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Song Sites Face Legal Crackdown
CaptainPotato writes "According to the BBC, the Music Publishers' Association is stepping up to launch the next phase in the music industry's battle against online music. The MPA is demanding jail time for the maintainers of websites offering unlicensed song scores and lyrics. The MPA President has stated that closing websites and imposing fines is not enough, stating that by 'throw [ing]in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective' in its crusade." We just recently reported on the pearLyrics cease-and-desist order as well.
Quoth Anony Coward: "Smart people use IRC or "Us...t"
SSSH!! There aren't very many of us and we would like to keep it that way. If you are in the know, good. But don't spread it. kthnx.
BTW, good point about the popups and stuff on music sites. Whoever modded parent troll needs to rethink his groupthink.
Those of us who are ancient will remember that that's happened before. In the mid-1990s, the Harry Fox Agency (IIRC) threatened to sue the OnLine Guitar Archive (OLGA) for illegally reproducing lyrics without permission. Many lyrics were partially excised as a result, but the threatened death of online guitar resources failed to happen...
So if you ever get a tab sheet were you get the first word of a line and a sequence of dots instead of the lyrics, now you know why.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
A perfect example of pure self-production/self-release is the band (and arguably the 2005 Indie Darling Band of the Year*) Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! They produced/printed their own music (released by Clap Your Hands Records), sold it exclusively at shows and through their website (at a profit of 4-5 USD per disc, a figure that is considerably higher than that of what bands on majors and indies make per disc moved), got a mention in Pitchfork back in June of this year and have since exploded. Whether or not the band continues on the road of DIY/RYO remains to be seen (the only argument for joining a label in this bands case would be tour support, although that opens up a whole host of other problems/financial woes), but at least a band of merit/worth/talent has proven that you can make a splash without big money and record executives getting in the way of the artistry.
*not an actual award, but the buzz on them has been pretty stout
"How like you to drag your keyboard to a gun fight." - Aaron Bedard (BANE)
lets put this in programming terms:
Musical score != Rating.
Musical score == the actual music source code.
liqbase
http://kissthisguy.com/
Check it out. I think I saw the link here before, in fact. It is a great site, if a little difficult to navigate.
This site (obviously, perhaps) falls under fair use, but I wonder if the RIAA will put this on its list. I mean, the site has money generating ads and unlicensed excerpts of the real lyrics. I am sure the RIAA will ignore that 1) the bandwidth, hosting, et al needs to be paid for and 2) the RIAA is receiving FREE promotion of its wares.
How about this: lyrics sites respond by sending the RIAA invoices for promotional fees.
Can you really copyright grunts?
dude, you can copyright SILENCE..
what's next? making bands play license fees when they play covertunes at a show?
Aren't they already doing this; except the venue pays the royalties for the songs?
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
I'm sorry, but that is an E followed by an Esus4. It makes an interesting, discordant transistion that you really need to resolve within a few beats or people will think you're playing out of tune. Makes a great passing chord in certain applications though.
this:
---0--0-------
---0--2-------
---1--2-------
---2--2-------
---2--0-------
---0----------
is E followed by A. next would likely be E and then B A E and then you're playing the blues. Provided of course, you got da' blues.
Sorry, couldn't ignore it.
man, I feel like mold.
There was another case, too.
There used to be a fantastic web site about the Bonzo Dog Band. It had an annotated copy of the lyrics, explaining all the 60s pop culture references and in-jokes.
Some wankers from EMI threatened copyright litigation, and the entire thing was yanked. Even though the information was not available from EMI.
GCHQ Quantum Insert installed. If only our tongues were made of glass, how much more careful we would be when we speak
Please stop calling copyright infringement theft. It is not theft. Theft deprives someone of something. Copyright infringement is a wholly separate thing. You are stupid. Thank you.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Nope! That's a common misunderstanding, but actually derivitive works are still copyright of the original copyright holder; there's not really a difference between your two examples, for this purpose.
Derivitives do add one complication, which is that the changes may be copyright of the person who made the changes -- in addition to the original copyright. In such cases, neither the original copyright holder, nor the derivitive copyright holder, can do anything at all with the derivitive work unless both parties agree.
That doesn't come up that often, comparatively. Example: If you translate Bohemian Rhapsody into Latin in a creative way, the copyright holder of Bohemian Rhapsody can indeed forbid you from making any copies of your translation; they don't lose any rights.
On the other hand, they cannot make copies of your translation into Latin, either, without your permission.
It doesn't come up all that often, because why would they want to do anything with your Latin translation? Usually they don't, usually they just want to enforce their own original rights.
P.S. the above assumes that the derivitive work required creativity to create. If it was e.g. a very mechanical translation that required no creativity, then the original copyright holder may have rights to that non-creative derivitive as well. Phone books, for instance, are not creative works.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
The MPA welcomes your questions and comments. The most efficient way to contact the MPA is via email. Emails from the general public are usually replied to within 2-3 business days. You can email MPA Administrator Julie Averill, at:
mpa-admin@mpa.org
USC Title 17?