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CRIA Falling Apart?
An anonymous reader writes "Apparently, the CRIA (Canadian Recording Industry Association) has been falling apart recently. The biggest blow occurred when 6 major Canadian independent labels quit which was followed by some problems with the Copyright Board. Of course, this is all happening after the whole Sam Bulte incident. The article explains what happened with plenty of links for specific information."
The current situation is just that they want to distance themselves from the bad press of the moment, eh. In a year or so they'll be back and better than ever, the hosers.
Now of course lobbying groups with lots of money get lots of stuff organized for themselves, but here it seems like all legislation concerning music-copyright is more or less directly taken over from the record companies. That's like taking all environmental legislation over from either greenpeace or chemical industry.
I think the biggest mistakes are from the government of giving so much one-sided power to industry instead of being a representative of the people as they were actually chosen to be. Yeah, I know, reality is different, but it just still amazes me, maybe I'll get more desillusionized (reality-numbed) as I grow older.
molmod.com - computing tips from a molecular modeling
The current situation is just that they want to distance themselves from the bad press of the moment, eh. In a year or so they'll be back and better than ever, the hosers.
... and those artists tend to be in *favour* of downloads as it increases their exposure.
Probably not, actually. The labels that left, although they do have a few well-known acts, generally have small, relativly unknown artists in their stables
They're simply doing what's best for their business, not what's best for Sony.
"want to be able to make a living from it."
Yes, well, I'll betcha there's a bunch of people who'd like to be able to make a living from posting slashdot comments. That doesnt mean it's in the public interest to finance it.
If they 'love making music', to be utterly and horrifically frank, they'd still do it without copyright, and a free market would be better spending resources on other things, as the music would get done _anyway_. You dont get paid for doing what you want, no matter how much you'd like to, you get paid for doing what someone else wants. Only if you're very lucky do they coincide.
It's the laws of supply and demand, and with anything that's infinitely duplicatable at near zero cost, the supply outpaces the demand fairly soon; there are only so many hours per day to listen to music, and it's not a resource that needs repeated production (while touring and performing music actually is, which makes it vastly more suitable to make money from in a market economy).
That said, I personally do think it's in the public interest to finance the arts beyond what the true market value is. But it should be done not through monopoly rights on works, but through levies off those profiting from the duplication, fixation in media, performance and distribution of those materials. IE, let anyone and everyone copy, perform, sell, and do whatever they want with copyrighted material (keeping attribution intact), but tax the revenue of the record companies, bands and orchestras performing live, CD duplicators, etc, and divide the revenue among the original creators so they can spend more time creating.
The battleground isn't about musicians "being able to make a living from it", but rather whether they can make a living from it in perpetuity.
If I repair your car today - no matter how good a job I do - you pay me once, and I get to eat today. If your car keeps running for another 20 years, you don't have to to keep giving me royalties because of what a great job I did. Hell, even a doctor only gets paid once for a life saving operation.
However, if I make a hit album today, the RIAA, CRIA think that I should be allowed [or, more importantly, they should be allowed] to live off the proceeds of that record for the remainder of my natural life, as can my family for 50+ years after my death.
Why are creative people rewarded in perpetuity, when doctors don't?
Because creative people get to write legislation.
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
So, they want to make a decent living without having to work? Join the club. People who slave away for 8-10 hours every day are so sick and tired of hearing about musicians whine and complain that they can't make millions of dollars off of a few days or weeks worth of work.
You want to make a living making music? Fine. Work for eight hours a day, five days a week like the rest of us. Don't expect any kind of everlasting income from a single recording of music.
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
not today. Today copyright is how businesses steal 'ownership' from artists.
bullsh*t. Copyright puts culture under the lock and key of a corporation for their own profit, not for the protection of the culture. There's plenty of culture that is currently unavailable to us because the 'owner' doesn't see a profit. how exactly is that 'protecting' it in any good way?
right. that's why when an artist is signed to a label who owns them and their work they always remain true to their roots and never produce works as they are told to. sure.
Firstly, there is absolutely no evidence that without copyright 'great works' would not be created, in fact shakespear worked without the benefit of copyright, and has arguably created some of the greatest works of all time. Secondly; talented, creative people can no more not-create than they can not-breathe. It's in their blood. It consumes them. It drives them. They require no outside incentive.
And if it's all about incentive, how does retroactively extending copyright (Sonny Bono Copyright act) increase their incentive? It's already made! no further 'incentive' is necessary... Clearly it's about money, not creativity.
There's two possibilities here: Either copyright has created the correct number of jobs (i.e. the same as without) or copyright has created an innefficient system where the consumer is paying too much (in order to pay for the bloat, i.e. the *extra* jobs created)
If it's the first case, than copyright has done nothing, and is irrelevent. If it's the second, than we have done ourselves and economic disservice...
Proof please.
Again, there is absolutely no evidence that copyright has in any way increased the quantity of artisitic creativity anywhere. What there is, is proof that creativity happens without copyright, and there is proof that copyright generates monopoly profits for corporations who become larger and more powerful and demand tighter copyright controls for their own profits.
I'm going to postulate that the real reason that there is more recorded art today is for a few other reasons:
I would argue that the creative work that will have the most impact on society this century will have been created largely by people who will never be monetarily compensated, will be consumed by people who will never even say thanks, and yet will continue to evolve, to be worked on and yes to be monetized. That creative work is known as GNU/Linux, but comprises a larger scope of work that can also be called Open Source, or Free Software.
So all we really do get
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
Just like when Neal Stephenson the Author writes a book, he gets paid for writing the book. But Neal does not get paid every time someone...wait...what?
Shockingly, different industries have different models for compensation.
You should be paid to produce a recording of music - by the hour or by the song, or whatever. But once the actual work of making the music is over, you don't deserve to get paid anything more. You don't deserve to get paid every time somebody makes a copy of the music nor do you deserve to get paid every time somebody listens to that music either.
Then where's the incentive to write a good book that people want to read? If you're lucky, you'll get paid on the basis of what your last book earned...but I'm pretty sure this would just be an opportunity for book publishers to screw authors--particularly new authors.
While there are obvious and gross deficiencies in the implementation of intellectual property law in the United States (and elsewhere), the analogies used to advance arguments here on Slashdot seem to be equally flawed today.
~Idarubicin
Your argument is flawed.
You compare a one-time service to a succession of purchases. If you fix my car I pay you once and I don't have to pay you ever again. If you buy my CD, you pay me once and don't have to pay me ever again.
People in this thread seem to be suggesting that an artist should only get paid once for a song. Ok, sure, so I create an album, I get paid for it (what, $15? for a year's work or more?) and then if I want any more money, I have to create a new album?
You're suggesting that patrons of the arts (as a whole) should only have to compensate an artist once. Should prints available at the Louvre be free? I mean, the artist has already been paid for their painting, right?
Without copyright licensing (and copyright expiration, grrr Disney), then the creative process becomes something that people can only do in their spare time, when they're not working at their day jobs. I hate to tell you, but making art is not exactly an easy process. You don't just sit down and think 'I know, I'll make a hit single!' and then spend a few hours a night for the rest of the week polishing it up. It takes hard work, it takes passion, it takes enthusiasm.
Suddenly we're back to the FSF's concept of software. People should never be paid to write software, it all wants to be free! So work shitty day jobs, and then write software in your spare time. The flaw in that analogy is that paid, directed work accomplishes more than loosely-organised communities of hackers ever have. Cases in point: Apache (Apache foundation), PHP (Zend), MySQL (MySQL AB), Linux (RedHat, Suse, IBM, Sun, etc), and so on).
So we should not contribute to the artists that make music we wish to listen to? They should give us their creativity for free? We should not have to pay for performances? If you honestly think this, then you don't understand what art is all about.
But no, apparently, not only do you get to make $15M for 1 years work, you get to make money from that years work, for the rest of your life ! And if anybody dares to suggest that maybe you've had enough, you start complaining that your fucking family won't be able to survive without the income from a 20 year old lucky break ! Last I heard, families of lottery winners can not expect a regular payout from the lottery.
Breathe ......
If I'm ranting, it's because I saw a BBC news article yesterday, where some pimply lawyer was asking for the UK copyright laws to be brought into line with the US, because it simply isn't fair that people who made a record in the sixties, can't expect their entire line of descendants to ponce off it !
Colour me disgusted.
In fact, I don't care if they extend copyright to infinity, it will only cause me never to buy another cd/dvd ever again. Wonder how much money great-nephew Larry (on the mothers sisters brother-in-laws side) will be able to expect then ?
It's funny, someone wrote a song which said "Pop will eat itself". How ironic.
Bwhaa haah haaa haaah haaahahaha ! And you do do you ? Apparently "Art" is all about making money, when all along I thought it was about self expression.Did Michelangelo get paid for painting the Sistine Chapel ? Why yes he did ! Did Michelangelo get paid every time somebody looked at the ceiling in the Sistine Chapel ? No, no he didn't.
Last I heard, Michelangelo is considered a great artist.