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Musician Lobby Terms Balanced Copyright "Disgusting"
An anonymous reader writes "While most of the attention at Thursday's Canadian copyright town hall was on the recording industry's strategy to pack the room and exclude alternate voices, the most controversial activity took place outside the hall. It has now been revealed that security guards threatened students and a Member of Parliament for distributing leaflets, and the American Federation of Musicians termed the MP's leaflet, which called for balanced copyright, 'disgusting' and demanded a retraction and apology. At this point, such an admission seems unlikely."
School bands, the orchestral and marching bands, all did the same thing until Xerography became commonplace. Now I suspect they buy ONE copy and burn as many copies as they need.
That would be a copyright violation, easily.
Some do that. Most of them actually purchase the music because the RIAA and similar groups have enormous fines for not having the originals. There are 800 numbers you can call to report suspected piracy and they will come out unannounced and search the school's music library to make sure they have purchased originals for all of their music.
Since kids tend to damage or lose the originals many directors keep them in their library and only hand out the photocopies -- which is entirely legal.
A side effect of this is why school music programs are always broke. They have to spend a lot of money on the music alone, and whatever is left over goes to instruments, uniforms, and eventually the students. IMO this is good example of everything that is wrong with the industry. Schools should get this stuff for free so they can spend the money on education and not have to worry about copyright.
Link: http://www.cfs-fcee.ca/copyright/CFS-Fair-Copyright-Flyer.pdf
http://www.pirateparty.ca/ , and we now have a new website
Just thought it was worth pointing out for the non Canadians here that Olivia Chow is married to Jack Layton, the leader of the federal NDP. The MP Mr. Willaert claims is openly departing from party policy is, in fact, married to the party's leader.
In the spirit of disclosure, I am a member of the Ontario NDP.
It remains to be seen. One professor seems to think that the chain of proof that the Copyright was properly registered, etc. for Happy Birthday- and has a lot of proof to back up his claims. However, unless you press for disproving the claims, you'll have to accept that the Copyright Office DOES hold that Time Warner does, in fact, own the rights to that song until 2030 unless there's changes in the Copyright laws subsequent to this time. They got the rights through a complex series of transactions.
Saying that they don't own it doesn't get you off the hook. You'll need to go through over 200 documents worth of research, pay lawyers thousands of dollars, and prove to a Court that this is the case if you're guilty of performing it commercially and get caught at doing it.
That's the reality and absurdity of the current situation with that song and of Copyright in general. I agree we need Copyright. What I don't agree with is the current incarnation thereof.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Speaking as someone who actually uses the NHS, unlike you and Daniel Hannan, I'm really happy with my evil socialised healthcare and am a much healthier person thanks to it.
"Balanced" does not mean "fair" or "right".
Here is the PDF of the leaflet in question. Judge for yourself.
I'm pro-copyright (though in favor of reducing copyright term length), and I find it perfectly reasonable.
Someone should point these schools to sites like mutopia, imslp, and for choirs, the choir public domain library.