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."

Comments

Re:Actually

[LinkX39]

I agree whole-heartedly. I was in band from the 4th grade all the way through til high school graduation and I saw what copyright "protection" did to our music program. I remember having to share one sheet of music for 4 people because our director didn't want to take a chance at violating copyright by making an extra copy or two; whether a violation would have occurred or not didn't matter (and I'm not sure it would have), the fear of it happening was enough. Except in areas where the band actually makes a profit (all of our concerts were free at the time and open to the public, no profit was made except during marching band season) how is this not all covered under fair use? It's ridiculous. The only reason we didn't have financial problems was because we had such a good group of lobbying parents in the past that pushed the district for money, allowing us to build a substantial back catalog of music we could play from. I can see why smaller schools don't even start up band/orchestra programs though, it's too damn expensive. IMO, the RIAA will be a major culprit in the death of music education in America.

Re:haha

[parodyca]

Oh well, if we are playing the stats game. Here are a few more stats for you

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate
Infant mortality (per 100000)
          Canada 4.8 5.9
          United States 6.3 7.8

Life expectancy
  Canada 81.23
  United States 78.11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Canadian_and_American_health_care_systems
over all cancer mortality rate
Canada 148.2
US 160.5

And you can talk waiting lists as long as you want. Canada, the U.K. and many European countries may have waiting lists that force those with money to wait a bit longer, but they also ensure that those without get the same respect. In the US those without the means don't even get on the waiting list.

Re:Frankly

[seizurebattlerobot]

Nope. There's a famous historical anecdote about this very issue.

Twice a year a celebrated Misereri by Allegri, an early seventeenth-century composer, was performed by the choir, but the work, which existed only in MS., was so highly esteemed that to copy it was a crime visited with excommunication. Young Mozart nevertheless determined that he would secure a copy, and after two hearings he had the whole thing so perfectly on paper that next year Dr. Burney, the musical historian, was able to publish it in London.

Mozart had to worry about excommunication as punishment for his piracy at the time. If the RIAA were functioning in Mozart's time as it is today (100+ year copyrights), he would have been prosecuted.

Source: http://www.music-with-ease.com/mozart.html

Re:Frankly

[canadian_right]

Sorry no. While he did start writing his own music at a very early age, he did indeed get his first music lesson playing others music. And Mozart lived before all copyright laws so he often found that after one of his new pieces was played in concert, the town down the road was performing his music the next week and he didn't see a cent.

A want copyright laws that allow artists to earn a fair living. I want fair use spelled out. I want a limited copyright term, say 20 years. I want NO DMR.