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Canadian Pirates Sell Spurious Songs — In 1897
Reservoir Hill writes "The NYTimes reported in their June 13, 1897 edition that 'Canadian pirates' were flooding the country with spurious editions of the latest copyrighted popular songs. 'They use the mails to reach purchasers, so members of the American Music Publishers Association assert, and as a result the legitimate music publishing business of the United States has fallen off 50 per cent in the past twelve months' while the pirates published 5,000,000 copies of songs in just one month. The Times added that pirates were publishing sheet music at 2 cents to 5 cents per copy although the original compositions sold for 20 to 40 cents per copy. But 'American publishers had held a conference' and a 'committee had been appointed to fight the pirates' by getting the 'Post Office authorities to stop such mail matter because it infringes the copyright law.' Interestingly enough the pirates of 1897 worked in league with Canadian newspapers that published lists of songs to be sold, with a post office box address belonging to the newspaper itself. Half the money went to pay the newspapers' advertising while the other half went to the pirates who sent the music by mail." The AMPA never dreamed of suing their customers, though.
Yarg eh!
You can't take the sky from me.
Pffft. This is old news. Try to keep up guys...
This guy's the limit!
It turns out that my great grandfather was involved in the sheetmusic pirate trade. Actually, he was involved in beaver skinning and general supply chain stuff in the Great Lake area of Quebec and later Manitoba as the pioneers headed westward.
He had two sayings, that are still repeated in my family. "Your customers will buy whatever you sell them, because they don't have a choice." and "What no one finds out you're doing, they aren't going to complain aboot."
While it's certainly not so much true today as it was in those frontier days, the marketplace is still a monopoly in many ways for many types of products. It's only those "customers" who can either forego some product or generate it themselves that can avoid buying from sellers like grampy.
Nowadays with the near instantaneous ability to copy and distribute ephemeral works like music, more and more customers are falling into that latter category of "generating it themselves". Those sellers who want to make a profit off of these pioneers aren't going to see a loon.
I think these PaperSharing M2M(Mailbox2Mailbox) systems which allow just anyone to swap files, folders and even whole books should be banned immediately before they destroy all that is good and pure with our country!
"The more things change, the more they stay the same"
Lyrics from Circumstances from Rush's Hemisphere album.
Neighboring stories on page 6: right below it is a bird eating a snake, to the left is construction workers find papers shedding light on 40 year old missing person case, to the right are ads. Apparently this wasn't a very important story back then.
You must ban the wax cylinder musical format before it destroys the musical performance industry forever!!!
They sure did! In the 1890s there was a great market for piano rolls. Where can you buy piano rolls today? Conclusion: pirates killed the music industry.
What horrible evil people. Thank goodness that never happens anymore!
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
Pft...anyone can go into a music store in the US and get copies of standard popular drivel like "Let's Hear it for McKinley!" or "The Victoria Waltz", but those stores won't carry the more edgy stuff like "Please Don't Die of the Dropsey, Dear Adeline" or "Miss Merryweather's New Corset".
Until the US realizes that there's a whole market for sheet music and piano rolls that is out of the mainstream, I'm going to keep buying from north of the border.
I hate the way they sell those Gutenberg presses as a loss leader, then gouge you on printing plates and ink refills.
Exactly. Rush is Canadian, so naturally they steal music. Haven't you been paying attention to what the mafiaa is telling you?
Well, clearly the music industry changed its business model and moved away from a dependency on IP, didn't it?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
The phrase also frequently appeared in the newspapers within the game Simcity 2000.
citation needed
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
god slashdot sux so much, i posted this story 112 years ago but apparently everyone loves reading repeat stories.
Canadian Pirates!!!! Instead of saying ARRRRRRR they go EHHHHHHHHH?
Sig? No thanks. I don't smoke.
This story originally appeared on Ye Olde Slashdotte 112 years ago, although archive.org don't seem to have a copy of the original page....
Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Impress your significant other: it's pronounced something like "ploo sah shanj, ploo say la mem showj."
4 years of high school French -- and finally, 20 years later, I get to put it to some use.
I doubt it. Just today, I found out that some dude named Sam Clemens was ripping off Rush, and using an assumed name to make money off their Tom Sawyer song. What a douche......
Are you sure it was Sam Clemens or the look alike Mark Twain? Yes, identity theft is a problem too. Seems like everyone is ripping everyone off.