the mouths of RCA Red Seal, Deutsche Grammaphon, or whatever classical label you'd care to name...
I mean, really...the Beeb does this to get people interested in Classical music. They certainly succeed, too...when this first appeared in Slashdot downloading was impossible for the next 48 hours after the article appeared. It was only thanks to archive.org and a few other sites that I was able to glom onto the whole set.
You can bet there won't be a "repeat performance" of something like this from the Beeb. Thanks a lot, pigopolists...
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power multiplied.
Well, well, well!!! It seems Mexico is not the only one doing stupid things. You think this argument is bad?? You should take a look at what Somexfon is doing (link in spanish). Basically, they want to charge you for every single piece of music you hear, wether in your car, home, public place, etc. even after you've bought the cd. For example, if a bus driver's listening to a song, he will be charged a certain amount of money because the passangers are also listening. Sounds stupid?? Well, it is!!!
Except that all British Citizens have paid for this music whether they chose to or not. That would be the same as if the government charged everyone $15,000 and then gave everyone a "free" car. It's not exactly fair to the competition.
The scores are public domain. The recorded performances aren't, unless they're either really old recordings or are released intentionally (as the BBC has done in this case).
There are far too many attempts to "unify" the world and destroy the free market of laws. This leads to universal bad government. The more governments, and the more independent, the better. Let international cooperation be limited to unofficial private transactions, like Free Software collaboration and private charities.
These recordings are most emphatically not public domain. I've seen several posts, at +4 and +5, claiming they are.
The BBC made these recordings available for personal, non-commercial use. You're not even allowed to give them to your friends, by the letter of the law and the downloading terms. If you missed out when they were available from the BBC website, too bad; you're not legally allowed to get them anywhere else, so you're SOL.
If they were public domain, then you could do whatever you wanted with them. Copy them, sample them, sell them, you name it, they'd be fair game. They aren't, so you can't. Period.
As for the record execs complaining: I can understand where they're coming from; after all, a full symphonic orchestra is not a cheap thing to have. You're talking about over 80 professional musicians here. I don't know if they'd be employed full time or not, but also consider the venue hire for rehearsals, recordings, etc. -- a studio that can fit a full orchestra is a hell of a lot larger than one that can fit a typical rock and roll band. The BBC, however, pays for all these through the British tax payer, not through (or at least, not solely through) sales of their products.
Having said that, I do believe that the execs are misguided. Making Beethoven's symphonies available for legal, free download can be considered the hook to get people listening to more classical music who would otherwise not even consider it. It's not a cake of a fixed size; this is an attempt to grow the cake, which the recording execs will benefit from in the long term. Maybe not in sales of Beethoven's symphonies, but likely in other works. There's a lot of classical music out there.
Basically here is how it works in this case:
The score is public domain, the performance is not, thus:
should you desire you could re-construct the score from the performance and re-perform it yourself and be in the clear. You can not, however, distribute a copy of the performance without the performance owners permission (which has been granted de facto by its posting on the web by the performance owner).
-nB
whois gawk date unzip strip find touch finger mount join nice man top fsck grep eject more yes exit umount sleep dump
I found a free song:
totally free song
stir-the-beenest-stories and see how hard they zzzzzzzzz.
preventing them from distributing the music for free is like if the government charged everyone $15,000 for the car, and then didn't give it to them.
At this point, computers can't do something like that of their own volition, so the person who set up the arrangement owns the copyright. Like if I were to get some Motzart sheet music, and then make a MIDI out of it, rander that to digital using synthesizers, I'd own the copyright.
You can take this to a further level, if someone arranges Motzart in to a MIDI, they own the copyright on that MIDI. If I then want to render that to digital, I need to have their permissions, but then I own the copyright on that "performance" of their work.
At this point, a computer is bascially just a complex musical instrument. All it does is synthesize sound based on input. It can do it in many different ways, but it still just does what a musician (or mixing engineer if you prefer) tells it to.
I actually do just this, render other people's MIDI music to digital format. Though it's very different from being a classical musician, it's still a creative process. As a musician in an orchestra, your primary concern is making your instrument sound as good as you can, and following what the conductor wants the peice to sound like. Doing a MIDI rendition is more like being a conductor, you choose what instruments play what part, how they are mixed together, make edits to the orignal score if necessary, etc. You aren't doing any work to create the actualy sound, the samplers do that, but the process is still dependant on your effort.
this will probably be modded down, but i mean really. i know slashdot is appreciated for being fast, but "the these symphonies" can be corrected with a small amount of checking. also linking to a secondary source is almost as bad.
Naxos issue low cost CDs of classical recordings. Three months ago they lost a court case brought by the Capitol label.
The BBC performances are seperate from that of the suing groups. The suit is over the right to perform that SCORE. It is over the SCORE.
Video Production Support
Basically they retain copyright still but are giving a copy away.
Maybe it's just late, but I can't figure out how to actually download anything, for the life of me. I keep coming back to schedules for when things were shown :(
-Bucky
It pisses me off when I encounter people who can't afford MIDI any respect. I mean, the whole "embed into webpages" stuff probably had a negative effect in the past--but it's great to be able to tweak a song or isolate certain voices or notes for learning purposes.
I wish they had an MP3/MIDI/USB-flash player. Now THAT would be really interesting...
The french... a bus company is suing some commuters for car. pooling.
The world is badly, badly b0rken.
err!
jak.
Making food for useful people since 1972.
kajkarx
oh, this has to go in the other box.
ppl are fucked.
I go for months without listenning to any music at all, no big deal. That said, it was BBC who paid its Orchestra to record these public domain works of the long deceased composer. There is nothing anyone can do to stop that, but they can bitch all they want.
You can't handle the truth.
You've never been strip search at a free concert because there were no organiser who were scared that by taking in a 50 cent bottle of water you would no be buying their 5 dollar bottles of water with the cap removed for you.
All hail the free-enterprise competetive concert organisers who respect us so much and aren't just thinking about their ability to part us from our money.
Sam
blog.sam.liddicott.com
Dude, *please* stop spelling his name "Motzart"!
This is the best news ive ever heard.. I propose we get a class action going against American Idol..
and if that doesnt work at least I can get an sue the crap out of my sister for singing britney spears in the shower.
serenity now!
.. wives and girlfriends for unfair competition
i've been trying to think of an example of something the govt provides that also provided by the private sector. is there a reason private schools don't claim unfair competition from the govt? any lawyers care to tackle this? is it because it's considered a "basic" service like roads and police? i wonder what things are considered ok for the govt to offer and what's not. gas, water, and electricity sound pretty basic to me. broadband probably sound pretty basic to most users here. maybe the things the govt is allowed to do is stuff that won't make a whole lot of money.
A large body of work created by the US Government is under the public domain. I've never heard of people complaining about that, or travel guide publishers complaining about the CIA World Factbook being free (not a direct comparison, but you could probably find better ones), etc. etc.
And if you think about it, why not? Governments are there to serve the public, so if they do release work, I think releasing them to the public domain is a good move. But yeah, the debate here is on whether music is something that governments should get involved in, or leave to private hands - see rest of Slashdot discussion.
This isn't the first that the BBC has been accused of competing with commercial interests. One instance that sticks in my mind is this: for a long time, they couldn't release WAP services for mobile phone browsing. Why? Anti-competitive. So, for instance, they couldn't release a version of h2g2 (the online, community-built version of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy). Although I presume that's been resolved, as they do offer a mobile version now.
And, as for tough competition, last time I looked The Guardian, a small circulation not for profit UK newspaper, had a website which has more page views than most of the rest of the UK newspaper industry put together, and competes with the BBC given far less resources. The truth is, Murdoch, Rothermere and Sullivan between them have reduced the UK newspaper industry to such low grade sensationalist crap that they cannot compete with anybody who does a half decent job, at least where the audience who can read and write are concerned.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
- we still use Sterling, not Dollars or Euros
- the money is collected through a licence fee, not a direct tax,
- our elected representatives have no direct say in BBC funding because it works under a Royal Charter, this keeps it independent of the government, and thus, free to report the government's business without bias.
The BBC has kindly summarised it's next 10 years here.boakes.org
You may not copy, reproduce, edit, adapt, alter, republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use this audio in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use.
You read it wrong: What you should concentrate on is "except for your own personal, non-commercial use." That dilutes all that was said before, limiting the ban for other uses, like you couldn't take a clip and use it in your radio commercial background promoting your products.
So read it as "you may do to this piece of music anything you like to do as long as it's for your personal use."
?SYNTAX ERROR
Apparently all free music really is illegal these days.
Excuse me?
After all, you might catch something from 'em as they seem to be willing to fuck everyone else other than themselves...
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
In Canada (I assume it's similar in the US but I'm not sure), the national recording association SOCAN goes around to retail stores demanding they buy a license to be allowed to play music in the store.
They came into my store a few times, demanding something like $100 or we would be fined. The staff were always instructed to tell the gustapo that the music we were listening to was a "friends' band" or somesuch. Since it was always indie music playing I guess we got away with it.
Their argument is that since you are using the music to "enhance your store's environment" you are in effect using it for commercial puposes and you should have to pay more. Never mind that we'd get asked by customers what was playing several times a day, and as a result probably helped sell/promote tons of CD's, these twits just don't get it. They want it both ways.
What I don't understand is why the music industry thinks that music is an art form that deserves special treatment. If I hang an original painting (or print for that matter) in my store (which I did) no-one comes around and demands monthly payment for it!? The painting is certainly "enhancing the store's environment" is it not? Fact is, I've already paid for it, and whether I choose to put it in my home or my place of business should be up to me.
Does anyone know if this situation exists elsewhere?
from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/beethoven/downloads.s
At first I chomping at the bit to flame this article, but the first linked article to mathaba is actually an interesting retort to a toss-pot classical music exec, and puts a very good spin on things.
Are BBC funded classical dramas unfair competition to unBBC funded dramas? Are BBC cookery programs unfairly competing against non-BBC cookery programs? You see, BBC is at least, one of the most workable implementations of the licensing system.
My only irk is that they want their license, and private money, and advertising... and this will push the ethos of the company into more 'trendwhore' territory, tainted by the smell of money.
Back to the article on slashdot, one whiney faced classical music exec doesn't mean BBC is in trouble. BBC run classical music radio stations, have thousands of hours of their own recorded works. This guy is thouroughly Pwn3d.
The second bloggish link didn't show up for me, but I guessed it was an uneccessary blogvertisment (I fucking hate having to use those words) rather than a link to the BBC site which talks about the release of the music.
The world is so fucked up, that people who want to value classical works by pure monetary value (rathen thatn intrinsic value) ACTUALLY BELIEVE they are right. The value of this music is not what you pay for it, and this guy needs a he-bitch-man-slap sometime soon.
RMNBKAO
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
It's not competition, because the BBC is not gaining anything from it. What's next, ministries that can't give away free pens anymore?
The court said such recordings were still covered by common law.
So US copyright is now infinite, enforceable after expiration? Heavy shit.
POKE 36879,8
I pay the TV license fee, and have done so for all the time I've been a householder. I think I've paid for that music many times over, over the years thanks very much Mr record company CEO. Record companies really are going to have to rethink their business model, going are the days when they can fix the price of a product just by acting as glorified middle men. Record companies at the moment are trying sell something for an extortionate amount of money and then turning around and saying that we have few if any rights to what is legally purchased! Well that aint on me old bucko! If you're selling "nothing" you can't very well charge a lot for it can you? For downloads I'd say around 10p a track is about right, just see what happens to "copyright infringement" levels then!. In other words try offering real value for money for a change instead of just thinking of your customers as mugs for the milking. Oh and while I'm on the subject of the TV license fee, when compared to the endless inane advertising on ITV, Channel 5 and Sky, give me the license fee every time.
Thanks for listening, rant over.
Let's see - the BBC pays this set of musicians (the BBC Philharmonic) to perform these specific symphonies, right? So all the arguments in this discussion about copyright are irrelevant, because the BBC would hold the copyright to these performances.
Really, how is this materially different than, say, the Cleveland Symphony giving a concert in the park for free?
#DeleteChrome
STFU and GBTW. We kicked your asses in the spanish-american war and WWI, and we'll do it again.
anyone?
Indeed, the Christian People's Party, main champion for the constitution had the gall of using Beethoven symphonies to promote it...
Article II-77-2:
Intellectual property shall be protected.
Danes and Poles, you still have your referendum ahead of you! Please be less foolish than us Luxembourgers!
What is wrong with *companies*? Maybe we should patent a method for chipping and incinerating money-grabbing corporate drones.
here
The BBC article uses the term 'Definative' in their story. The scarce quotes are theirs. They are apporopriate. The NY State Court of Appeals is not the final authority on issues of copyright, as it is Federal Law of a Constitutional nature.
One would hope that Naxos would pursue this to the appropriate Federal level. The Constitution is explicit that copyright is a limited priviledge granted by act of Congress.
One cannot abridge the First Ammendment by common law. Captial has no rights to defend, because they are not the rights holder, they are the former rights holder. "The People" now hold the rights.
KFG
You may be thinking of the case of Baker vs. Sanji which was decided in a venue somewhere in the Middle East of centuries past. In that particular case a poor defendant (Sanji) living in an apartment above a bakery was enjoined in a civil suit by the Baker, who sought damages arising from the defendant's habit of opening his apartment window every morning and taking in the aromas of the dark crusty bread, warm sweet rolls, and crunchy biscuits that wafted up from the bakery- without benefit or recompense to the plaintiff who toiled over the hot ovens to produce the smells. In his complaint the plaintiff argued in court that the defendant had been "stealing" the smells, and sought damages for the "whiffing and sniffing".
The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, but in the remedy phase of the trial issued a symbolic judgment where it was arranged that the plaintiff would hear the "clink clink" sound of the defendant's money as it dropped into a bowl, in lieu of an actual settlement.
Sorry, don't hate me. :( I feel dirty...
All that it takes is people like him and, over time, more and more music becomes unencumbered.
I am surprised that the large corporations have not cottoned onto the idea of free music as an inducement to advertising. Think of the vast sums that they spend just to have their name put in front of people's eyes (think: adverts in football or formula 1 racing). Those cost a lot of money.
What would it cost to commission an orchestra to play Mozart/Beethoven/... and release the MP3s with a short message of the form: ''Beethoven's Moonlight sonata brought to you by XXX, purveyors of fine YYY'' ? If it isn't too intrusive most people would not skip it or edit it from the MP3. The licence could be personal use, no redistribution which means that everyone who wants it should go to their web site and see more adverts for YYY.
Wonderful for: giving away free music; testing peer-to-peer video downloads; internet radio; downloadable radio programmes; podcasts; an open-source website; Dirac; the best news website; its radio programmes; and even a couple of decent TV programmes. Terrible for selling off its technology arm; its infrastructure; its industrial relations; fat-cat management; most of its tv programmes. Sadly, the things it does terribly would seem to be a direct threat to the things it does wonderfully.
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
It has also done so in this case: Other services offering downloads of classical music
This time I could be arsed.
How is this even competition? Somehow because the BBC releases free music they own means that I won't be interested in *other* music? I'm not sure how listening to particular free recordings is going to make me not want other recordings too. I mean, if someone handed me all of my David Bowie CDs for free, how would that somehow make me not want to have my Pink Floyd CDs even if I had to buy them? This is a really strange argument.
From now on, every company should be able to force people who own appliances to pay a yearly fee whether they want to or not, in exchange for FREE music.
It's their plan for when the public gets wise to copyright terms being extended every 20 years: let copyright expire, but expand "common law" to fulfil its function perpetually.
Ultimately, perhaps we'll see copyright, patents and trademarks withering away, replaced by a first-class, perpetual intellectual-property title without these ideas' restrictions.
Uh... tinfoil body-suit on, but why should we trust the BBC that this was the original recording?
...Never mind. Hey, Slashdot, make you a deal. I'll lay off the sauce if you lay off the dupes. :P
I got in trouble too! I got caught stealing free cookies.
I would mod you as I see fit, but unfortunately I don't have the points right now, so...
Err Its not actually free. We (Brits) pay a license fee and therefore we have a right to access those performances since we paid from them. If this case wins then ITV and other non-license fee channels could argue that all free t.v is illegal!
Do these classical music muppets claim a monopoly on it. I'd like to see them try. As for unfair competition I'd like to complain that they get [aid to whistle dizie were upon I dont, does that makes sence - NO.
therefore If music peons get paid to whistle dixie and I dont then you must ignore this load of crap for what it is. Grown up schoolchildren who complain that somebody got more gold stars than them instead of making there own gold stars.
PS i pay for my internet, TV BBC lic fee and sadly I probably indirectly pay for these muppets to winge.
play on.
PPS Aint these trcks just a tadge out of copyright period anyhow, so any attempt to pursue it would realy be an attempt to pervert the copyright laws albiet indirectly; It is still a direct attack. ANd I'm buggered if I'm letting all my employee at eth BBC ( I pay the lic as do many UK people so there our servants along with the goverment) waste a single penny on this pile of bullcrap.
First off, I am a huge advocate of free music and creative commons.
Let us take a moment to revisit what happened with the book selling industry a few years ago. Barnes and Nobles began selling its best selling books at nearly zero profit or sometimes even at a loss. With their massive overhead, they were still able to generate enough income. This strategy forced many many small book shops out of business. Most of them depended on best selling titles as a major source of revenue.
Now they lost much of that income because they could not match prices with Barnes and Nobles. (I image the story is the same with Borders) Once the local competitors were knocked out of business, BN could begin making small profits on best sellers once more.
Germany has(or had) laws to protect against this practice which is why there is still a variety of different shops here.
I enjoy BN, and I think it is a great store. But, I valued the small bookstores that work with smaller publishers, and integrated themselves more as a unique identity in the community. Now most major cities only have 1 or 2 such places. They are most definitely cherished.
Sure its not hard to find differences in this anecdote with the recording industry. But lets think about the similiarities too. The BBC is using the massive clout to shut out some of the lifelines of its competition. This might not be the ideal that everybody here makes it out to be.
So please take just one moment to stop and think about the other side on this one -before they start putting starbucks in our concert halls too.
Edit: Before you scream "BBC isn't tax funded!" I say yes, they certainly seem to be. They're licence funded, which is tax wrapped up in nice words.
Adventure, Romance, MAD SCIENCE!
Like if I were to get some Motzart sheet music, and then make a MIDI out of it, rander that to digital using synthesizers, I'd own the copyright.
I can't resist pointing out that if I also created a MIDI that I would own the copyright on my version. In fact my copy and your copy can be bit-for-bit identicial. If someone else then publishes that bunch of bits it is impossible to tell if that is perfectly legal or if it infringes your copyright or if it infringes my copyright until we find out where the got the bits.
What Colour are your bits?
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
In case you didn't notice, no one is suing the BBC. This article is just about classical record execs complaining to the press.
Shouldn't the headline read: "Record companies in trouble because of free music"
No but, yeah but, no but...
Is it just me or has the word "loss" been given a new definition?
A "loss" to me is something that means I'm financially worse off after a transaction than before. Why did this now all of a sudden come to mean "profit not made"? If I miss an opportunity to make a profit, that is not a "loss" - it's money not made (by me), but not money taken from my pocket. I have exactly as much money at my disposal as before. I have not, in any sense, "lost" anything.
Ok, there might be people who counter this with the argument of the cost of advertising etc. to which I would like to reply: so what? Nobody forced you to spend that money in the first place!
If I spent money to rent a billboard with the text "Send my money if you read this!", could I in good conscience call all the people who read this but do not send me money thieves? Could I sue them for my losses (I paid for the billboard, after all)?
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
The recordings were issued as part of the BBC's fantastic Beethoven season, which included the broadcast of his complete works on Radio 3 and some terrific television programmes. This is what we in the UK pay our licence fees for, and I felt that this season well and truly earned my entire licence fee for 2005! The record execs are (1) barmy, and (2) entirely unjustified in their attack on the Beeb. What next, should we pay royalties to reveal news stories by word of mouth to our family and friends?
There was a recent discussion about the making of freely redistributable recordings of classical music here
Why oil price increase equals economic trouble (Score: Interesti
Obviously they can't enforce these Terms, so I wonder what their purpose was:
Why can't they enforce them? Everything there seems OK to me.
The BBC granted you a 7-day, non-exclusive licence to download this Beethoven Experience audio.
Download is a process which makes a copy, so they can restrict this however they want.
You may not copy, reproduce, (restriction on copying -- allowed by copyright law) edit, adapt, alter, (restriction on making derivitive works -- allowed by copyright law) republish, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, (restriction on rebroadcasting and public performance, allowed by copyright law) or otherwise use this audio in any way (obviously this is partially unenforceable because fair use rights contradict it in some respects, but it is still a useful clause because it may cover other protected activities that they haven't mentioned, e.g. storage in an information retrieval system, unless that's what is meant by 'post') except for your own personal, non-commercial use. (limits the restrictions previously applied to allow the use they intend the files for -- a grant of rights, so doesn't need to be backed up by law)
Seems like a thoroughly reasonable EULA to me.
Their recordings are generally very well priced using little known, but quality artists, not hyped up stars.
- Consumers are being forced to pay for the BBC to produce those recordings via the BBC's license fee, which is a compulsory tax for those with a TV set. This means that to buy the commercial version you must pay for both: hardly fair competition.
- Due to the huge size of the BBC it can empoloy monopolistic tactics such as using a loss leader to kill off competition. It can also afford to buy any technology it needs even if that technology was developed at risk by smaller commercial organisations.
- In the absence of commecial competition, how likely is the BBC to continue providing this content at the same quality and price. The BBC is mandated to provide free TV, radio and website, but all other aspects of the business are revinue-generating.
Basically, the BBC should avoid doing what can be adequately be provided by the commercial sector. Thing like classical recordings made by the BBC are not free; they will be paid for by us one way or another.
I dunno, this lawsuit has to come pretty close...
Of course, it is not exactly trivial to persuade a court that a performance came from a particular copy of the score (unless you introduced the odd change).
Isn't IP law fun?
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
We paid for them via the licence fee. Of course this means BBC DVDs should also be sold at cost price to licence payers.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
Hmm, I heard about that "case" but it was in a different book when I was in school --- a book about a famous Japanese judge. It's clear to me he was a fictional judge.
That was a Scholastic Book Club book from the late '60s or early '70s.
I wonder what the real origin of this story is?
I was never that big into classical music, but after hearing the BBC's broadcasts on mp3 I'm starting to dig them.
And to think, I was actually going to look for other classical works to buy. What a bunch of losers.
I am NOT putting my signature in this stupid little box! How do I know you won't steal my identity???
There are a lot of silly lawsuits these days, but sure they're a lot better than agression, murder, corruption or robbery cases.
Also it seems that the common citzen has easy access to the justice, and this is a wonderfull thing. And even better, it shows that the common people can relly on the public defensors when they're accused.
Here at Brasil justice is a thing for the elites, and the commom man, the poor one, don't really has access to it. Also, there is a lot of corruption in our judiciary system... since the judges are indicated, and not elected, and has all sorts of privileges and imunities.
So I for one, think that the amount of silly, or even stupid, lawsuits are a indication of how democracy, and the citzen rights, are respected and valued. Since even this kind of nonsense has it's place before justice... at least it means that everyone has a chance to be listen.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
Rrright. And libraries are unfair competition for Amazon.
Their point is fairly moot.
maybe, but it's like no tax you've ever seen before (except perhaps the window tax). Everyone pays the same amount. They pay it ever year, IF they own a TV. Infact, it's more like paying for a subscription to the BBC's channels, it's just that you don't have a choice if you want to own a telly. Oh, and the more 'senior' members of society still have to have a licence, they just don't pay for them (in which case they're not being taxed)
FGD 135
Fantastic article! A great way to speak about IP. Thank you.
"Only the small secrets need to be protected. The big ones are kept secret by public incredulity." - Marshall McLuhan
The version I remember has to do with a dinner wager in which one man is supposed to stay on top of a frigid mountain overnight, without a blanket or fire. He stays warm by focusing his attention on a distant fire and is said to have cheated. A judge agrees and the man has to prepare a feast for the man he lost the bet to. Everybody learns a valuable lesson when he prepares food and won't let anybody eat it, insisting that they are as satisfied by the smell of the food as he was by the vision of the distant flame.
A few comments since you're all out busy raping my mirror.
What is humor if not pain tempered by time?
Check out what they did to this.
As I said, I didn't know that they were not allowed, so I've taken them down. It was never my intention to infringe upon someone's copyright in any way, so they're being removed.
What is humor if not pain tempered by time?
Second, because copyrightability does not require novelty or nonobviousness, as patents do; instead it's originality that is required.
The difference between the standard of novelty and the standard of originality is whether the alleged infringer has had "access" to the plaintiff's work. But in this age of ubiquitous commercial radio, it can almost be assumed that every defendant has had access to every work because all coincidences will be explained away as "subconscious copying", making originality not that much different from novelty. Read the gory details
Start now. turn your surname into a corporate and have all your family members on the board.
Then your family as one will be more powerfull than any single member.
Fight power with their own game. Private corporates based on family members can fight back.
Though we still have to work out how to bury 500000000 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean...
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
the music. I'm beginning to wonder if Omar had something when he banned music.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
provided free of charge and operated solely by tax funds.
Hmm.. this is a tricky one. Does someone fancy explaining more details on this common law ruling?
The copyright in the sound recordings had expired here in the UK as we only have a 50-year term on recordings (although the term on say the composer and lyricist is 70 years after death, so mostly only recordings of Classical music, like these were, are truly in the public domain).
In the US there is no written statute protecting sound recordings fixed before 1972 - the only thing you needed was permission from the composer of the piece.
So, legally they should have been completely in the clear.
Would this ruling apply only to NY state?
That's the same damn lawsuit.
Those damn commie-europeans! This is against the free market! How dare that organisation offer something free to the public when the public has funded that organisation with taxes!
O, wait...
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
The first tune I heard on a PC was a midi by one of the great early composers and it is distributed by Microsoft.
:)
Sharing is caring.
Pixels keep you awake!
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
even more absurd than this: a french bus company is suing a cleaning company, because the maids started a 'car-pool-scheme' to get to/from work. The bus company is suing them because they are no longer using tranist, and its 'unfair competition'.
Using the car-pool system allows them to save about $161 per month.
That was just one example. Another one was the Police (which in fact is operated solely by tax funds) and the military also falls into that category.
Another, even more beautiful example is the road-net. Isn't that unfair competition to private toll-roads?
Industries that behave the way the entertainment industry has deserves to die. Rather than adapt to the changing nature of their audience they are willing to attack that audience to preserve it. Kind of a cull I guess in their twisted logic.
There is a certain danger for people who sell stuff that people don't "need" pissing off the people who might buy their products. I haven't bought a CD or DVD in five years, partly because there is so little stuff worth having and partly because every time I hear something from the industry, it just pisses me off a little more. Over time, I have found out I don't miss the stuff. I listen to music on the radio and on discs I already own, as well as watch TV, but beyond that I do other stuff that does not contribute to their bottom line. I don't boycott anyone directly, I just don't make an effort towards any of these offerings and have found I can exist quite happily without them. Plus I have more money for when I do want to indulge myself.
Companies that feel they are entitled to a level of profit from the public will do more damage to the economy that any group of terrorists.
So US copyright is now infinite, enforceable after expiration? Heavy shit.
The copyright in a sound recording published before 1972 is not perpetual. Congress has agreed to allow state law copyrights on sound recordings to continue until 2067, when such works will fall into the public domain.
One would hope that Naxos would pursue this to the appropriate Federal level. The Constitution is explicit that copyright is a limited priviledge granted by act of Congress.
And until the end of 2067, Congress in turn grants this privilege to the several states.
I don't see that the BBC is in trouble, all I see is a bunch of ticked off executives. Kind of like the rich kid in the playground unable to understand why the other kids don't like him or his expensive toys over the tyre-swing in the tree.
And following on from Anonymous Cowpat (who's right), if you own only a radio, you can access ALL of BBC radio and the website for free. The licence fee is ONLY if you own a TV.
Personally, I'd happily pay the licence fee for Radios 3 and 4 alone. The rest is a bonus, as far as I'm concerned.
Meh, I've always been of the opinion that once a word becomes part of slang, the spelling will start to conform to the phonetics more than "fixed" words. Similarly, I no longer twitch when I see transcriptions of 80's slang using words like "narly." It just helps differentiate these words from their more formal roots.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
provided free of charge and operated solely by tax funds.
Well neither is the BBC. It relies on a license fee where anyone can opt out by not purchasing a tv.
Recently in Iowa City (my hometown) there was a guest editorial in the local newspaper complaining that allowing the city's firemen to give one another free haircuts deprived local haircutters of their livelihood. The Mayor and the City Council got on it right away and banned the city's firefighters from giving each other haircuts. (True story.)
So anything you do for somebody else that could potentially make a profit for anyone who is in business is now illegal? You can't give a buddy a free beer, because that deprives the local bar of business. You can't have friends over for dinner because they might have gone to a restaurant for dinner. Heck, you probably can't even have sex with your significant other, because they might have gone to a prostitute!
I hate the 21st century. I think I'll to out and sue somebody.
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
And I tip my hat to your skills, I wish I could do the same.
That's true, but it is also true to say that "It is almost entirely funded by mandatory taxation on television ownership and the editorial line is enforced by a government-appointed quango."
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
no, instead we have laws that make it illegal to send a letter without paying the USPS, whether you use their service or not.
I think there's an exception that allows other companies to deliver letters as long as they charge at least ten times as much as the USPS does, or something like that.
The USPS is unfair competition, and trying to say it's not only weakens the rest of your argument
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
"you can post the sheet music on the net freely" requires some qualification.
If you wrote the sheet music yourself by hand copying it from another version or from the aural performance, then you own the copyright to the sheet music and you can post it on the net.
But if you buy a set of sheet music from a publisher, they probably own the copyrights to that and you are usually not permitted to make photocopies or to post them to the net.
It'd be interesting to see how many practicing musician have violated music publisher copyrights by photocopying sheet musics. Been in a HS band, any one?
Yet another version, the one that I've always heard was about a Chinese restaurant in San Francisco and it was the poor man's decision to pay with the jingling of the change in his pockets. The story's probably apocryphal.
The USPS is unfair competition
Anyone who starts a business trying to compete with them knows what they are in for, just like starting a business putting out fires competes with the fire department. Is that fair to the new business, maybe not, but there are damn good reasons why we have publicly owned police, fire departments, and a postal system. The potential for abuse of all these services is extremely high and all of them are vital to everyday life. The post office was created and protected from competition so that it can remain free of censorship, reliable, available in emergencies and throughout all economic situations, and free from tampering and theft. It may not always function perfectly, but it is a task that no private company can be trusted with yet.
One of the things that has been forgotten here, is that the BBC has in its constitution, the requirement that it does not stifle the free market.
There is nothing in UK law [1] that prohibits the BBC nor anyone from releasing noncopyrighted music.
However, UK law isn't what's at question here. What's at question is whether the BBC broke its own rules.
The BBC is funded almost entirely by a tax on television ownership, and overall control belongs to an unelected body appointed by the government. Part of the BBC's responsibilities are to foster the broadcasting market in the UK, a small country that would otherwise be drowned in foriegn imports. This means balancing making more programmes to encourage the market in areas where it is deficient (for instance, classical drama), making quality programmes in areas where competition might otherwise drown the market with low-quality products (for instance, soap operas), and making no programmes in areas where the market already produces diverse quality (for instance, AOR).
[1] Actually there are hardly any UK laws, England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland have different legal systems. Usually English and Welsh law is identical. Scottish and Northern Irish law frequently differs.
Andrew Oakley - www.aoakley.com
Saying that it's justified, or that unfair competition is OK in this instance, is fine, but the post I was replying to was trying to _deny_ it.
We've secretly replaced Slashdot with new Folgers Crystals - let's see if it notices.
But the maximum copyright term for anything in the US is 95 years. So for these recordings from 1930 they would fall into PD in 2025 if federal protection existed on sound recordings fixed prior to 1930.
By extending that to 2067 when the law reverts to federal control they've now extended the copyright term on those recordings to 137 years!
There's no case. How do I tell them..?
I'm in a Unix state of mind.
http://www.thelenreid.com/articles/article/art_244 _idx.htm is a good summary of the ruling.
Next the classical music labels (gargantuan Sony) will be suing the air for illegal copyright violation, as it distributes Sony's music without a license. And as for those electrons in your DSL line: watch out, electromagnetics, YOU'RE NEXT!
--
make install -not war
The recording industry cartel is complaining about unfair competition from a public broadcasting corporation.
Welcome to inside-out planet! Have a very confusing day!
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Last April Acuweather, among others, tried to prohibit the National Weather Service from providing free weather updates, because they viewed it as unfair competition against the private, pay service or advertising supported weather services (most of whom USE NWS data for their reports.)
All the actions of greedy people are asinine, no matter where it happens.
Yup...
Sounds like a no-brainer decision to me -- make 'em all give those files away for free :-)
would sue the government for cleaning up the beaches and opening them to public..
Actually, they used the term "Definitive".
I vividly remember the last time one of my parents put soap in my mouth. It tasted disgusting, and I later got in trouble for spitting into the toilet.
Why on earth would anyone want to make a diet of it?
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Yup. As in an alternate form of gnarled, which is probably a frequentive of gnar .
I'm still not a fan of the "kewl" spelling of "cool" though. Not only does it not simplify the word, but it imples an entirely different pronunciation, albeit one perhaps closer to the current argot.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
But the maximum copyright term for anything in the US is 95 years.
No it isn't. Take the case of a work with an individual author who created the work at age 20 and survived until age 80. Then the work is under copyright for life plus 70, which equals (80 - 20) + 70 = 130 years. Yes, it could happen: see Irving Berlin.
if you listen to a good recording you can hear two distinct alternating "voices", cutting each other off as if they're having an arguement. The notes in the score are barred and stemmed so as to reflect this - so the stems go up for one voice, and down for the other (among other subtle cues). This is the sort of thing Lilypond will never be able to do by itself
"By itself" referring to .mid to .ly conversion, right?
although it's powerful enough that I imagine that a good editor who knew how to use it could get good results out of it.
The Mutopia Project accepts patches to its editions.
Actually there's quite a bit of free classical music out there; try http://www.classiccat.net/, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Music_s ound, http://hebb.mit.edu/FreeMusic/ and http://pan.zipcon.net/. The pan.zipcon.net site (functional but not pretty; try DOWNLOAD.html to get to the music) contains much of the catalog of now-defunct Pandora Records from Seattle, who appear to to have had the foresight and courtesy to place their material in the public domain when they closed up shop. I'm sure there's much more but this was just what I found in a brief couple of hours a few months ago.
Don't forget arrangers' rights as well. It's possible the BBC performances were done from copyrighted arrangements rather than the original public domain score. If this is the case, then copying the arrangement by reverse-engineering the performance itself would [also] be a breach of the copyright on the arrangement.
Not sure what the status would be of an arrangement that is identical to the public domain arrangement which was used for the performance, but that was transcribed from the performance itself. You could argue it's a derivative of the performance, but it's identical to the PD work so by doing (even profitable) stuff with your transcription you're not exactly doing the performers out of anything (which is what they'd have to prove if they took you to court).
You are indeed correct. "My bad".
Sound recordings in the US are limited to a maximum term of 95 years from when they were published.
This ruling would extend the maximum duration of copyright in a sound recording to 145 years.
"Apparently all free music really is illegal these days, or soon will be, public domain be damned."
/. poster.
No, the complaint is that music publishers can't compete against government sponsored, tax payer subsidized, free downloads of performances that cost a lot of money to produce. The London philharmonic got paid a lot of money for these performances, paid for with your tax dollar. Rather than selling them, to recoupe this money, the performances were given away. Whenever a producer of a product offers it for a lower price than the current market value, the overall monetary value if the product is lowered. This point, that the music labels tried to explain, was completely lost on the article writer and the
The arguement has nothing to do with public doain, since the performances are owned by the BBC. The music may seem free, but British citizens who pay the BBC tax actually paid for the music for the rest of us, so the music was not free as in beer.
In short, whether or not you agree with the music industry's position, at least describe it orrectly, rather than using straw man arguement tactics.
Vote for Pedro
For example, Gilbert and Sullivan's operas are public domain. However, than doesn't necessarily mean that if you find a printed libretto or score, you can copy it legally.
There are people creating new editions of these all the time, and those fall under modern copyright. The only difference is they don't have to ask the heirs of G&S to do so. They can reverse engineer it from a recording, or, much easier, simply write a new score out based on an old one.
This is a great thing: I can go and buy a beautifully engraved new edition of "Pirates or Penzance", or, I can sit down and make my own edition. No need to ask G&S's great-great-great-grandlawyer to do so.
I spend time working with local opera companies. Sometimes they'll perform an opera in which the only score and parts are hand-written and very hard to read. If it's particularly bad, they'll legally take on the work to do it themselves. Once done, that edition is copyright to them. Some sell it, some rent it, some hoard it. High-end music is almost always rented - you cannot legally purchase the score or parts to most Broadway musicals, for example.
All the hard work in producing a professional score is not just the notes - it's the layout. Making something readable and professional takes time and a lot of practice.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
Reconstructing a score from an orchestral work is kinda difficult. Mozart claimed he could do it, but, well, he was Mozart.
Even public domain music can be copyrighted, in it's sheet music form. The copyright applies to the edition, which is usually re-typeset and does not look like the original score. If it were a photocopy of the original score, it would be public domain.
AFAIK, this copyright on the sheet music does not carry over to any recordings made from it.
according to SCO it costs $699
What ? Me, worry ?
This may be a bit of an overreaction on the part of these companies, but at the same time, works that are by classical composers that people actually *know* without having to look them up in an encyclopedia are probably the bigger revenue centers for these businesses. I think it's great that you can download this stuff for free, but not if the price is causing the classical music business to take a nose dive because the government or tax-funded groups were a little too helpful. It's easy to say that these groups can adapt or perish, the only problem with that is that in the classical music business, "perish" is probably an acceptable option to those in that business who prefer higher profit margins.
In the version I read (from Danny Kaye's Around the World Storybook), when the dinner guests arrived, they found the man stirring a stew pot--hung close to the ceiling over a single candle....
In the wrong hands, sanity is a dangerous weapon.
Penguin suing the University of Virginia because its e-text archive is wrongful government competition? Microsoft suing a company or university that receives government grants or contracts because its students contribute to the Linux kernel?
It's an interesting phrase. Most often, in discussions of economics, the "tragedy" is assumed to be the overuse by one person of a common resource --specifically, the overgrazing of a village's common land because each farmer figures they can add a few more sheep to their flock. This tragedy scenario is used to argue that common resources will be destroyed by use, and therefore must be removed from common ownership and owned by some particular person or organization in order to preserve them.
Except that the whole idea is historically inaccurate. In reality, this scenario was avoided by a complex set of social norms. Everyone in the village had a stake in keeping the commons useful and generally managed to keep it so, despite the theories of economists. This worked until the land was enclosed -- divided up and put under private ownership, less practical on a small scale, and generally forcing small farms out, or forcing them to rent from a few giant landowners. In general, the few large landowners profited, and the many smaller landowners became poorer.
It's been noticed by many that the copyright of music and other intellectual "property" is the same kind of enclosure. It takes valuable things -- Beethoven's music, say -- out of common hands and places them into the hands of a few giant corporations. And in the case of the IP commons, we don't even have Hardin's argument for enclosure: no matter how many people listen to a piece of music, or run a piece of software, it's not going to get used up or worn out.
The BBC is paid for by fees that anybody with a television is required to pay. So, no, whatever you get from the BBC isn't free, it's paid for. Given that the BBC produces some of the best programming anywhere, I think that's still a good deal.
Is it unfair? No. Contrary what companies want you to believe, they exist only because the public lets them. We can dissolve corporate charters, hand out monopolies, regulate companies, put companies under state control, and destroy business models. The only thing we can't do is disown people: people can get whatever their shares are worth after we, the people, are through with doing to a company what we think needs to be done to a company.
As a rule, we don't do a lot of unnecessary things to companies because it is bad. But people need to be reminded every now and then that corporations only exist for our benefit as a society, not for any other purpose.
Sometimes I think we need a (+1, Sarcasm) moderation that is a blend of funny & insightful ...
If the byteme email address wasn't obvious enough, I fear lest the sarcasm be lost on grandparent otherwise.
Or are you implying that 43.18% of all Luxembourgers are trolls?
Hmmm, maybe that's the reason why Differdange had such a high no outcome: all the Gerlache park dwarves that have been stolen over the years came back home that day and voted...
You can fight this. Call the company and complain. Call higher ups in the classical music world and ask them to refuse to work with these companies.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
Off the top of my head (and stating point-blank that I am not really "down" with the current generation), kewl seems to be applied only as an adjective and generally applied only to something being either personally or socially appealing. It's a less... calm variant in some ways. It implies a degree of fervor or excitement in the subject. ^_^ But that's just my impression based on usage.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
These recordings have not been released to the public domain.
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