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Warner Chappell Apology For PearLyrics
RacerZero writes "The recent Slashdot story Music Should Be Heard But Not Understood sparked a good deal of discussion about the overreaction of music industry heavyweights. This week Wired is running an apology from Warner Chappel music for their poor judgement. From the article: 'Facing an upswell of protest, Warner Chappell Music on Friday formally apologized to Walter Ritter over a letter it sent to the software programmer earlier this month targeting a helper application for Apple's iTunes called pearLyrics.'"
Yes, here: http://www.pearworks.com/pages/pearLyrics.html
"Based upon our common goal of helping consumers enjoy the song lyrics they want - and our common belief that technology can help to transform the music industry to the benefit of consumers and artists alike - we are committed to working together to provide consumers a convenient, legal way to find accurate song lyrics.
The goal of Warner/Chappell's prior letter to pearworks was to gain assurance that pearLyrics operated according to those principles. However, in both tone and substance, that letter was an inappropriate manner in which to convey that inquiry. Warner/Chappell apologizes to Walter Ritter and pearworks.
Our solution will adhere to our shared belief that songwriters must be fairly compensated for their work and that legitimate web sites with accurate lyrics must not be undermined by unlicensed web sites.
We look forward to working together, and to helping to advance the evolution of the music industry cooperatively for the benefit of consumers and artists alike."
If I have nothing to hide, you have no reason to search me
RTFL from the EFF. It wasn't the volume of opinion or all your voices or a realization that pearLyrics might be beneficial to them or a conscience--it was the potential liability for damages from misrepresenting a non-infringement to the developer's ISP as an infringement that caught their eye. They would very likely have lost and paid out money not even adding the insult of losing in court and having that all over the web. They have no conscience--this was simply fear and greed in action. They had the legal tables turned on them, saw a potential loss staring them in the face, and gave up--defeat is not an indication of remorse or conscience--it is just defeat, no more, no less.
but I would be very surprised if the MPAA didn't make money off of blockbuster/netflix/etc. either on a per-rental basis or a monthly/quarterly/annual fee. If they didn't, then it must be legal to rent videos, or else the MPAA would have taken them to court for their money
I wouldn't be suprised if Blockbuster is paying the studios on a per rental basis. A long time ago Blockubster cut a deal with the studios for low/no cost copies of movies in return for a pay per rental fee. Don't know if they still do or not. If you rent from a smaller store like mine the mpaa will only be payed once for the movies I buy for the store. Also be aware part of the orginal deal was that the studios got the used tape back or a precentage of the sale. So buying a used tape/dvd still netted them money.
So if you can still find a small store in your area, rent from them. Sure they don't have 200 copies of the latest Hollywood pap, but you can still find something worth seeing.
Oh BTW the rental of tapes/dvds isn't covered by the copyright law. It's called "First sale".
The corrected statement is The copyright owner must be compensated. The song writters might or might not be the copyright owner.
If there is money to be made by "selling" access to lyrics, I think they'll try to get all other sites ruled as "illegal" because they are "unlicensed".
I think they're still focused on getting every last cent they can from the public, in any fashion, for the music / lyrics / art / whatever.
I suspect they're sniffing for a way to establish a racket for print licensing somewhat similar to performance licensing. At first, I was surprised by the statement, "legitimate web sites with accurate lyrics must not be undermined by unlicensed web sites", because it seems to me that in order to extract the maximum revenue, they shouldn't license *any* sites/tools for that kind of service unless fees can be collected for each use, or at least for each user. Many hands need many pockets, and there are a lot of hands vying for those pockets in the industry.
Or, put another way, the pockets of the many outweigh the pockets of the few (or the one), so they need to get the money from the end users rather than the distributors.
But publishers have been complaining for a long time about lost revenues due to photocopiers, and it's nearly impossible to stamp that out. Now those aren't even needed to spread the material. I see a parallel of sorts with the problems performance rights orgs had back when they actually tried to go after musicians covering songs to collect royalties. Eventually they realized that they were trying to stick their hands in pockets that were much too shallow and hard to track, so they turned to the venues instead, under the theory that they receive the "ultimate benefit from the performance". The system they've worked out is hardly accurate or fair to many of those they represent, but the organization is still getting money from many pockets, and that's what counts (for them). It also helps to limit the control of that licensing to just a few entities, forcing artists into the difficult position on which the parasites of the industry thrive: either accept an unfair deal or nothing at all.
Major music publishers, though, haven't been able to stamp out the competition and achieve that level of control (yet), as artists can still administer those rights themselves if they want without too much difficulty. To make that less feasible, publishers need to offer something that would be too impractical for most artists to collect on their own, but (ideally) would have a larger payoff than what this licensing usually generates. The internet just might offer a way to get that kind of leverage for a change, especially if there isn't a practical and fair way to sort out who should get what royalties from the use of web services. If a publisher can engineer that situation, the artists can then grovel for crumbs from their hands, too.
Or maybe I'm too cynical.
"First, We kill all the lawyers" is from a shakesperian play (can't remember which one) and acctually refered to the lunacy of the actions on the part of one of the characters. The assumption being that lawyers are needed for society to run smoothly. Which is true... "In Theory" (I love those words) Seriously, if you get charged with a crime, are you going to defend yourself in court, or are you going to hier someone who knows the law. The problem comes with the ethical code. Lawyers are only responsible to their clients, that's it. There is no higher ethical code. Comparisons: If a bridge built by an Engeneer collapses and people die, the engeneer loses their licence to practise, and will probably face criminal charges. If a Doctor F*#!s up and a patient dies, same deal. A lawyer gets a mass murderer off through a loop-hole or technicality, and he has done a good job, here have a cookie... see the basic problem. (or supports some womans lawsuit of Mcrap when she spills coffie on her lap...) [That was ment to ryme, sorry couln't help myself].