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ARIA Sells a Licence for DJs to Format Shift Music
lucas writes "The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) has set up a new licence to let DJs format shift their music to use at gigs.
DJs will need to pay a licence fee to copy music they already own legally from one format to another for ease of use, and as a back-up in case originals get lost or stolen.
Criminal penalties for DJs involved in "music piracy" are up to sixty thousand dollars and 5 years imprisonment. There are also on-the-spot fines of over one thousand dollars."
With the number of DJs here, I would not expect all of them to even know of this rule or for the ARIA to suddenly take all "offenders" to court. Don't feed the hands that bite you!
-Aly.
You either:
1. Buy (and subsequently own) the music on the physical media. Then you are legally allowed to do whatever you want with it, including selling.
or
2. Buy a license to listen to the music. Then you can media-shift all you want, as you are licensing the music. You never have to rebuy it either, if your disk breaks, just download the music, you already have a license.
This thievery has to stop. It is insane.
Imagine a world where the people weren't such meek sheep.
In 2006, the government passed a law making format shift legal. In particular, it would be legal to copy from a CD to an iPod.
It turns out this is only for "private, domestic use", which wouldn't apply to DJs on commercial premises.
Format shifting fact sheet
Because a DJ is ALREADY paying royalties to ARIA for the right to spin those songs at a gig. ARIA is proposing to make DJs pay an *additional* fee on top of what they're already paying in order to format shift their music for convenience (i.e. playing tunes as MP3s out of a laptop, or creating compilation CDs to reduce the number of CDs that need to be taken to a gig). This is wrong because it makes absolutely no difference to the listeners. They just hear music coming out of the speakers regardless of what format it's in on the DJ's side.
Make me a friend and I'll mod you up
They should also have to choose between legal and technological protection. If they want to use DRM to enforce policies that aren't based in copyright law (and there's no way for a piece of software to distinguish what's legal fair use), then I see no reason to grant them copyright protection. The purpose of copyright is to promote creation and enrich society. Fair use is a necessary part of that, as is the ability to use the work after the copyright period expires. They should not be allowed to renege on half of the bargain and expect the other half to continue to hold.
If they want DRM, fine. But pick one. They shouldn't be allowed to lock up our culture and expect legal assistance in doing so.
What are professional DJ's supposed to do?
As a rule, when speaking of bigger names, not only do the record labels definitely give them the
music for free, actually they beg them to play it. Now suddenly the same DJ's who were GIVEN
all of these songs from the record labels, the producers or specialized promotion companies for free
would have to pay for the use of them?
A while back, a little known organization in the UK named the PPL managed to get similar laws enacted
To my knowledge, no one has ever gotten busted for not complying with their arcane rules
which border on extortion pure and simple, and are impossible to comply with.
What's happening pure and simple is that many of the people who make up the voting boards of these
entities are totally overwhelmed by technology they just do not understand, and are passing measures
which they believe in earnest are going to help stem the tides of something they feel they can still control.
As someone posted above, paying such tax is only helping legitimize something which is patently
unfair at best, and not ever going to be a solution to anything other than yet another desperate attempt
at trying to put the proverbial cat back in the box, when the box itself has all but disappeared.
Let's not even go into details on who is going to get the money collected (probably pop artists
whose songs never get played once in the clubs, but who have enough airplay stats to register
on the radar of performing rights societies... LOL)
Who thought the dying throes of an entire industry were going to be that much fun?
Z.
About 15 years ago one of my first dance coaches in Australia was approached by APRA to pay a fee to play music. He was about 70 at the time and was not happy with paying them a fee. He asked if they only represent Australian music. It seems that they did not really have the right to collect 'royalties' on behalf of overseas artists. He told them he only plays German dance music and they just left him alone. I'm not sure if this is still correct or even if it was the full story. However, it would be sad if Australian clubs could avoid apra fees by not playing Australian music.
The smarter home exchange, http://switchhomes.net
As someone who used to own decks and mix a bit myself I would like to make another point:
DJ are probably the single largest consumers of Music. I probably spent an average of £20 per week on vinyl alone, and this was then average 12 inch single cost £5. I have not bought any in years so do not know how much it costs now, I would imagine it has certainly gone up a bit. Without buying that much new music DJing becomes too dull. I managed to keep it up for a year or two never getting any money back as I was not famous (or that good) but then gave up.
Over that time I amassed quite a large volume of records that form a pile 1 metre deep. My friends often asked me how much they thought I had spent, and on the odd occasion someone would estimate how many records I had and work it out. At that point I usually stopped paying attention in case I had a heard attack.
I suppose the point I am trying to make is that very few DJ's actually make a profit from DJing. It is a hobby, or a loss leader that leads a small minority into a music career producing albums of their own. Even people who make it big and actually get signed to a label to produce their own music usually do it for the love or to keep up their image in clubland so they can sell their own music.
The people who really be hit by this are aspiring DJ's who need to produce mixtapes in order to get any sort of gig. They then hand the mix tapes out for free as a marketing tool and 90% of them go straight in the bin. Are they also expecting these people who are usually young and skint anyway to cough up £500. The irony is that the main people they intend to listen to the tapes / mp3s are the very same record executives and talent scouts who are lining their pocket with the fee the DJ paid to produce them.
If you want to turn your hobby into a career you are better of playing with computers or going outside and playing football, now thats where the real money is. Let the music industry choke to death through lack of new talent then we can reinvent it afterwards when all these stupid laws have been repealed. If you want to listen to music in the meantime, go to your local venue that has a jam session for the evening, maybe even try and take part yourself.
I dont read