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Bar Performer Arrested For Copyright Violations
Edis Krad writes, "An elderly Japanese bar manager and performer has been arrested for playing copyrighted songs on his harmonica. From the article: 'Investigators accuse Toyoda of illegally performing 33 songs such as the Beatles' songs "Here, There and Everywhere" and "Yesterday," whose copyrights are managed by the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers. He allegedly performed the songs on the harmonica with a female pianist at the bar he operated between August and September this year.' This is for all those kids who are learning chords on their guitars — be ready to pay fees for practicing 'Smoke On The Water.' This story seems to be legit, though it reads like an Onion piece. It's only being reported in the Mainichi Daily News via MSN.
It appears as though the threading code has broken since the comments went over id 16777215 (ie limit of 24bit numbers)
The comments themselves are being added, but the internal link back to its parent has gone up the swanny.
Is a 24bit value an acceptable database field length or is this a code problem?
liqbase
Now that there's international precedence, expect to see the RIAA lobbying for similarly harsh enforcement of copyright law around here (OK, maybe not this bad). The trouble with copyright infringement cases like these is where to draw the line. Logically a band covering another song in a large venue for a paying crowd should pay some type of usage fees, while little Johnny shouldn't need to pay anything for playing the Star Wars theme at his small piano recital. But everywhere between those two extremes it gets pretty murky.
Crack - Free with every butt and set of boobs
Stealing from poor, hardworking, underpaid, struggling artists like mulit-multi-millionaire Sir Paul.
The difference here is that this guy plays the tunes in his business establishment. One could reasonably argue that he does derive financial benefit from having music as a perk for his patrong.
...for now.
Unless the guitar-playing kids are imposing a cover charge when playing for Aunt Sally, I think they are free from worry...
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Every cloud has a silver lining....
Oh arse
Denied!
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
This story seems to be legit, though it reads like an Onion piece. It's only being reported in the Mainichi Daily News via MSN.
This sounds too much like a joke. In theory, this is supposed to be impossible. In the USA, and one would presume Japan as well, bars/nightclubs are responsible for paying fees to composer societies (this includes ASCAP and BMI in the USA) to cover exactly this sort of thing - a performer performing copywritten material. In the USA I've heard of ASCAP and BMI going after bars and nightclubs who didn't pay them money, but never performers. Again, I can't speak for Japanese law, but in the USA it is clear that it is the owner of the performance venue, not the artist, who has to pay this fee.
That is the next step.
After that profit.
Bars in the United States pay either ASCAP or RIAA (I think it's ASCAP) a flat rate for playing songs in their establishments. The association actually has undecover monitors that check out bars and other venues and then sue if the establishment isn't paying royalties. I really don't have a problem with this part ... but arrests seem to go overboard.
seg fault
Apparently parody is not protected under Japanese law.
;)
An old geezer on harmonica and a underage Japanese school girl on piano?
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
I have noticed (to much LOLing this morning) that nearly every article on /. is tagged with "itsatrap"... what gives? Doesn't this kinda defeat the purpose of the tagging system in the first place? At the very least, it was highly amusing to see every article tagged with "itsatrap." Maybe we should lobby slashdot to legitimize it with an admiral ackbar icon.
Hades, PoD: Official Advocate
Yes and the copyright owner needs the money!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Well, go figure something like this would happen, i bet the RIAA is eating this up
What exactly was he 'stealing' here? An idea?
It's not like if he recorded what he's playing and then sell it on it would risk losing sales to the original artists.
His actions had zero impact on sales for those artists/labels in the unlikely event it had any impact at all it would have been slightly positive (e.g. someone gets tune stuck in their head and seeks out the original).
I take it he'll be dis-barred?
If the story is true, even if this guy didn't pay his licensing fees, does he really need to be arrested? The last time I checked copyright infringement was not a criminal offense but a civil offense. Large scale bootleggers are usually charged with something more substantial like fraud, mail fraud, etc which make their actions criminal. IANAL. Somebody inform me on this.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
cover bands?
This story shows up at least once a month. It's a hoax. Last time, it was a bar being sued into bankruptcy for letting a local band play covers.
C'mon, Slashdot should know better than to fall for these things...
Let's see if this comment actually sticks. Perhaps it's been fixed now? (I have no idea why you were marked "Troll", either.)
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
This happens all the time. ASCAP & BMI have reps that go around to bars and start billing the owners for public performance. I have been told that they rarely approach bands but almost every bar that has live or even recorded music, juke box etc get hit by bills from the song publishing companies.
...arresting people for whistling unlicensed songs.
Seriously now, AFAIK a few music labels have special licences for bars and whatnot, but do they even apply to live performances?
Never mind the music, have you seen the guys name? "Mr Toyoda " indeed! He should be up for trademark infringement!
I tried posting a reply to his comment (just to see if it had been fixed), but apparently it has not. Judging by the fact that there are no replies on this thread, I'm guessing it's become somewhat universal.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
but i guess to be playing in his establishment he would have to have some form of entertainment license?
if your not paying then you really shouldnt be playing music to patrons, sucks to be a street busker then, think of all those people you are entertaining, the donations probably dont outweigh the royalties! expect mugging to go up as all the buskers look for alternative ways of getting your change.
"while little Johnny shouldn't need to pay anything for playing the Star Wars theme at his small piano recital."
Don't let Lucasfilm know. They'll sue the harmonica player over his name. If that won't get him, the car company will. Followed by the sewing machine company.
Where were you when the voynix came?
My god I haven't seen threadless articles in slash since I last delved into the real archives.
I think people aren't noticing it, but they will.
Damn annoying when a technical fault occurs, and no I don't know why its marked as troll either.
liqbase
http://news.tbs.co.jp/headline/tbs_headline3420997 .html
http://news.tbs.co.jp/ram/news3420997_11.ram
http://news.tbs.co.jp/asx/news3420997_12.asx
He says he didn't have the money to pay off the JASRAC mafia for da rights ya see.
Interactive Visual Medical Dictionary
"at the bar he operated between "
the owner of the venue and the performer..
maybe they sued his 'operator' hat, not his 'performer' hat.
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
As the conviction rate in Japan exceeds 99%, we can be almost certain that this dangerous international economic terrorist is going to be kept off the streets for a long time. At last, Japanese listeners can be assured of hearing only 100% approved covers by the latest Pop Puppet of the Hour!
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
I haven't logged in for some time, then over the last few weeks or so, I see a large portion of stories like this?!?! Has this site has become some gossipy news rag? I am a little surprised to say the least....
Simple solution: stop listening to this newfangled "rock and roll" stuff and just focus on classical. Haydn and Mozart's copyrights ran out long ago, so you can practice and perform their work for free. (Granted, some of the newer classical stuff is still under copyright, but it mostly sucks anyway.)
...following the principles of Heisenburger's Uncertain Cat...
As has been pointed out, this particular case is covered by bars paying ASCAP fees.
But this brings up an excellent point. In a culture where all intellectual "property" is owned, can we be far from though crimes by just humming a song?
The irony is thick here. George Harrison, a member of the Beatles, was sued and lost for unintentionally copying "My Sweet Lord" from the Chiffons' song "He's So Fine". It was a major blow to Harrison.
The problem is that the record companies that own the copyrights own monopolies on rights, and can conceivably charge as much as they want for these rights. The arms race has already started for movie licenses for songs. In the commentary for the Blues Brother's, John Landis comments that a movie of this type will probably never be made again, because the astronomical cost of music licensing.
The only conceivable long term solution is free culture. Society will still find ways to reward authors for their contributions without the current licensing nightmare. That is the only way culture will be able to keep evolving. The mix-ups, mash-downs, movies and cultural references in the future depend on having unencumbered source material. And the more the copyrights holders squeeze, the quicker this will happen.
Pretend you're a composer and you have just written the piece that is the pinnacle of your career. The New York Times says that your piece is the most musically perfect piece of classical music every played. Orchestras around the world want to perform your work. Do you have a right to charge them for it?
Of course you do. If you didn't, then why would you write the music?
"Copyright" is not a monolithic right -- it is a bundle of individual rights that includes the right to copy, the right to prepare derivative works and, important here, the right to perform the work publicly. Non-public "performances", like playing in your garage or humming, are excluded.
There was a post questioning whether the performer or the bar should be liable. In general, the performer is directly liable for the infringement -- he's performing it publicly. But, because the bar owner could have prevented the infringement, but didn't and instead profited from it, the bar owner is probably liable as well. (It's called 'vicarious infringement.') Mainly for convenience, ASCAP and others typically deal with the bar owners rather than the performers.
I have two comments that show up in my messages, but not in this news item because it looks like the ones I responded to have vanished. At least when I click on "parent", I get a sort of null message.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Nice one, dipshit. It's genuine. The original Japanese article has his full name and address, and it's been on all the major Japanese news services since this afternoon (he was arrested this morning).
...George Michael was arrested for playing "Come Together" on a pink oboe in a public lavatory.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Well, with a name like "Toyoda," he's lucky they didn't add a charge for Trademark Dilution.
What?
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
In the US, bars and other venues for live and recorded music "performance" (playing in public) usually pay a blanket subscription fee to ASCAP and BMI, which each collect royalties for the different artists they represent. They record a random setlist, either one day a month or so, or one hour a day for several days, depending on the royalty agency, to send to the royalty agencies. Then the agency sends fractions of the subscription for the whole month to the artists in the random playlist. The artist's pay has the royalties already deducted before being paid.
Of course, that's the way it's supposed to work. In practice, many venues, especially smaller ones, don't even bother sending in their royalty subscriptions. And BMI/ASCAP don't represent all artists - SOCAN represents lots of Canadian artists, there are other even tinier agencies with their own exclusive artist list, and of course many smaller-producing artists don't register with any agency. The venues that do report usually don't report the random samples. When they do, they often just make them up. And of course those samples are not really random, or represent their total performance lists, except in venues which play the same 5 songs over and again (there are certainly too many of those). But artists with fewer repeats get left out of the sample, and the biggest artists obviously get even more favoritism, and therefore much more royalties - the little ones get some random trickle, if anything. And then the agencies often don't pay their artists, who have no way to know how much they're being cheated, while the agencies keep a much larger percentage of the collected royalties than necessary, for supporting their fat, lazy, lying, cheating, stealing corporations and shareholders. And then there are the gangs that blackmail venues by threatening them with "royalty enforcement" (which can stop their music activities), no matter what their compliance, if the venue doesn't pay the gang the extra bribes - while the gang pockets any legit payments instead of sending it to the agencies.
I've worked in and with the music industry for over 20 years. Including some of the biggest promoters/producers in the US. Some of my best friends still make their living in the criminal music industry, mostly musicians, but some venue owners/operators and some even label execs. They prefer the European model, which is mostly the same, but which at least requires the venue to report every song played. Which at least starts with a more fair requirement, but which is abused about as much as in the US.
The industry wants everyone moved to a blanket license - covering everyone, even if not a "bulk rate". Their holy grail is music recognition software, which reports every person/place's performance for network royalty payments. When they can, they will make everyone's phones monitor everyone all the time, reporting any music we perform and taxing us. That includes playing recordings, pianos, singing in the shower, "Happy Birthday"©, gospel in church, probably even air guitar. All tracked, charged, stored, datamined, and used to micromarket everything to you, along with your favorite songs.
--
make install -not war
The article seems quite clear, the guy was the MANAGER of the place, that he was the performer too was probably inconsequential; it just makes for a better fear-inducing story...
I too am having this problem, and I suspect everyone else is, but hasn't noticed or doesn't care. What's really fun is that if this is fixed soon, all of the redundant comments will show up and be moderated down (I posted the same CNN link that you posted LiquidCooled in response to the Vista RTM because I didn't realize that you'd posted it 10 minutes before I did). Bring on the negative moderation! I don't see how this is trolling (although offtopic and redundant do apply).. It should at least be left in the top level for people to see.
A new low in "news" coverage.
...there's a lot of stupid replies saying "it must be a hoax", "copyright infringement isn't a criminal offense", "why should he be arrested for playing a couple of songs", etc., and since replies seem to be broken...
- The guy arrested had been running the bar and doing live performances there since 1981.
- JASRAC had approached him repeatedly since 2001 to cough up the required fees for his performances (just like every other bar, club, pub and watering hole in Japan).
- He had continually refused to pay those fees.
- In Japan, copyright infringement is covered by both civil and criminal law.
- JASRAC went to the police and asked them to enforce the law.
That's about it. He knew what the law is, and he kept on breaking it, so he got arrested.
"Yesterday, Rife was such an easy game to Pray..."
Sig? - yeah, whatever.
Investigators accuse Toyoda of illegally performing 33 songs such as the Beatles
Toyota motor company sued as well, claiming that playing bad harmonica under the name "Toyoda" qualifies as defamation of character and slander.
Latewire
But I did get a message that you posted a reply. Oh, and I can read your reply - which you'd probably guess if you're reading THIS reply.
Ben Hocking
Need a professional organizer?
Slashdot comment threading is broken!
The replies made to comments exist, but the threaded display of replies having comment ID greater than 16777216 (aka 2^24) are not displayed properly.
So far, this affects both the old and the new comment display system. Let's draw the editors' attention to this so that they know it is a problem!!
Copyright law has always granted songwriters the rights to performance of their art. In fact, this used to be the primary right demanded by musical artists, back when performance was the main form of deriving money from their work. And it's still a big deal. Madonna has no right to make big-time $$$ playing a song I wrote.
Where this falls down is the composers' guild trying to get money from things like Happy Birthday, which has clearly fallen into the public domain. But Beatles songs have not, and they clearly fall under copyright violation in the US as in Japan.
Theres no point in a problem being buried away down here - it needs highlighting so something can be done.
I'm not sure if the dupes problem will ever come out, if infact the data value has been stored incorrectly in the database then the parent can never be restored.
I suppose a quick way to find out is to actually find comment with id 16777215 and see how many replies its got...
It might simply be that a few of us are getting this problem, I notice on the bugs page there is reference to the database load balancing code, so it might be that our DB is the only one having a problem.
I started noticing problems and comments early this morning.
liqbase
Seriously, how many notes do I have to miss or how much do I have to vary other parameters such as tempo, phrasing, arrangement, words, etc. for my performace NOT to be considered a performance of some (ill-defined) "work"?
Set your phasers on "funky"!
I recall something like this happening with the Girl Scouts a few years ago, when they were sued maybe for singing Happy Birthday at camp functions without a license. After the public outrage, I believe they paid a license of fee of $1.00.
Ibid.
going after bars and nightclubs who didn't pay them money, but never performers
RTFA. He is the bar - it's his operation.
And it's not like someone was walking by his business, heard Beatles tunes, and called in an air strike. Just like everyone here says, it's up to the copyright holders and their representatives actually police this stuff, right? So, they did - they asked him to stop. He didn't. They got an injunction against him using this material in his business without permission, and he refused. The arrest is for violating the court's injunction, not for playing "Yesterday" (though, that should be an arrestable offense, if it's only on a harmonica).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Because bands have forgotten why they are popular in the first place. I understand their feeling that they "own" the songs but come on its your fans. Hurt your fans you will hurt yourself.
if you RTFA, the artist in question *is* the owner of the venue.
This sig left unintentionally blank.
... considering his name is, in Japanese, identical to Toyota (the car manufacturer/business conglomerate, and incidentally also a common last name, like Toyoda). You just have to know based on the person/company which pronunciation it has. This is one of the reasons Toyota generally spells the Toyota in katakana (a set of characters generally used for writing foreign words, italics, and other strange edge cases) rather than kanji (Chinese characters, like a name would typically be written in), because they have some chance of saying somebody writing "Toyota" in katakana is referring to them rather than themselves.
Other fun Toyota trivia: the top result on Google for both Toyota/Toyoda in kanji (identical, remember) is Toyota City, which is Toyota's company town in Aichi Prefecture. Well, if I were being honest pretty much the whole of Aichi Prefecture (at least Nagoya and the surrounding environs) is a Toyota company town. I know a friend who lived in Nagoya: his dad works for a company which supplies Toyota with parts, his mom is a teller at a bank which Toyota owns, his brother is a R&D guy at one of the non-car Toyota companies, and before he got his own job in Tokyo he worked nights at a convinience store owned by, well, take a guess. I'm amazed its even legal to drive a non-Toyota car there sometimes.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Now I don't know anything about law in Japan, but I don't see how this could hold water here in the states. First of all, has no one ever heard of a 'cover band'?? Seriously, if every band out there paid royalties to play covers, than it is doubtful that any unsigned bands ever would perform them. As a matter of example, Tucson, AZ hosts a yearly event called The Great Arizona Coverup, where local bands all pick a group and perform covers. People pay to come to the event, and I can again guarantee that all of those clubs and bars are not paying royalties to anyone in order to host such an event. Nor could they be sued over it. Fair use standards apply here. If I'm not mistaken, in order to record covers, bands need permission from the copyright holder. Whether or not royalties are paid are determined through the permissive agreement between the copyright holder and the user. /.ers don't get out enough if I have to point out this simple fact that is commonplace on the live music scene (both local and beyond). *sigh*
It pains me everytime people start squawking "ZOMG copyrights!! RIAA is out to get us!!" People have been permorming other peoples' works for years, both live and recorded, and will continue to do so.
Sadly, it is a sign that most
Support a true independent artist - Leila Lopez
I have a phone number that sounds like two bars of a B-side Britney Spears track. Guess I had better let my stepson know not to phone me ever again from a bar - wouldn't want him to serve 14 years for asking for a ride home.
Guess this means the RIAA will compare a database of all phone numbers to a database of all existing music (perhaps in MIDI form) and have the $8,000 licensing fees added to the phone bill when a match is found.
I have noticed that nearly every article tagged itsatrap is accompanied by someone complaining about it.
Tag it appropriately.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
That's how Michael Jackson avoided being arrested for fiddling with the kiddies...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
cfulmer wrote in http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=205709&cid =16784841 :
Alternate scenario: Pretend your grandfather was a composer and he had written the piece that is the pinnacle of his career. The New York Times said that his piece was the most musically perfect piece of classical music every played. Orchestras around the world still want to perform his work. So why do you have a right to charge them for it?
Actually this story reminds me of a similar one, that just occured in France about 6 months ago.
During the departure party of a retiring school teacher, a choral of 6 years old kids sang a french song which title would litterally translate to "Goodbye mister professor" (the choice of this song was for obvious reason).
No money was ever involved in this case and the only audiance was composed of parents and teachers. Unfortunately since it happened in a very small town, the story was related in a very local newspaper and reached the hear of the music copyright nazies around here, the SACEM.
The school was fined a couple of hundred euros for having performed "copyrighted" music in public without authorization.
Ironically, when the very writer and performer of this song heard of this sinister joke he decided that he'd be paying the fine in place of the school...
PS: Appologies if this post ever appears a second time but threaded answers seem to be foobar.
Hey, that's my joke from about 15 minutes ago! I demand royalties! ;-)
OT: I'm not actually complaining - it is interesting that you got modded up and I conversely got modded down though (given too that they are only a handful of posts apart).
I've changed my usual behavior and started marking people who are jerks in discussions I read "Foe's" - so I've now got a fair few more Foe's than I used to. While this is making my reading experience much more enjoyable I have had some geninuely good posts modded curiously recently... *raises eyebrow*
Somebody warn Weird Al.
I'm strongly against police raid to curb copyright violators, but I agree that if a restraining order is in place, then you better think twice before you do it again.
The issue here is if a court should ever grant restraining order on copyright violations, but it doesn't look like Toyoda bothered to contest it at all.
I once had a signature.
So a harmonica has become an instrument of copyright infringement now? And at a criminal level? If he were passing out sheet music or recordings of the original songs that's one thing, but just (as per the featured article) playing music himself? Even though much of that music wasn't even arranged for the harmonica? There's gotta be something more to this. Failure to pay royalty fees or some such ...
Woody Guthrie once put the legend "This machine kills fascists" on his guitar, amazing how things have changed since them...
SIGBUS @ NO-07.308
All your harmonica music are belong to us!
Its about time someone cracked down on all those old guys playing harmonica. Same guys that sitting on a jury bench would send a hacker, cracker, or teenage script kiddie wippersnapper to prison for 5 to 10.
The cycle never ends. At least not until folks start running on the anarchist ticket.
It's about time.
Look. When you have a law like this, it helps society. When a guy breaks the law like this, he really needs to be made an example of. If we allow people to break copyright laws, then we will never have any significant music, pictures, movies, or any other form of art.
Besides, it's the law. Law must always be upheld. From a societal viewpoint, everything from throwing gum on the ground to murder is the same. You cannot distinguish, because if you do, then it's a slippery slope.
When a guy sings a song in a bar with a harmonica it's simple: He is destroying the economy and tearing at the rule of law. It has to be stopped. They gave him repeated warnings. They should probably throw the guy in jail, take all his money away, and if there's something they could do to the family (i.e. throw them in jail, take their money, whatever it takes), then they should. I don't think there should be any limit to what society should do to guys like this.
I thought only the lyrics could be copywritten not musical notes. Is this not true? I seem to remember Weird Al getting into hot water from the Chili Peppers for taking their music and putting his lyrics to it but there was nothing they could do about it. So relating to the story if he was only playing the music not singing the lyrics how can he be in violation of anything?
In the US, performing (but not recording) cover songs is often considered fair use; the idea (I think) is that it's your own interpretation, therefore it has artistic merit from you and beyond that of the original recording.
In some countries (including lots of Europe), doing cover songs is often considered to be less of your own interpretation and more of simply public performance of the original work, which makes it illegal to perform anything (excluding public-domain) in public without explicit permission. Personally, I think it's a little overboard, especially when the original songs aren't arranged for harmonica.
--TheOrangeSquid Is it any wonder things seem so awry? We swim in a sea of confusion and don't have to think to survive
Cease the FUD. An article in one small newspaper about one individual being charged under a foreign jurisdiction is not "precedence". It's media flame fodder and a couple idiots laying charges without understanding copyright law.
You can copyright lyrics. You can copyright an arrangement. You can copyright a performance.
A pair of people playing a harmonica and piano can only violate a lyric (song) copyright if they sing.
You can only infringe an arrangement if you're using or practised using sheet music that someone published; if you create a play-alike that sounds close enough to be recognizable, it's a new arrangement that doesn't fall under the copyright of the published version. Bar-bands pay copyright royalties because they're performing the lyrics of well known songs, not because they're performing the arrangement (except for tribute bands.)
Clearly the *AA does not own an individual's performance copyright unless they purchase those rights.
So I'm curious -- what copyright is the pair accused of infringing?
Once the copyright jackboots have their asinine warping of copyright law tossed, what damages and expenses are awarded to the couple? That is the problem with the current legal system -- false accusations from corps that can blow budgets on legal expense are not punished, despite the clear damages to the individuals accused.
Worse, some of the repeat offenders who keep falsely accusing people are never charged under any racketeering laws, and they should be. Using an expensive court case to intimidate someone is as brutal as threatening to turn loose Bruno and his baseball bat.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
A friend of mine was paid to go to different bars every night and log what music they played. It was then compared to the database of what the bar had licensed to play and they were fined for any violations.
However, he never said anything about handcuffs...
What if he just argued that he's a cover band?
I think that just about covers it (pun unintended).
Of course, any replies to this is someone telling me I'm wrong,
so perhaps it does not.
This does make one ask a lot of questions about what the hell is going on out there that they would literally stoop this low. Obviously this looks like some litigator that is borderline desperate for quick cash and found a sucker.
Being in a couple bands myself raises the question about what happens now to all of the "cover" bands out there. Do we all become original music bands now? That sure would dwindle the band counts available for those local eating and drinking establishments not to mention the availability for private affairs. And if we do have to start paying fees, how would they set that up? I know a few copyright owners would insist that the songs be valued by popularity so the ones that people want to hear would also cost an "arm and a leg" to license, and could only be performed by cover bands that were being paid sufficiently to be able to pay out those fees. This whole thing is beginning to stink a lot.
I'm now hearkening back to a line I heard in the movie "Back To The Future II" where Chris says something to the effect of; "Justice moves swiftly now that they've abolished all lawyers!".
I swear that if some bozo comes in and tells my kid he can no longer practice is fingering or such on his instrument to a popular song, I would probably go to Washington and seek ways to get rid of the damned greedy lawyers.
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Next, someone will be arrested for whistling a tune while they work! ok... take a deep breath... go download some music... relax
O.K., I give up. Man breaks law, man gets arrested. Happens every day.
/. editors. You believe that, since you're entitled to make a copy of your legally purchased CD, that means no musicians anywhere should ever get paid. Got it.
Is this somehow different because he's Japanese? Elderly? Using a harmonica? Someone clue me in here.
Oh, right, it's because of some vague, imagined connection to DRM or some other fantasy of
ASCAP is almost 100 years old, and BMI is nearly 50. They have *thousands* of court cases, based on hundreds of years of precedent in common law, that solidify their rights. The right, for example, to collect fees for performance of its members' works. You have a problem with that? Go live somewhere it ain't so. Somewhere like... well, nowhere, really.
Tom Geller
.. and stamp on his glasses! Its the only way to be sure.
They shut down OLGA, that was leading up to this sort of thing.
Kinda puts a new slant on "Thank you for the music"...
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
The amount of arrests in Japan for copyright violation has tripled in the past 6 months.
... all that is left for us is to read the articles.
In other news, internet gets slashdotted.
So say we all
I remember a few years ago (over 10 years) there was an article in the OC Reg. (So Cal) about RIAA (or ASCAP) going to differing businesses and seeing if they were playing copyrighted music. IF they were and did not pay the extortion fee. The RIAA (or ASCAP) would then fine them and demand the extortion money.
If they refused to pay up they would take them to court. I do not think anyone went to court.
So does this surprise me. Not really.
-- A computer without Windoze is like a choclate cake without mustard
Should we go with Toy Yoda or Toyota
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
JASRAC has gone after bars and clubs where musicians perform cover tunes previously, so this is not an isolated incident.
Authors must also obtain a license from JASRAC in order to quote song lyrics in their publications. I've seen manga where the JASRAC license number appears in the footnotes next to the panel where the song lyrics are quoted.
I know it's just not going to happen, but it would be nice if the recent change in american government would lead to some change on this issue as well...
But I know they have more important things to work on first.
If this is actually the case, isn't Googtube going to get the pants sued off them in Japan?
Copyright has covered "public performance" for a long time.
In the U.S., if you look closely, you will see a sticker for BMI or ASCAP when you walk into an establishment that plays music.
The story takes advantage of the fact that the guy is older, but this area of copyright law is not new at all.
Whenever you play copyrighted music in public, you are supposed to get the rights to the music (notes), the lyrics (if it's a song), and the recording (if you are playing a record rather than performing it yourself). If you don't get all those clearances, you can be sued by the owner of the respective copyright.
This is sad; the true "joy of music"(c) is when you create an original work that is not someone else's work; moreover, I cannot understand why the Japanese cannot accept the artful use of the harmonica with this music. The Beetles did not use harp on these songs, so why the big deal?
As a punk-rock Sting would say - "cunts!"
As Liam Lynch would say - "whatever!"
As the lawyers would say - "cha-ching!"
My 2/100.
ASCAP not too long ago went after a restaurant owner who every once in a while would get coaxed by the customers into going over to the piano and belting out a tune. Since they weren't his own, and they were public performances, he either had to pay up or stop doing it.
Disney has gone after day care centers that have encouraged parents to send a DVD along with their child for sharing.
So this story isn't even the most agredious example of this kind of copyright enforcement available.
As I understand it, in the US, this sort of thing would be protected by parody laws. I sang a capella in college, and we had no legal problems at all with charging for concerts and cds which were obviously composed completely of our own renditions of copyrighted works. Go to any college in America and you'll find the same thing.
It sounded like he was doing it to make money for his bar but the fact that he kept being warned and continued to perform shows his love of music and his hatred of the draconian music rights industry.
Kudos! You stand in front of those lawyers little dude!
Coming from someone who has worked in the entertainment industry for a number of years, I'm confused. It has always been acceptable to used copyrighted song material as long as the venue is a cabaret style which isn't too hard to get away with. This happened once with a local theater company that did remakes of Queen songs for a show and received a cease and desist order until they managed to convince them that the show was, in fact, a cabaret.
By that definition, this gentleman probably has done nothing wrong. Unless the record industry has gone back on that definition. In which case, I'll cease humming music as I walk down the street for fear of citation.
Apparently most people failed to RTFA.
He was not arrested for copyright violations, he was arrested for failing to follow a legally served injunction to stop performing copyrighted material. That is a criminal offense anyplace you go.
******
DRM 'manages access' in the same way that a prison 'manages freedom'
******
I didn't steal your sig, I just borrowed it. Here it is back.
Thank You.
Ron
I've been railing against the RIAA for years. In the meantime my GF did something constructive instead, became a complete iPod/podcasting geek and discovered podsafe music ahref=http://music.podshow.com/rel=url2html-10098h ttp://music.podshow.com/>.
If I were a small bar owner, that's what I'd do--play tracks from that. If I were an aspiring musician and this option was being taken by small bar owners, I'd beg them to put my stuff on their playlist.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
If I GPL a new "chord" and people create music using that chord then if they release it to someone they'd have to include the source code (sheet music) and the music would also fall under the GPL. Shame all the good chords are taken... :(
have courage
"Investigators accuse Toyoda of illegally performing 33 songs such as the Beatles"
George Lucas is investigating the trademark infringement as the defendant's name sounds suspiciously similar to "Toy Yoda", which is an obvious attempt to profit from infringing on the Star Wars fan base.
Why are women so complicated? Find out how little I know here.
The Beatles once claimed to be "Bigger than Jesus Christ."
"Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man"
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
practice .ne. perform
Maybe this has been covered, maybe I don't "get it"... but - what about all the copyrighted songs people sing in church and in public? School plays? Choral Singers at Christmas?
We live in an insane world where bards, storytellers and travelling minstrels have been legislated out of existence....