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...
That no good deed goes unpunished.
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
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.
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.
The difference is the governments aren't funding those people! Oh wait, Governments around the world routinely do things like that. In fact local governments often put a lot of money into funding symphonies etc.--without that funding the "Classical Labels" who are complaining in this case would have a much crappier talent pool to pick from. This same issue came up when some town was releasing its GIS data a while back... I don't see how it is even an issue if it has already been paid for (as with that data and these performances).
--
WHO ATE MY BREAKFAST PANTS?
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.
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.
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
British Classical music IS parody
*ducks*
There is truth in humor.
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.
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.
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.
"The Stupidest Lawsuit since the World Began"
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
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.
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
Naxos issue low cost CDs of classical recordings. Three months ago they lost a court case brought by the Capitol label.
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.
There is no private copyright here. The BBC is a unit of the British Government, and its musicians are thus Government employees. There's "crown copyright", but that's limited to certain types of materials.
In the US, you can download many performances by the United States Marine Band. There can be no copyright on those performances. Works by the U.S. Government are not subject to copyright protection Free, legal MP3 here!
If the RIAA doesn't like that, tough.
.. wives and girlfriends for unfair competition
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.
No.
First, because the term 'prior art' doesn't even exist in the copyright world. Second, because copyrightability does not require novelty or nonobviousness, as patents do; instead it's originality that is required. This is a much lower standard.
The mere fact that there are multiple identical works is NOT a bar to the later of them being copyrightable. In that situation, the later one is only uncopyrightable if it was copied from the former. If they're coincidentally identical, however, copyright is ok.
A leading case on how this works is Nichols v. Universal, 45 F.2d 119 (2d Cir. 1930). You might want to read it.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
- 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
No.
1) the score is in the public domain (Mozart died centuries ago!), anyone can perform it
2) anyone who does perform it (or depending on the exact details of the agreement, commissions such a performance) owns the rights to that performance
3) the BBC commissioned such a performance, and owns the rights to it
4) it is this performance that the BBC is distributing
5) no-one is suing anyone; no-one has any legal grounds to do so
6) the idiot who's mouthing off is being a cry-baby about the government (the BBC is state-owned, but independently managed) giving away for free things that he and his associates are trying to sell, claiming that it's "unfair competition"
The BBC is perfectly within its legal rights to do what it is doing. What's more, as I help fund the BBC (through the licence fee), it could be argued that I have a moral right to access these recordings, as I helped pay for them. But then I tend to believe that anything that is produced by or on behalf of the government should be accessible to all (where appropriate - obviously there should be exceptions for security reasons, I don't want to know the details of troop movements, etc)
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Well there's the problem: these works are in the public domain and copyright law needs to be fixed. Let's extend the period that works stay under copyright to, say, 300 years, thus increasing the incentive for classical composers to write more ace symphonies and ensuring that the record labels get the megabucks they deserve.
I realize the sarcasm, but pipe down. You don't want any legislatures to have that idea in the back of their heads. Scary...
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.
That said, I find myself watching more and more BBC - partly because as their number of channels have gone up I've found more shows fit.
The upside is of course that since most shows on BBC are relatively free to experiment and not have to be commercial successes, there are often real gems to be found that doesn't get ruined by trying to target the lowest common denominator of a very diverse population.
You're nothing but a theif who wants to be able to steal the property of people who died more than 300 years ago. Property is property, and property rights do not expire.
:)
I am a decendant of Ug, inventor of fire. Every time you light a cigarette you owe me a license fee for using my Intellectual Property. Pay me biatch.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
things that he and his associates are trying to sell
What's more, people in his line of work have (had?) a habit of going to Iron-Curtain principalities to get their orchestras to record the classical works so they could just pay them a couple thousand dollars for all rights to the performances and then never pay royalties or share of profits, which western orchestras would require.
Check out the credits on the typical classical CD's in the record store next time you're in.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
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.