Artist Not Allowed To Stream His Own Music

the_arrow writes "Scottish artist Edwyn Collins wanted to stream one of his own songs on MySpace, but it seems that copyright misunderstandings make him unable to do so. According to the article, 'Management for the former Orange Juice frontman have been unable to convince the website that they own the rights to A Girl Like You, despite the fact that they, er, do.' Collins said, 'I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't.' His wife added, 'MySpace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major [label] can claim a copyright.'"

Comments

Think

[whisper_jeff]

Wasn't it the major labels that implored us to think of the artists?

Yeah.

Re:Think

[cayenne8]

Friends don't let friends join MySpace....

Re:Think

[suso]

Wasn't it the major labels that implored us to think of the artists?

Yeah.

Only if there is money in it for them.

Seriously though, someone please tell this guy that myspace is done.

Re:Think

[ByOhTek]

So true, so true.

That, and the competence of the developers there has to be some of the worst on the web. Why should the competence of any of their other divisions be any better?

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[Pieroxy]

That said, if MySpace decides to remove content every time a party comes and claim copyright to the content, it's a MySpace problem, nothing more.

We all know the Majors care about their artists, not THE artists, and only because it makes money. They don't give a rat's *ss about art, music or any concept like this. They care about their wallet, art and artists be damned.

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[commodore64_love]

The flaw here is that these artists (and people in general) still think they own rights. They don't. The rights have been transferred to the corporations who, with the cooperation of Congress and other corporations, control everything. The artist doesn't own the song in the view of either WB or myspace, and that's why he can't stream it.

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[tverbeek]

If it were up to the RIAA, artists wouldn't be allowed to stream their own urine.

Re:Think

[commodore64_love]

>>>If it were up to the RIAA, artists wouldn't be allowed to stream their own urine.

Tyrants need to be shot before freedom can be restored.

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[BrokenHalo]

Friends don't let friends join MySpace....

This is true. But what I find a bit curious about this case is that rather than doing something about the situation - like finding another hosting service or hosting the material himself (well, Hello! Maybe that's too obvious), the guy seems to prefer spending months whining about MySpace's policies.

Seems to me that if you don't like MySpace, you can always just dump it, and tell everybody why.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The flaw here is that these artists (and people in general) still think they own rights. They don't. The rights have been transferred to the corporations who, with the cooperation of Congress and other corporations, control everything. The artist doesn't own the song in the view of either WB or myspace, and that's why he can't stream it.

No, the flaw here is you didn't reading the article before posting.

"He owns the copyright," Maxwell underlined, "as he does for most of the music he's recorded in his life (preferring to go it alone than have his music trapped 'in perpetuity' to use the contract language of the major record company)."

Eventually, after HUGE difficulty, I was told Warner Music Group were claiming it. I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't.

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[Eponymous Coward]

But (if I RTFA correctly), Edwyn Collins does own the rights.

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[commodore64_love]

P.S.

You say myspace is the problem, but do you think this artist would get different results on other sites like youtube or googlevideo? Youtube's pulled-down every song owned by WB per their request, and that would include this song "A Girl Like You". If Scottish artist Edwyn Collins tried to post his song on youtube, that too would get yanked. The problem is not the dot-com site but the DMCA law which requires the dot-com to take action, or else be fined.

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[wastedlife]

Erm, while it is usually the case that the artist(s) will sell the rights to the label to get a record deal, if you had read the summary even, you would have seen that Mr. Collins does in fact own the rights, and the label does not. Warner Music is illegitimately claiming copyright, and MySpace is taking their word over the actual owner's.

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[conureman]

Considering that MySpace purports to be a musician's site (or used to), and it seems to be the leader in it's niche, perhaps he thinks that it would benefit others if they could be convinced to remove their head from their ass.

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[xOneca]

Artist's urine is sold?! I didn't know it... How much do they "not-earn" when urine is thrown to the WC without RIAA's permission?

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[Pieroxy]

Well, one would think the DMCA gave the site owner the right to get proof thet the plaintiff is the actual copyright holder before doing anything. I don't think the DMCA is the problem here.

That said, you get a point in that any other website would do the same. And it's a problem between these sites and the contents publishers.

I remember a story in europe where a magazine did get free blog hosting from ~40 providers. They published a novel by Victor Hugo - ie: In the public domain for centuries. There was a note at the bottom of the page stating this.

Then they contacted formally all of the hosting companies demanding that the BLOG be shut off because it infringed their copyright. The results: 1 hosting company did its job, read the copyright notice, double checked the fact and sent an email back saying it was bullsh*t. 7 did ask for more proof, the rest did just shut the blog down, no questions asked.

Customer service is a thing of the past....

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[HeronBlademaster]

Except in this case, Collins does own the copyright, not WB, but MySpace apparently doesn't believe him, preferring to believe WB's erroneous claim instead.

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[damburger]

Damn right artists urine is sold. There are some scary 'fans' out there

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[Nazlfrag]

So WB claims to own the song, and is very apologetic when asked why, yet still holds the claim. The GP is right, the artist doesn't own any rights when only the major record labels are listened to, and when they are wrong you either get a 'sorry' and fuck all else or several thousands in lawsuits. Good luck with that.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Flamebait? When slashcode includes a section where upon fucktarded moderation the PC explodes in your face leaving you permanently blind and in agony for the remainder of your life, then we have a good moderation system. Until then this is just a work in progress.

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[fishbowl]

>Except in this case, Collins does own the copyright, not WB, but MySpace apparently doesn't believe him, preferring to believe WB's
>erroneous claim instead.

Are anyone's rights being abridged? Be specific.

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[HeronBlademaster]

I don't think it's a "right" to be able to stream music via MySpace. However, it is stupid of MySpace to not bother even researching the copyright owner of the song (which can be found in less than two minutes searching copyright.gov).

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[Anonymous Coward]

That song is on youtube. So not really a big deal if MySpace is acting stupid.

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[Anonymous Coward]

For "centuries" read "significantly less than one"...

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[Hatta]

The problem is not the dot-com site but the DMCA law which requires the dot-com to take action, or else be fined.

If WB is issuing DMCA notices, the artist just has to issue a counter notice. If WB fails to file suit in 14 days, the service provider must restore access to the copyrighted material.

Note that the ISP doesn't know or care who actually owns the copyright. That's for the courts to decide.

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[mini me]

the guy seems to prefer spending months whining about MySpace's policies.

It is called marketing. It is how an artist becomes rich and famous.

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[fishbowl]

The question isn't so much about who owns what rights. The question is whether MySpace needs a reason to refuse service. If they don't need a reason, then copyright doesn't enter into it.

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[fishbowl]

>However, it is stupid of MySpace to not bother even researching the copyright owner of the song (which can be found in less than two minutes
>searching copyright.gov).

Of course, but is their stupidity an actionable item?
What I'm getting at is whether there's a contract with MySpace on the performing artist side. Is it free, or does consideration change hands?

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[spun]

The copyright owner's rights are being abridged by a fraudulent copyright claim from WB. Like if I showed up at your house, said I owned the place, and everyone simply agreed with me and kicked you out of your home. Please tell me you are going for some kind of rhetorical approach to a larger argument, and that you are not actually confused on the issue of whose rights are being abridged how.

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[argoth640]

Accurately fielding and responding to copyright disputes for a large user base not scalable for social sites such as MySpace. Instead they react by simply pulling down the content. It is unrealistic to have them act as judge and jury in these disputes, nor do we want them to.

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[NoodleSlayer]

Wow. You can't even read the quote? Warners has admitted that they incorrectly asserted copyright on the song and in fact don't own the copyright. This guy has never worked with a major label, does in fact own all his copyrights, and has only licensed the song for time-limited, non exclusive publishing in the past.

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[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Seems to me that if you don't like MySpace, you can always just dump it, and tell everybody why.

MySpace is huge. It's not like if he just set up his own webserver it'd be a seamless transition for him.

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[VGPowerlord]

For "centuries" read "significantly less than one"...

That depends on how long copyright was in France in the 1800s. It could also depend on which book.

I mean, his oldest book was published 186 years ago, according to Wikipedia.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Seems to me that if you don't like MySpace, you can always just dump it, and tell everybody why.

And the five people that visit your site will find that it's having issues because you didn't pay your hosting bill, or went over bandwidth, or since you don't know jack about admin'ing a website just plain doesn't work right, and they'll go back to MySpace where things are familiar, and everybody else is going.

It's not a matter of whining about their policy. The problem is that they have one policy towards large companies with powerful lawyers, and a different "fuck you" policy towards everyone else, but still claim to only have one policy for everybody.

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[Anonymous Coward]

And the eight companies that did something right were? It's a good idea to reward people for doing things well, you know.

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[Anonymous Coward]

^ Anonymous Coward like this

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[jaraxle]

Wow. You can't even read the quote?

Neither can you, apparently.

The artist holds rights to his own works. A major label has laid claim to his works, saying they hold the rights to it. After getting hold of an actual lawyer with said major label, the artist is told "Sorry" and that it will be sorted, but after months it still isn't.

In trying to publish works that the artist owns the rights to, he is told he can't, nor can he apparently rectify the situation with the label causing the problems. He effectively has no rights to his own works at this point.

~jaraxle

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[Anonymous Coward]

Well, one would think the DMCA gave the site owner the right to get proof thet the plaintiff is the actual copyright holder before doing anything. I don't think the DMCA is the problem here.

One would "think"?

The DMCA REQUIRES the site to take down the offending content when they get the takedown notice. IF the person who put it on the site has a legal right to do so, they have to then submit a counter-claim, at which point the site CAN (but does not HAVE to) put it back up. However, once a counter-claim is filed any repeat takedown notices do not have to be acted upon and it's up to the two parties who filed notice to resolve it in court.
Failure to immediately take down the content makes the site liable, failure to re-instate it when they get a counter-claim does NOT make them liable.

So YES, the DMCA IS EXACTLY the problem.

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[symbolset]

He can play his songs quietly to himself, in private, which is all the right an unsigned artist is entitled to.

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[Anonymous Coward]

France would make that more or less 140 years, since most of the current laws date from after the fall of the second empire. Hugo was mostly published after 1848 to his death in the 1880s. So remove the 70 years post mortem clause and, yeah, GP is right.

Re:Think

[Locke2005]

Like if I showed up at your house, said I owned the place, and everyone simply agreed with me and kicked you out of your home. What?!? That could never really happen! Oh wait... it could.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Revolutionaries need to stop talking like petty would-be tyrants themselves before freedom will be restored.

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[Anonymous Coward]

The story is typical slashdot anti-copyright bullshit.
The artist can do what the fuck he likes, just not on myspace, due to their incompetent systems and procedures.

"social network site has cumebrsome policies"

Not such a scary headline, but more accurate.
If he doesnt like myspace, why not just not use it FFS?

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[xous]

Umm, I handle the abuse desk at a large hosting company and this is how it should have gone:

1. WB sends DMCA complaint
2. MySpace takes down content
3. Artist goes WTF and sends in a DMCA counter notice
4. MySpace restores the content.

(Not MySpace's problem anymore) ...
X. WB takes Artist to court

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[SCHecklerX]

Did you read in the article where the labels are making money selling this guy's work. Work that he gives to his fans for free. I don't consider it free, though. I'd think of it as promotional.

Stealing free work and selling it disgusts me. Like when nelly furtado used a mod (or was it an s3m?) a few years ago in one of her songs and didn't pay, let alone credit, the author.

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[Daniel Dvorkin]

whining about MySpace's policies

MySpace is breaking the law, or at least acting as an accessory to Warner's fraudulent claim of copyright. They are also failing to provide a service which they claim to provide. It's not "whining" to bring this to public attention.

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[Anonymous Coward]

Here's generally how DMCA notices work from experience:
1. Major lawfirm or outsourcer acting on behalf of said lawfirm sends major website a form giving the URL's of all copyright infringing materials.
2. Major website removes content, sending the person who put the content up an email saying it's been removed and maybe telling them of the counter notice procedure.
3. Person who uploaded the content follows the counternotice procedure, and is ignored by the incompetent outsourcer.
4. Person then whines back to the major website and is helpless to resolve it.
5. Person then has to go backwards - To their agent - to their record label - to their lawfirm - to the outsourcer, to have the outsourcer send the "sorry we made a mistake" email to the website.
6. Website restores content
7. Incompetent outsourcer then removes the content again, and repeat indefinitely.

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[orangesquid]

The problem is, if myspace admits "oops, we screwed up, we'll fix it," they mean they'll fix it for the squeaky wheel that complained, not in general. We won't see any reform of policies from this. It'll take a LOT more squeaky wheels for the ideal type of change to occur... it's just not profitable otherwise.

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[Nerdposeur]

Why presume that the artist is guilty? Having your content taken down and having to fight to get it back is pretty sucky. Wouldn't this be fairer?

1. WB sends DMCA complaint
2. MySpace notifies artist
3. Artist goes WTF and sends in a DMCA counter notice
4. MySpace tells WB "take it up with the courts"

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[PRMan]

"It's not "whining" to bring this to public attention."

Yes, it is. Sue Warner for all the sales that they didn't pay him on and sue MySpace for Tortuous Interference. I'm not a sue first ask questions later type of guy but this guy has been trying to ask nicely for months.

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[omnichad]

If you go over your bandwidth limit with only 5 users, you might want to rethink your content.

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[CapnStank]

Excellent job with reading comprehension. The point of the article isn't that his music was pulled from MySpace. That is simply the introduction that led him to discover that a MAJOR RECORD LABEL is distributing his COPYRIGHTED content without license and making money off him.

This is an ironic article because these thieving corporations are currently taking people to court based on copyright infringement.

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[spun]

Umm, I handle the abuse desk at a large hosting company and

I want to work at an abuse desk! Do you get to abuse everyone or only customers?

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[westlake]

I remember a story in europe where a magazine did get free blog hosting from ~40 providers. They published a novel by Victor Hugo - ie: In the public domain for centuries

The novel as originally published is in the public domain.
That almost certainly isn't true for every translation, illustrated or academic [critically annotated] edition.

It doesn't surprise me that MySpace would be more comfortable working within the established framework provided by a major label or licensing agency than a lone artist.

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[Anonymous Coward]

that song IS up on youtube.

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[Kryptikmo]

In fact, this is as close to 'copyright theft' as we have yet seen. In this case, the artist's copyright has been more or less appropriated by the music label, with no visible attempt on their part to rectify the situation...

Re:Think

[lennier]

Freedom will be restored when the sludge grinder at Processing Plant B is welded, and not before. Now quit yappin' or we'll all be up to our armpits in raw freedom feedstock, and I'm sure nobody wants that.

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[kalirion]

The DMCA REQUIRES the site to take down the offending content when they get the takedown notice.

So, can I create takedown notices for the videos that labels upload themselves?

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[Dog-Cow]

The real question is why WB doesn't owe him several billion dollars for piracy.

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[fishbowl]

I think you would be unable to give a specific law that they are breaking. My assumption is that they have the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at all, and that a misunderstanding of a copyright claim does not fall into the usual actionable exceptions (race, gender, religion, handicap).

It's different if the artist actually has a negotiated contract, where consideration (e.g., money) changed hands for the purpose of executing such a contract. If that's the case, and the refusal puts MySpace in breach, then it's not a copyright matter at all - it's a contract dispute.

Unfortunately for the artist, this is more a case of MySpace saying "we don't have to do anything for you and you have to accept that" and I think they are right. Solution: Don't use MySpace.

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[fishbowl]

>So, can I create takedown notices for the videos that labels upload themselves?

Yes. A C&D letter isn't a magical instrument. It's only legal meaning is to give "notice."

You can even file a lawsuit. You'll get thrown out of court and possibly fined if you press it too hard.

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[fishbowl]

>If WB is issuing DMCA notices, the artist just has to issue a counter notice. If WB fails to file suit in 14 days, the service
>provider must restore access to the copyrighted material.

Or what? Be fined?

I'm guessing the consequences for "not restoring access" are something less than a bankrupting fine that puts the board of directors in orange jumpsuits cleaning up the highway.

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[Anonymous Coward]

You may be a Randroid shill who lionizes his very oppressors thinking that they, somehow, are not actively complicit with the people you see as your oppressors, or worse who sometimes sees the oppression of others as though the oppressed oppressed you, but sometimes, you are, if inadvertently, right, enjoy the mod point, but remember, if you believe in anything else you've written on slashdot, you'd be on your own firing squad.

Re:Think

[fishbowl]

>The copyright owner's rights are being abridged by a fraudulent copyright claim from WB. Like if I showed up at your house, said I
>owned the place, and everyone simply agreed with me and kicked you out of your home.

Property rights (and the rights one has as a defense against simple assault) are not the same as copyright.

So the artist probably has recourse against WB, but MySpace certainly has the right to refuse service to him, for no reason at all, or for the reason that his presence has caused them trouble with WB.

It sucks, but I don't think MySpace has done anything illegal, or anything that can be claimed as damages in a civil action.

The artist may be in a good position against WB because WB has claimed ownership of his intellectual property. His best approach would probably be a quiet one -- bill WB for royalties through a P.R.O.

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[fishbowl]

>I don't think it's a "right" to be able to stream music via MySpace.

It would be, but only if there is a contract (even a contract of adhesion).

I'm willing to bet MySpace TOS can be read as "MySpace doesn't have to do one thing for you."

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[Anonymous Coward]

I want to work at an abuse desk! Do you get to abuse everyone or only customers?

Dur, they get to abuse you. :P

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[fishbowl]

So publish the song. If WB sues you, enjoy the triple damages when you point out to a judge that they were given notice of this error long before they filed suit. If WB doesn't sue you (which they won't), then there's not a copyright case here.

MySpace is irrelevant. They are just refusing service for their own reasons. You can't force them to give you service unless you can prove they are in breach of a contract.

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[fishbowl]

>The real question is why WB doesn't owe him several billion dollars for piracy.

They haven't distributed his work.

What they have done is to persuade MySpace to refuse to stream his work. Unless someone can show otherwise, MySpace doesn't violate any law or abridge any rights by not streaming his work. They don't need a reason, but they have one (WB is inconvenient).

It would be completely different if he had a contract with MySpace (or with WB) but he doesn't.

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[fishbowl]

>That is simply the introduction that led him to discover that a MAJOR RECORD LABEL is distributing his COPYRIGHTED content without
>license and making money off him.

Separate issue - and it seems MySpace did him a favor. If he can prove the infraction he has the same rights that the record label would have if the parties were reversed, although it's not known whether he has done the necessary things to ensure statutory damages.

He can probably just bill them for compulsory license royalties and quietly receive whatever mechanical license would have been negotiated anyway. If he can prove it.

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[kaizokuace]

How do you think things will play out if enough people DMCA enough posted material from the labels? Even if it has no backing. Just like if a million people sent takedowns?

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[dkf]

What [WB] have done is to persuade MySpace to refuse to stream his work.

What matters is whether they've done so under oath. If not, what WB said doesn't count for jack shit in terms of takedown-ness. If they did say it under oath, it's (potentially) a crime. (No, I'm not sure which particular one.)

This is why you should not send false takedown notices.

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[mabhatter654]

it's not quite that obvious. MySpace can prove a label once published the guys music, so it MUST be under copyright to them... unless you can find the one overworked guy that handles over-the-hill artists rights management that will send an original copy via Registered Snail Mail, with a letter from the head of a music label (OK those are easy to find). You might as well push a rock uphill in San Francisco, it's possible for this guy to get what he needs... and it's possible for the government to have a balanced budget and have efficient happy workers with short lines at the License department too.

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[h3llfish]

What makes you think that he didn't do all of the things you said? Even if he had his music up on a dozen sites, it still makes sense for him to want access to MySpace's rather large audience.

And saying that he was "spending months" on this is equally silly. His wife made a few phone calls. I think they probably took a few minutes out of their battle against MySpace to go to the bathroom and tend to other business.

And characterizing him as "wining"... why? I just don't get it. Why the animosity? I really have no idea what motivates a person to make a senseless and mean-spirited post like yours.

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[b4dc0d3r]

"DMCA counter notice" requires you to swear you are telling the truth. If you send a counter notice, you are pretty much saying you're ready to go to bat. You're also guilty of perjury if you're lying.

A proper counter-notice must contain the following information:

        * The subscriber's name, address, phone number and physical or electronic signature [512(g)(3)(A)]
        * Identification of the material and its location before removal [512(g)(3)(B)]
        * A statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification [512(g)(3)(C)]
        * Subscriber consent to local federal court jurisdiction, or if overseas, to an appropriate judicial body. [512(g)(3)(D)]

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[Homburg]

Person who uploaded the content follows the counternotice procedure, and is ignored by the incompetent outsourcer.

As I understand it, you send the counternotice to the host, not to the person claiming rights. If you send a counternotice to the host, they are legally indemnified if they put the material back up, even if it turns out to actually be violating copyright; so there's no reason in principle for the ISP to not put the material back up.

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[mysidia]

Isn't it Warner conducting tortious interference here w.r.t. the artist's business relationships interefered by preventing said artist from using MySpace, by falsely claiming to own the copyright?

Also.... claiming to own the copyright after they have been properly notified they don't should be even more actionable than simple infringement.

Nothing really obliges MySpace to believe the artist, until WMG rescinds their claim.. How does MySpace know the artist isn't just lying?

If WMG claimed to own the copyright, and MySpace allows the contents to be posted... MySpace might fear they will soon find themselves at the wrong end of a willful infringement action.

WMG may not own the copyright, but is it MySpace's job to throw away the DMCA safe harbor, and bet the bank on the artist's claim being correct?

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[mysidia]

MySpace can prove a label once published the guys music, so it MUST be under copyright to them

No.. that's not proven anything.. it's like saying you saw this comment of mine on slashdot.org, therefore it is proof that Rob Malda owns the copyright to the comment (although that's nonsense).

Moreover... just because a label published something, doesn't mean they had the right to publish it.

Ownership of exclusive rights to a work are not connected to its publication (other than that a license from a rightsholder is required to legally publish).

The keyword is legally. Sometimes various labels have illegally published things, or published things that weren't actually created (or owned) by the artist who purported to have created or owned the rights they "sold".

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[Anonymous Coward]

Don't mod him up, foolish mods. He's doing the classic "reply to early high-moderated posted in order to be visible and modded up" trick, which has become all too common here. If you'll look, you'll see that his reply has nothing to do with GP.

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[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Sorry, but what exactly is the problem here? That we can't force a company reinstate old works?

It's the discretion of the company because it's the company's resources being used. If they don't want to waste the space, they don't have to. There would also have to be minimum term limits where the material would have to be shown. Is it fair to expect that contested works enjoy protected status, even from the company who owns the hardware it's stored upon, and others be able to be deleted at will?

It's not an asymmetry against the people, it's an asymmetry against forced storage. Unless the company is totally in the pocket of media companies (to the extent where DMCA takedowns are a mere formality), there's no reason not to expect a company to either put it back up, or allow you to upload the same thing again.

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[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Did WB's actions even prevent the copyright holder from accessing his own work? I hope not. If the copyright holder's only copy of his work was on MySpace, well, that would be far more his fault than anyone else's. MySpace can delete whatever they feel like, so it's not like its presence was guaranteed.

The thing is that MySpace is not a house, or anything private. It's more like... er... a beach. Sure, you can start building elaborate sandcastles if you like, and you can find plenty of fans of your buildings, but there's no guarantee that they'll be there in the morning. Oh, and any bully can walk in and kick it down.

OK, it's not quite like that, but you get the idea. MySpace is not your space. MySpace belongs to MySpace, who serves the public with public space. There's no right to keep your space untouched.

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[Dun Malg]

He effectively has no rights to his own works at this point.

I see the problem, You do not understand the English language. He still retains the rights. The rights are being infringed, but they are still his.

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[Dun Malg]

>The real question is why WB doesn't owe him several billion dollars for piracy.

They haven't distributed his work.

Yes they have. Allow me to quote because you're obviously too busy to RTFA (but not too busy to render an opinion, obviously):

While Collins has worked to make A Girl Like You freely available to his fans, [his wife/manager] alleges that the same track is sold illegally "all over the internet". "Not by Edwyn, [but] by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him."

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[falconwolf]

Yes, it is. Sue Warner for all the sales that they didn't pay him on and sue MySpace for Tortuous Interference. I'm not a sue first ask questions later type of guy but this guy has been trying to ask nicely for months.

Yea he's a nice guy trying to use informal channels to get this straighten out instead of suing and having a bunch of people complain and say he's sue happy.

Gosh, it's impossible to satisfy everybody.

Falcon

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[falconwolf]

Seriously though, someone please tell this guy that myspace is done.

Myspace has a large audience and it make sense for an artist to want to use it.

Falcon

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[xous]

Assuming the Artist here is telling the truth (or believes he is this is not a problem.

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[xous]

They do try.

Mostly I get a few laughs.

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[BrokenHalo]

And saying that he was "spending months" on this is equally silly.

I said that because that's what he said in TFA. But I guess you didn't bother reading that, did you?

And what animosity? If a website locks you out of publishing your content for months on end, I don't see what is so wrong with suggesting trying something else. Sure, MySpace is there, and it's free, but if it doesn't serve your purposes, there are alternatives. He can always link to the content from MySpace without actually hosting it there.

Re:Think

[Anonymous Coward]

Google would ignore it. It's fairly obvious they're bogus notices, and the punishment for failing to take content down immediately only applies if the notice was filed in good faith. Which any judge would see your campaign certainly wasn't.

Re:Think

[jimicus]

AIUI, the DMCA does allow for people whose work is wrongly yanked to write a letter back basically saying "It's mine, I own the copyright and will take responsibility for any consequences" and it should go back up.

But I would point out one big hairy issue here - Edwyn Collins is Scottish. Any agreement he'd have had with Warner was most likely with Warner UK, not Warner USA. So the DMCA wouldn't have been used here.

Re:Think

[jimicus]

If it were up to the RIAA, artists wouldn't be allowed to stream their own urine.

Artists don't stream their own urine. They haven't needed to - the RIAA have been taking the piss for years.

Re:Think

[Anonymous Coward]

Whoosh.

Re:Think

[vegiVamp]

Untrue. There are plenty of alternatives. Personally, I favour a daily horsetail whipping followed by immersion in a vat of tabasco.

Re:Think

[ShakaUVM]

>>You say myspace is the problem, but do you think this artist would get different results on other sites like youtube or googlevideo? Youtube's pulled-down every song owned by WB per their request

Yep. Youtube pulled a video of mine I had rights to, and ignored the counterclaim I filed. I think they basically rubber stamp any takedown notice the big companies send to them.

Re:Think

[NotQuiteInsane]

The difference being that with houses and cars, you have deeds, public record and so on which state -- in black and white -- who the legal owner is. Thus meaning that if anyone tried that in the real world, they'd get quickly smacked down or told to STFU.

Proving copyright ownership is a fair bit harder...

Re:Think

[Anonymous Coward]

They haven't distributed his work.

Yes, they have, and they still are. Get your facts straight.

Re:Think

[jaraxle]

I don't know why I'm bothering to reply, particularly so late in the discussion, but here goes...

Of course he still actually retains the rights, and of course the rights are being infringed.

However, what it boils down to is what fucking good is having the rights to your own works if a big corporation is blocking your ability to distribute said works? At that point, it's like you don't have the rights to your works at all (hence why I said He effectively has no rights).

~jaraxle

Re:Think

[commodore64_love]

>>>They care about their wallet, art and artists be damned.

Correct. The flaw here is that these artists (and people in general) still think they own rights. They don't. The rights have been transferred to the corporations who, with the cooperation of Congress and other corporations, control everything. The artist doesn't own the song in the view of either WB or myspace, and that's why he can't stream it.

Re:Think

[commodore64_love]

1. WB sends DMCA complaint
2. MySpace takes down content
3. Artist goes WTF and sends in a DMCA counter notice
4. MySpace restores the content.

5. WB sends ANOTHER takedown notice.
6. Myspace complies.
7. Artist sends a second counternotice.
8. Myspace ignores it.
9. (several months pass). We read the story.

Re:Think

[commodore64_love]

>>>> Youtube pulled a video of mine I had rights to, and ignored the counterclaim I filed

Really?

That's interesting and effectively nullifies all these posters who claim "all you gotta do is file a counternotice". Doing that is pointless if the dot-com ignores it.

Re:Think

[GryMor]

Slander of Title? Yes, Civil tort as opposed to criminal, but it's a start.

Re:Think

[h3llfish]

i said that because that's what he said in TFA. But I guess you didn't bother reading that, did you?

I did read TFA. So you've made another incorrect assumption, in the form of a snotty accusation. Once again - animosity. Did you mommy just not hug you enough, or what?

TFA said nothing to indicate that he spent a significant portion of his time on this over the months the dispute lasted, which is what "spending months" means. If I spend 15 minutes a day brushing my teeth over the last 30 years, did I just spend 30 years brushing my teeth? Obviously not. So why exaggerate things? Why distort the facts? What axe are you grinding here? It's clear that this story set off some feelings of rage or inadequacy in you, and I'm just curious to know more about that. I find your impotent flailing to be fascinating. Why do you do what you do, Mr. Troll?

Re:Think

[Eunuchswear]

Youtube's pulled-down every song owned by WB per their request, and that would include this song "A Girl Like You".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkKxGzm98AU

Re:Think

[fishbowl]

>Yes they have. Allow me to quote because you're obviously too busy to RTFA (but not too busy to render an >opinion, obviously):

I did RTFA, and it didn't say that WB distributed his song. A subsidiary of Universal may have done so, but that's not WB.

Re:Think

[fishbowl]

>Yes, they have, and they still are. Get your facts straight.

WB did not, and the article makes no such claim.

My facts are as straight as the limited information allows them to be, but I am not under the mistaken impression that WB, in particular, distributed this work. I'm right, but several posters are jumping at the chance to tell me I'm wrong.

Re:Think

[BrokenHalo]

I did read TFA. So you've made another incorrect assumption

No I have not. From the article:

"I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't."

Either that says what it says or it doesn't. I am exaggerating or distorting nothing, and I have absolutely no axe to grind in this matter. I couldn't give a flying fart about Edwyn Collins or MySpace.

All I was suggesting was that the guy is wasting too much of his life complaining about (1) something that he can't change and (2) something that probably isn't worth the trouble of bothering with anyway.

You do seem to be taking this very personally.

Re:Think

[niftymitch]

This is a critical point. If warner is making a FALSE claim then they have a liability and need to be held to task. A letter to put Warner on notice that their error is costing the artist opportunity. Time is money and a number of folk have made serious gains by posting on a public forum and getting AIR time. Recall Pay-Ola in the old days this is the reverse but no less an abuse.

Re:Think

[fishbowl]

>Slander of Title?

Applies to real property, but not to copyright.

Re:Think

[mabhatter654]

but the idea is that MySpace most likely has a giant master list of songs published by the RIAA labels and if a song with the same name is on the list, they will only talk to the "publisher".

This is how the deals MySpace signed work... in exchange for not being sued to death, they won't post stuff that "might" be infringing without consulting their corporate masters for permission... since the corporate masters can't find the paper to give permission (guy's contract expired, imagine that) no publishing for you.

It's not malice. It's the beautiful combination of corporate CYA from MySpace and Bureaucratic "lost paperwork" from the one overworked secretary in the label's basement.

Re:Think

[h3llfish]

>>Either that says what it says or it doesn't.

The article does not explicitly state how many hours were spent, so I suppose we're both making assumptions. It's possible that they really did spend an inordinate amount of time on it. But I just didn't get that sense from the article. Yes, months passed without resolution, but the sense I got was that Collins and wife had done little more than make a few phone calls. It just didn't seem like a huge deal to me. >>All I was suggesting was that the guy is wasting too much of his life complaining about (1) something that he can't change and (2) something that probably isn't worth the trouble of bothering with anyway. But he can change it. That's why I found your post so puzzling. Yeah, it's going to end up taking months for it to happen, but now that he's gotten some press on it, I expect that the issue will land on the desk of someone who can fix it. >>You do seem to be taking this very personally. No, like I said, I'm curious about what motivated you to post what you did, but it seems like you've got no insight for me there. I have nothing against you.

Re:Think

[xous]

MySpace should not honor the second request.

Re:Think

[Anonymous Coward]

Christ, you are dumb as rocks. Or just a pedantic jerk. Enjoy my false dichotomy.

If a person has rights, but cannot seem to exercise them by any course of action - then they "effectively have no rights", which is a very correct use of the English language, twit. In this case, WB responded acknowleding the problem but has made no efforts to fix it and no authority figure to step in and force them to fix it - without dropping incredible amounts of money on the team of laywers.

Re:Think

[ShakaUVM]

>>Doing that is pointless if the dot-com ignores it.

Yep. I think they just rubberstamp any complaint Sony makes, even with a counterclaim. So you can either sue them, or not care enough to sue them. I picked the latter.

Let's get the car analogy out the way quickly...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like denying Henry Ford access to the Model T!

Not always a problem

[DeeVeeAnt]

I have several friends in small unsigned bands who have posted their music to MySpace. Has the policy changed, or is this guy just unlucky?

Re:Not always a problem

[mcgrew]

You must not have RTFA;

"I naturally blew my stack and wrote to MySpace on his behalf demanding to know who the hell was claiming copyright of Edwyn's track? ... Eventually, after HUGE difficulty, I was told Warner Music Group were claiming it. I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't."

Once again this shows the REAL reason the majors don't want P2P, even though it has been shown to increase sales -- it also increases indies' sales. Opposition to P2P is part of the majors' war against the indies.

Does Britain have a law that would allow him to sue Warner? I would think they must.

Re:Not always a problem

[sarahbau]

MySpace didn't just assume that someone else owned the copyright. In this case, it seems Warner Music Group was trying to claim they owned it, when they didn't. Perhaps at some point, Warner sold his CDs, while he retained copyright, or something.

Re:Not always a problem

[InsaneProcessor]

This sounds like Warner needs to be sued. Big money lawsuit!

Re:Not always a problem

[Rogerborg]

You must not have RTFA;

Attempting to make them cease and desist would use up the rest of my life. Because this is what they do and what they've always done.

Re:Not always a problem

[DeeVeeAnt]

Of course I didn't RTFA, this is Slashdot isn't it? Cheers for reading it for me, that salient fact wasn't in the summary.

Re:Not always a problem

[grahammm]

Which, unlike illegal copying and sharing, actually is copyright theft.

Re:Not always a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is exactly what the fuck is wrong with law.

Re:Not always a problem

[yurtinus]

Exactly, if we wanted to read the articles we'd get subscriptions to Playboy.

Re:Not always a problem

[FictionPimp]

I'm sure the EFF would take up the cause.

Re:Not always a problem

[Sethumme]

Not if the artist gave the company permission to include his song in a CD compilation without actually giving them full copyright ownership...

Re:Not always a problem

[PitaBred]

I think I'd be suing the shit out of Warner if I were him. I believe the article also notes that they're selling his stuff on iTunes without his permission.

Re:Not always a problem

[Kabuthunk]

That implies that "the little guy" is capable of winning against "the big guy". Which as we all well know is false. Warner would keep it in the courts until either an out-of-court settlement, or until "the little guy" is bankrupt.

Re:Not always a problem

[Pax681]

As Edwyn lives in Scotland it would be Scottish law, there is no such thing as British law. English law covers England and Wales

Scottish law...Scotland

Northern Ireland also has it's own laws.

therefore checking under Scottish law would be the thing to do.

Re:Not always a problem

[Hatta]

What does Myspace have to do with P2P?

Re:Not always a problem

[VisiX]

This post is correct. If you RTFAs you'd know that his music is sold without his permission and without receiving any royalties in a number of place online and his lawyer basically can't do anything about it because of all the legal red tape and costs of filing suits.

Re:Not always a problem

[spun]

No, this is what is wrong with a free market system of distributing justice. Those with money can buy it, those without can not.

Re:Not always a problem

[mcgrew]

They're both ways for musicians to get their music in front of prospective fans. Archive.org is the same; I have friends with music posted there.

The RIAA labels have radio, so they'd like for MySpace, archive.org and P2P to all go away, because those are Indie Radio. It's about killing their competetion.

Re:Not always a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

You must not understand how America works. No company stops doing anything unless they are sued to hell and back. I think he's screwed: spend your life fighting Warner, or go back to making songs - which they'll also claim as their own.

Re:Not always a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

The article claims that some major labels are also continuing to sell the song after the licence expired (but doesn't name Warner in particular for that accusation). If a major label has been selling the song without a licence it would dramatically undermine their case against piracy. I imagine that even the suggestion of a public suit (one that's backed up by solid evidence) accusing a major label of piracy would cause them to settle very quickly out of court because fighting it would undercut their own law suits.

Re:Not always a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, we need P2P for indie music distribution because the major labels are blocking access to all the websites hosting indie music....

Oh, wait, they don't do that and now your rant makes no sense to me....

Re:Not always a problem

[Trailer Trash]

Yes, but he's wrong. He's probably already been contacted by ambulance chasers, but falsely claiming copyright is a crime.

Re:Not always a problem

[Fujisawa Sensei]

You must not have RTFA;

Attempting to make them cease and desist would use up the rest of my life. Because this is what they do and what they've always done.

What's the going rate for copyright piracy now?

Based on the RIAA's rates its probably worth his effort.

Re:Not always a problem

[mdwh2]

Indeed - $1.92 million in damages sounds about right.

And if any of those companies have an office in the UK, I do hope the UK Government will be disconnecting their Internet connections?

Re:Not always a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

Theft is theft call it what you want the semantics are stupid. Illegal copying and sharing is theft of money not the stupid bits of the electronic file.

Re:Not always a problem

[sjames]

But, the law is for peons, not gold plated corporations for whom the sun rises in the morning.

Re:Not always a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

If he can file suit in the US, statutory damages are available, and *many* *many* *many* attorneys would love to take this kind of case on a contingency basis. It would be quite lucrative. It would probably never get to trial. The record company would realize that they are in the wrong and potentially massively liable, and they would settle up.

Re:Not always a problem

[fishbowl]

>This sounds like Warner needs to be sued. Big money lawsuit!

No, he has a possible claim against Island/Universal, but it's unlikely to be "big money". He can probably get a judgment for compulsory license / mechanical license royalties.

Re:Not always a problem

[fishbowl]

>What's the going rate for copyright piracy now?

Well, the story seems to be that an Island subsidiary used his work on a soundtrack without securing a license from him.

Here is the rub: Because he has already distributed this work (e.g., MySpace), it is subject to Compulsory Licensing.
That means, if he succeeds in proving his case, he may be entitled to a modest royalty, but he probably won't be able to get massive, bankrupting fines against the company, or cause all the copies of the album to be destroyed.

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/115.html#c

This and the opportunity to seek statutory damages, are the reasons you should register your copyrights and not rely on common law copyright.

Or maybe this is all the reason to put your work under Creative Commons licensing. He's probably getting a better deal from Island than he would if he'd signed -- they are publishing his work, putting physical media out there, and he doesn't owe them anything...

Re:Not always a problem

[fishbowl]

>The article claims that some major labels are also continuing to sell the song after the licence expired.

But they had a license at some point. This is a royalty payment issue. Mechanical licenses aren't an on-off kind of affair.
The issue with MySpace is a non-starter (MySpace has no obligation here). The issue with WB is tempting, but not really -- they didn't distribute his work, all they did was persuade MySpace to do something they had a right to do.

But it sounds like he has a royalty dispute with Island / Universal. That might not be as difficult to pursue as he's making it sound, but it also might be a problem that he has proceeded in bad faith (Slashdot posting, for instance).

Has he actually asked for royalties from the infringers, and in what form? Is he represented by a Performance Rights Organization? What were the original terms of the license that has "expired?"

There are a lot of questions here, and none of them have anything to do with MySpace or WB.

Re:Not always a problem

[Homburg]

That means, if he succeeds in proving his case, he may be entitled to a modest royalty, but he probably won't be able to get massive, bankrupting fines against the company, or cause all the copies of the album to be destroyed.

Are you sure about that? Wouldn't that mean that any copyright infringement of music would have limited damages? In particular, if Collins is only able to claim royalties under a compulsory license in this case, why wouldn't the RIAA also only have been able to obtain royalties under compulsory licensing when it sued file-sharers? The law you link to says:

(b) Notice of Intention To Obtain Compulsory License.â"
(1) Any person who wishes to obtain a compulsory license under this section shall, before or within thirty days after making, and before distributing any phonorecords of the work, serve notice of intention to do so on the copyright owner. If the registration or other public records of the Copyright Office do not identify the copyright owner and include an address at which notice can be served, it shall be sufficient to file the notice of intention in the Copyright Office. The notice shall comply, in form, content, and manner of service, with requirements that the Register of Copyrights shall prescribe by regulation.
(2) Failure to serve or file the notice required by clause (1) forecloses the possibility of a compulsory license and, in the absence of a negotiated license, renders the making and distribution of phonorecords actionable as acts of infringement under section 501 and fully subject to the remedies provided by sections 502 through 506 and 509.

If I read this right, the full copyright damages would apply, unless Island followed this compulsory license procedure. Presumably, if they wrongly thought they already had a license, they probably didn't follow this procedure, and so Collins could sue them for whatever remedies the law allows.

Re:Not always a problem

[falconwolf]

No, this is what is wrong with a free market system of distributing justice. Those with money can buy it, those without can not.

No, this shows your ignorance. Under a free market Warner never would have been legally able to demand MySpace takedown the music without first proving they owned the copyright.

As Adam Smith said, copyrights and patents are a necessary evil.

Falcon

Re:Not always a problem

[jimicus]

I don't normally reply to AC's, and I'm sure I'll get modded downward for this, but this is actually one of the good things about the DMCA (which wouldn't have applied here because it's a British artist and therefore almost certainly the UK arm of Warner Music).

AIUI, the DMCA allows the person whose website/blog/whatever is taken down to write to the service provider basically saying "They don't have copyright. Please reinstate the site. I'll take any consequences" and as soon as they do that, the provider is absolved of any responsibility. No need to go to court to resolve the issue, this mechanism is actually written into the law. Such a law doesn't exist in the UK.

Re:Not always a problem

[spun]

No, no, no, falcon. Not 'this is what's wrong with the free market.' I said, 'this is what is wrong with a free market system of distributing justice. Those with money can buy it, those without can not.' It's kind of begging the question, not really saying anything. 'Justice for sale is bad because the rich can buy their own justice.'

I was responding to the fellow saying, 'this is what's wrong with the law.' What's wrong with the law is, not everyone has equal access to justice. You have to pay for justice, and if you can't pay, those who can will take it from you.

Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

So this isn't a story about MySpace. They have been notified of a copyright conflict, so they don't allow distribution of the song. The real story is that labels claim copyrights they don't have, for commercial gain, and are not paying $150000 per song.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[lobiusmoop]

The Ruttles had it right - "All You Need Is Cash".

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Anita Coney]

"So this isn't a story about MySpace."

It is about MySpace. Sure the label started the problem by claiming a copyright on a song it did not hold. However, it is now a MySpace problem because the site apparently has no mechanism or system to fix the problem the label created.

Now that the label has admitted it has no copyright claim, it's MySpace's job to fix it and allow the song to be streamed. The label certainly cannot fix that problem. The fact that MySpace has not done so in three months makes it pretty clear that this story is about MySpace.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[lymond01]

Anonymous Coward,

The phrase "So this isn't a story about MySpace." is a copyright held by the MySpace corporation. We urge you to cease and desist using said phrase for the next 70 years. If you fail to comply with our...request...we will be forced to take legal action. And possibly destroy your feeble world with our battle station.

Best Wishes,

MySpace
Subisidiary of MyGalaxy
Antares, Antares 20010

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[spydabyte]

From the Summary,

Collins said, 'I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't.'

It appears that MySpace wasn't even contacted...

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[FlyingBishop]

Well, ostensibly Warner Brothers won't commit fraud, because it's a major record label. Though obviously they have, it's reasonable for Myspace to assume that they haven't, because that sort of thing is really bad press.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[SharpFang]

unless the label admitted it in private correspondence with the author, but "neglected" to inform MySpace.
We don't know if the case is stalled due to MySpace ignoring Warner's disclaimer, or whether Warner failed to send such disclaimer despite claiming to do so.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[mysidia]

Slander of title, perhaps.

Fraud implies intent.. I think this is just a case of horrendous negligence.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[nomadic]

However, it is now a MySpace problem because the site apparently has no mechanism or system to fix the problem the label created.

Or obligation.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[skammie]

MySpace would rather delete and account then do ANY fact checking. This happened to me and my music. Everything was fine for about a year, and then *poof* the page was gone. I asked why, and I got a generic response about violating the TOS. I asked for more specifics, but I was not given any more details. I was told touch luck, build a new page. It goes without saying I didn't build a new page. The previous page I set up didn't get that many hits anyway.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[lorenlal]

"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."

That should be amended to: "Tend to assume incompetence and not malice, unless it involves money."

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[IDtheTarget]

It is most definitely about MySpace. It doesn't matter what Warner claims (even if it was illegal and they could be sued for theft), MySpace has the duty to investigate the claim of copyright. It's not even that hard! Go to the U. S. Copyright Office Search Page and type in "Collins Edwyn" and the sixth link to return is "Girl Like You". If I can find it in 2 minutes, how long should it take MySpace?

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

MySpace has the duty to investigate the claim of copyright.

That's news to me. Considering the astronomical fines for violations of copyright law, why would MySpace so much as touch a disputed song with a ten foot pole?

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Danse]

Slander of title, perhaps.

Fraud implies intent.. I think this is just a case of horrendous negligence.

Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."

How do you accidentally claim to own someone else's copyright? What evidence of ownership do they have that leads them to force MySpace to prevent this guy from offering his own music to his fans?

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[mcgrew]

Never ascribe to incompetence that which is adequately explained by greedy self-interest. This guy is their competetion, and the labels have demonstrated time and again that they are pure evil. If you buy two of his CDs, that's four RIAA CDs you don't have the money for.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Stoutlimb]

And the corollary is:

"Sufficiently advanced forms of incompetence are indistinguishable from malice."

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

Wouldn't MyGalaxy be a subsidiary of MySpace??

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[winwar]

Oops. Hit the wrong moderation button. Posting to unhose it. :)

Corollary is very true....

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realize that this link you provided is actually showing that Island Music Limited registered a copyright for a recording of this song in 1995? The only Island Music Limited that I can find in a quick search of the net is part of Universal Music Group. So If MySpace tried this search it would have come to the same conclusion that it already did.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Xtifr]

MySpace has the duty to investigate the claim of copyright.

They do? Why? You can say "it's easy" all you want, but they still have to pay someone to take the time to do it. What obligation are they under that would make that expense a "duty"? I really don't know much about MySpace, since the whole place creeps me out, but my understanding was that they offered free hosting and social networking. How does "here's a gift" translate into "I'm obligated to take time away from my own work sort out your disputes with a third party about how you use that gift?"

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[endx7]

Or obligation.

Actually, they do have obligation, legally, to their users. We all know they can comply to DMCA takedown notices to gain legal protection. However, to gain legal protection from their users , MySpace would be required to put the content back up if a user contests a takedown, and then be able to provide the issuer of the takedown notice with that user's contact information.

Specifically: "OCILLA (the part of the DMCA dealing with takedowns) also includes a counternotification provision that offers OSPs a safe harbor from liability to their users, if the material upon notice from such users claiming that the material in question is not, in fact, infringing."

(IANAL)

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[PRMan]

A giant database with his name and album name in it?

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[FlyingBishop]

They have a system that assumes ownership by default. I especially like in Canada where they get money for any writable CD sold, because it's naturally being used to copy their music without permission. (Never mind independents that cut their own records.)

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[russotto]

Actually, they do have obligation, legally, to their users. We all know they can comply to DMCA takedown notices to gain legal protection. However, to gain legal protection from their users , MySpace would be required to put the content back up if a user contests a takedown, and then be able to provide the issuer of the takedown notice with that user's contact information.

A DMCA counter-notice requires that the counter-notifier agree to accept US jurisdiction. Bit of a pain (read: near-complete impossibility) for an independent artist in Scotland to meet Warner in a US Court without bankrupting himself.

Anyway, in practice service providers can simply ignore counter-notices because their users don't have the legal leverage to sue them productively. The record companies can sue for hundreds of thousands for copyright violation, the users, even if the service isn't free, can only sue for a few hundred for breach of contract.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[seizurebattlerobot]

Personally, I think the real story is that two noblemen (Warner Bros & News Corp) have acted to ensure that commoners (in this case, Edwyn Collins, but really any non-corporate entity) cannot own property. Of course the nobility believes that only a nobleman can own property! If a commoner claims to own property, he's obviously lying. Commoners cannot own property. Welcome to Feudalism 2.0(TM).

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Anonymous Coward]

The previous page I set up didn't get that many hits anyway.

So no harm done?

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[nomadic]

Based on the article this doesn't involve a DMCA takedown, so a counter-notice would not be available here. Also, this kind of surprised me:

For Maxwell, this has been emblematic of everything that's wrong with the music industry. "[We are] aware of who the biggest bootleggers are," she said. "It's not the filesharers." While Collins has worked to make A Girl Like You freely available to his fans, she alleges that the same track is sold illegally "all over the internet". "Not by Edwyn, [but] by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him."

This is a bit suspicious; either he actually doesn't have the rights free and clear as he thinks, or he might want to get a new manager; she should call a lawyer to stop the infringing if it is, in fact, infringing (she says in the next paragraph that it would take a "lifetime" to stop this legally, which is absurd). But I find it highly unlikely "all sorts" of respectable major labels are selling this song. That's just silly. Wikipedia indicates the song was on two soundtracks, so maybe, at the most, two major labels are doing this.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[fishbowl]

>it's MySpace's job to fix it and allow the song to be streamed.

If they want to.

They have the right to refuse service. They don't need a better reason than the song already caused them trouble that they want to avoid. They can probably even cancel the guy's account for no reason at all. If MySpace doesn't have that in an indemnity clause I'll eat my hair.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[fishbowl]

>Actually, they do have obligation, legally, to their users.

Only if they were obligated to carry the content in the first place (e.g., artist had a contract with them), which they weren't.

MySpace can just as well tell him to pound sand because he caused them to get a phone call from WB. Or they can tell him nothing at all, and just cancel his account.

MySpace customer service is worse than Ebay's, by the way. He's not going to get anything out of this, except for being free of MySpace.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[mysidia]

By thinking you own it.

Probably someone working for the company had the job of going through all the albums they had published, listing each song in it with sites such as MySpace, and submitting canned takedown notices if they saw anyone posting the song.

In that case, 'Evidence of ownership' isn't in their job description.

The process could just be flawwed in that they assume ownership of anything they have sold.

Or they made a mistake in failing to verify and flag that particular song as "not owned by us"

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[falconwolf]

This is in the UK and the DMCA does not apply. That is unless the server is in the US.

Falcon

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[falconwolf]

Slander of title, perhaps.

Fraud implies intent.. I think this is just a case of horrendous negligence.

WB has been informed and they know they are wrong. If they have not fixed the problem after a number of months then that is intent.

Falcon

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Danse]

By thinking you own it.

Probably someone working for the company had the job of going through all the albums they had published, listing each song in it with sites such as MySpace, and submitting canned takedown notices if they saw anyone posting the song.

In that case, 'Evidence of ownership' isn't in their job description.

The process could just be flawwed in that they assume ownership of anything they have sold.

Or they made a mistake in failing to verify and flag that particular song as "not owned by us"

This tells me there needs to be some real penalties for submitting false takedown notices. If they're not going to take the time to ensure that they even know what the hell they own and don't own, then they shouldn't be taking down anything. This is just fucking with some poor guy that wants to put his own damn music online and Warner apparently can't be bothered to give a shit.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[mysidia]

It's a good idea. Then management could update their risk models, and when they make decisions about their business processes to take the most profitable action..

That action can include due diligence for each takedown notice to avoid fake ones.

That is: if the penalties are costly enough to factor into management's calculations. If the penalties are too small, they're just a cost of doing business.

Personally, I think the courts should revise their point of view, and determine that notices sent without verifying ownership are inherently considered as sent in bad faith.

And there should be an expedited procedure for the recipient of a false notice to report the matter, and have the sender/responsible party pegged for perjury

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[Uberbah]

Dude, you could have just wrote "Republican" and saved yourself the long explanation.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[mysidia]

Not necessarily. The employee who received the letter may have dropped the ball, and failed to forward it to the right person or tell them what to do in any reasonable amount of time.

One person's failure doesn't indicate intent, unless corporate management was aware of the issue for months, and deliberately chose to do nothing.

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[falconwolf]

One person's failure doesn't indicate intent, unless corporate management was aware of the issue for months, and deliberately chose to do nothing.

What do they say about ignorance? "Ignorance is no excuse" isn't it?

Falcon

Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright

[mysidia]

Ignorance of what the law is, isn't an excuse. Everyone has a duty to follow the law.

However, ignorance of the facts regarding the situation all but guarantees lack of intent.

Negligence != Intent

Ignorance != Intent

Knowledge Of the issue + Willful (as in a conscious decision) to commit Disobedience of the law = Intent

Wait, I'm confused -

[RevWaldo]

There are people who still use MySpace?

Re:Wait, I'm confused -

[AHuxley]

In South Korea, myspace is for old people.

Re:Wait, I'm confused -

[Anonymous Coward]

For better or worse (mostly worse); It's rare to find a recording artist or band without a myspace page.

Re:Wait, I'm confused -

[Sique]

Are they hard to find because they aren't on mySpace then?

Re:Wait, I'm confused -

[EnsilZah]

It's all about how seriously you take your doucheness.
Say if you're a moderate douche you've moved on to something like Facebook or Twitter, but if you're a hardcore oldschool douche accept no substitute to MySpace.

Re:Wait, I'm confused -

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and in Soviet Russia, myspace uses YOU !

Re:Wait, I'm confused -

[Anonymous Coward]

MySpace is like Detroit, everyone has left except the minorities and indie bands.

Re:Wait, I'm confused -

[blind biker]

In North Korea, MySpace is for Kim Jong Il.

Re:Wait, I'm confused -

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all about how seriously you take your doucheness. Say if you're a moderate douche you've moved on to something like Facebook or Twitter, but if you're a hardcore oldschool douche accept no substitute to MySpace.

So what am I if I still use .plan?

Re:Wait, I'm confused -

[Anonymous Coward]

In soviet russia... no wait, in the uk, too... darn

MySpace

[_PimpDaddy7_]

People are actually still using MySpace???? I don't mean to troll, but seriously, people are still using MySpace? I assume it's mostly for music artists? Surely there's a better way to get your music out?

Re:MySpace

[LandDolphin]

Surely there's a better way to get your music out?

Yes, there are other ways and better ways. However, MySpace is free. Why not take advantage of all free options for advertisement?

Re:MySpace

[dhaines]

Well, GeoCities is shutting down and I had to go somewhere.

Re:MySpace

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point. Now a legitimate question: does anyone know of any other service out there comparable to Geocities that we can migrate to?

EH?

[Gridpoet]

Whats a "myspace"?

great

[jjeffries]

This song kicks ass. I haven't heard it in years, but the guitar part will probably be in my head for weeks just from reading this story. He should have won awards for this song.

Might as well mention that I just lost the game.

Good day.

Re:great

[ukbazza]

It's a great riff for sure, with a brilliant dirty guitar sound. Also, Edwyn Collins deserves a break after all of his recent health problems.

Re:great

[Anonymous Coward]

The only thing I hate more than monospace posts for no good goddamned reason is losing the game. Thanks a lot.

Simple Solution

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Stop. Using. MySpace.
Find someone who understands what you're about, and use their service instead. If your business depends entirely on you having a presence on MySpace, you're doing something wrong. Especially now that this may (has?) cost you attorney's fees to sort it out.

Re:Simple Solution

[ClosedSource]

"Find someone who understands what you're about, and use their service instead."

Probably Google since they know more about you than any other web entity.

Re:Simple Solution

[nomadic]

If your business depends entirely on you having a presence on MySpace, you're doing something wrong.

If you're an indie rock musician, you were already doing something wrong. Get a job and a haircut.

Re:Simple Solution

[Runaway1956]

That's really a pissy attitude. IANAM, but my Pa was. He could make music with anything, if he could pull a string tight across it. He and his friends actually recorded some decent music, over the years. They all had haircuts and jobs - they all raised families - they were all respectable people.

None of them ever expected to "make money" - they played music together because they loved music, they loved performing for people, and they just loved being together. They did sell a little music - a dozen tapes at a nursing home, a couple dozen at a church, another dozen at a corner store somewhere. Enough to pay for gasoline sometimes, to offset costs.

Something like Myspace would have been cool, back in the '60's up through the early '80's. They might have sold a little more music, and they certainly would have been better known outside their home counties. You may have even heard of them, if there had been a means to distribute their music for free!

Indies. Those are the REAL musicians. The labels? They know how to pry money out of fool's pockets, but they don't know music.

Re:Simple Solution

[sorak]

So, using that logic, it is ok, if I show up at your workplace and start stealing pictures from the wall...If your boss' business depends entirely on him having those pictures, he's doing something wrong.

Re:Simple Solution

[yurtinus]

...indie rock musicians usually *have* jobs. It's the big label guys who don't.

Re:Simple Solution

[ericrost]

No, using that logic, if your boss's landlord keeps taking down his sign and he stays in the same lease he's doing something wrong. Critical thinking FAIL.

Re:Simple Solution

[nomadic]

They all had haircuts and jobs - they all raised families - they were all respectable people.

Then they weren't who I was talking about. I was referring to the 20-something, shaggy haired guys with overly tight jeans who belt out insipid, generic local-venue-alternarock while their parents pay for their Williamsburg apartments.

But maybe living in Brooklyn has made me bitter.

Indies. Those are the REAL musicians.

In my experience people who refer to themselves as Indies aren't very good.

Re:Simple Solution

[camperdave]

Get a haircut, and get a real job.
Clean your act up, and don't be a slob.
Get it together like your big brother Bob.
Why don't you get a haircut, and get a real job?

George Thoroughgood

Re:Simple Solution

[camperdave]

Who stole my "h"?

George Thoroughgood - Proper link

Re:Simple Solution

[sorak]

Critical thinking FAIL.

You know, you have a point regarding the analogy, but saying it in such a dickish way does not help.

As for my analogy, there is part of it that still holds. I was addressing the claim that "his business had better not hinge on myspace". That is a false dichotomy. He can and probably does promote his business in several different ways. The fact that it is popular to bitch about MySpace is not in any way relevant to the discussion.

Re:Simple Solution

[seizurebattlerobot]

But maybe living in Brooklyn has made me bitter.

Yes, it sounds like it has. Bitterness is like a poison pill, prepared out of anger, that you swallow yourself. When you define yourself by who (and what) you hate, you succumb to crass tribalism and limit your ability to make decisions logically and dispassionately. Who cares what the "shaggy haired guys" are doing? Only the man who is dissatisfied with his own life.

To me, it sounds like you have surrended choice and control over your own life to the false short term ideals of mainstream society. If you had control over your own life, you wouldn't feel that repressed anger that all slaves feel when they see someone who is truly free. That anger leads to the frantic desire to control others, as you've demonstrated with your posts.

Sincerely,

A shaggy haired guy who's hair you'd love to cut

Re:Simple Solution

[nomadic]

Yes, it sounds like it has. Bitterness is like a poison pill, prepared out of anger, that you swallow yourself.

Bitterness is part of the normal spectrum of emotions; don't repress it. Don't be scared of negative emotions.

you succumb to crass tribalism and limit your ability to make decisions logically and dispassionately.

Tribalism? I am mocking the tribalism of others.

To me, it sounds like you have surrended choice and control over your own life to the false short term ideals of mainstream society.

I left mainstream society long ago.
If you had control over your own life, you wouldn't feel that repressed anger that all slaves feel when they see someone who is truly free.

I think you do not understand what "repressed" means. And you think the "indie rocker" type is "truly free"? They're slaves to their own image, which is sad.

A shaggy haired guy who's hair you'd love to cut

No desire to be a barber, thank you. Did you ever notice that everyone in the places you hang out has similar hair to yours? Were you ever tempted to shave your head just so you didn't conform so much?

Re:Simple Solution

[Kazoo the Clown]

In my experience people who refer to themselves as Indies aren't very good.

Maybe you should get out more...

Time for an indie-myspace

[BlueBoxSW.com]

Yes, it started out as a good thing, and even promised to help people track bands and discover new music.

But it's a mess now, and it's owned by the same company that runs FoxNews, so don't expect it to get any better.

Time for a young, fresh upstart to pull something better together.

Or are there already better alternatives?

Re:Time for an indie-myspace

[Abreu]

Google Wave?

Re:Time for an indie-myspace

[Again]

When I want to check out a band, I search Purevolume before resorting to Myspace.

Re:Time for an indie-myspace

[Anonymous Coward]

mycontent.com is starting to shape up, I'm interested to see where these guys are going

Re:Time for an indie-myspace

[Lunar Moog]

Bandcamp is fantastic.

Re:Time for an indie-myspace

[Anonymous Coward]

As I mentioned elsewhere, I upload my (hobby) stuff to *shameless self promotion* . I think the site is great.

Re:Time for an indie-myspace

[Wildcat J]

I second that; with a single upload they'll provide downloads in any format, with any pricing scheme your little heart desires. You can tag your songs with a Creative Commons license, too. From a nerdy standpoint, it seems like they really "get it".

It does seem to lack the networking features of a MySpace, though. As revolting as MySpace may be, it makes it very easy to jump in and start making connections (of course, most of those connections are probably to porn spam-bots).

Anyone keeping track of this?

[erroneus]

This is yet another example of how present-day copyright rules and legislation has harmed the general condition of the market and made to favor a select few who have even more control over the market.

When law does not serve and/or protect the interests of all evenly and equally, there is something wrong with the law.

When making a case for having the law changed or removed, it is useful to create a list of examples of how exactly others are unfairly harmed by it.

Re:Anyone keeping track of this?

[Dragonslicer]

Not that I necessarily disagree with your sentiment, but does it really apply in this case? The law is pretty clearly on Collins' side, it's just MySpace and/or Warner Music that are being assholes. I suppose you could claim that the cost of solving this problem through the legal system would be prohibitive, but I'm not sure that any specific changes to copyright law would help with that.

Re:Anyone keeping track of this?

[erroneus]

The current state of copyright law and the assumptions and assertions surrounding them are all neatly tied together. First and foremost, in quite a few instances where copyright infringement is alleged, no proof of copyright is requested or required. A mere assertion of having the copyright suffices for the likes of the RIAA. On the other hand, if one asserts copyrights over his own works, the assumption is that it's not true.

Furthermore, as the original article points out, these publishing industrialists don't even track the copyrights that are temporarily licensed to them as they assert copyrights long after their terms have expired.

The current state of copyright law is very imbalanced. The current state of copyright enforcement practice is very imbalanced. Recent legislative actions [DMCA] have enabled copyright holders to more or less perform questionable acts without any involvement of impartial third party oversight (i.e. the judiciary or law enforcement) ever need to be involved while they contest and effectively strip away whatever rights people may have -- fair use or true and actual copyright. Recent legislative actions have various hosting providers and other media so frightened that compliance and even assistance is their immediate reaction.

It's largely out of control and lost all track of sensibility.

Re:Anyone keeping track of this?

[Dragonslicer]

If Warner Music filed a DMCA takedown notice with MySpace, Collins should be able to send them a counter-notice to have the material restored, at which point it's between Warner Music and Collins to fight it out. If MySpace removed the material without receiving an official DMCA notice, thus leaving Collins with no recourse, then MySpace has done something that they weren't legally required to do, which would make them just plain assholes. If Collins did send them a DMCA counter-notice and MySpace is ignoring it, then MySpace is violating the law.

Like I said, I agree that there are problems with many of the laws, but in this specific case, if the laws were being followed correctly, I don't think it would be so much of a problem than it is.

Re:Anyone keeping track of this?

[erroneus]

In this case MySpace has some sort of algorithmic or some other system in place that detects and identifies music. The music was identified as being copyrighted by one of the big labels and so the system refused to let him put his song up there. When contacting actual humans, he was referred to the label which was falsely asserting copyright over the song. He spoke to a lawyer who has yet to fulfil his promise to have the song delisted from the MySpace system. This is a problem created by RIAA threatening MySpace over the multitude of music found on that site and this system is the result of their capitulation.

Re:Anyone keeping track of this?

[falconwolf]

The law is pretty clearly on Collins' side, it's just MySpace and/or Warner Music that are being assholes.

No, the law is clearly on MySpace's side. MySpace is not obligated to host anything.

Falcon

Re:Anyone keeping track of this?

[falconwolf]

If Collins did send them a DMCA counter-notice and MySpace is ignoring it, then MySpace is violating the law.

What law requires MySpace to host the music?

Fslcon

Registered?

[mcgrew]

In the US this would be a non-issue; here one can register a copyright with the Library of Congress for a very small fee, and your certificate is proof you hold copyright.

Is there anything like that in Britain? TFA doesn't say if the song's copyright is registered, or even if it can be in Britain.

Re:Registered?

[Sique]

The copyright office actually is a british invention (where every work of art had to be registered before it was allowed to be printed).

Re:Registered?

[SnarfQuest]

In the US this would be a non-issue; here one can register a copyright with the Library of Congress for a very small fee, and your certificate is proof you hold copyright.

The law doesn't allow someone else to copyright your material if you don't. Also, in the US you do not have to register it to own the copyright. Placing a copyright notice on the work is sufficient. Even if he didn't, that does not give the label ownership of his works. Since they caused the mess, they should be the ones who have to clean it up. He may have to go to court to push the matter to some conclusion.

Re:Registered?

[LihTox]

Also, in the US you do not have to register it to own the copyright. Placing a copyright notice on the work is sufficient.

You don't even need the notice; every bloody thing you write is copyrighted unless explicitly released into the public domain. That's one of the many screwed-up things about US copyright law; you can have copyrighted material which gives you no indication as to who owns the copyright, let alone how to contact them. If you want to sue for damages, though, then registration will get you a better payoff; and registration serves as proof of ownership, in case there is a dispute over who actually wrote a particular song.

Re:Registered?

[IDtheTarget]

His ownership of that particular copyright is showing up in the U.S. Copyright Office online search, so there's no excuse for MySpace not knowing who owns it.

Re:Registered?

[jythie]

Does not help in this case.

The guy HAS the copyright, but warner is claiming (via DMCA takedown notices) that they have the copyright. MySpace has to obey unless the artist can get warner to stop sending the notices and admit that they do not have the copyright.

And as the OP pointed out, forcing warner to offically admit they are infringing would be expensive and time consuming, all to get someone what they already own.

Re:Registered?

[Aim Here]

...your certificate is proof you hold copyright.

No, your certificate is proof that you claim copyright, and it's also necessary if you want to sue someone for a copyright breach.

For a current example, just after they tried suing IBM for BILLIONS AND BILLIONS in 2003, SCO registered the copyrights to the Unix codebase, despite Novell, the copyright holders (or previous copyright holders) claiming that SCO didn't own any such thing. A judge did rule in Novell's favour, but SCO has won an appeal that grants them a trial (although this appeal is being appealed).

Regardless of the current state of the case, the fact that SCO had registered the copyrights wasn't proof of anything other than that they registered the copyrights.

Re:Registered?

[idontgno]

so there's no excuse for MySpace not knowing who owns it.

Sure there is. The excuse is that under the safe-harbor provisions of DMCA, there's no obligation for a service provider to investigate or adjudicate the validity of a takedown claim; in fact, there's incentive not to, since resisting a takedown in any fashion (i.e., anything other than "expeditiously" "removing or denying access to" the alleged infringing material) may disqualify the hosting provider to safe harbor, making them liable along with the original uploader.

Very good FAQ about DMCA takedown/putback issues.

Re:Registered?

[Kagato]

The issue is at one point Warner Brothers had a license to the song. They just never owned the copyright. As a legal license holder they had the right to enforce copyright until such time as their license had elapsed. I would also guess that during the time that Warner had the license they had some sort of exclusive territory of which they could enforce their license rights in. Most likely to the extent where they could override the wishes of the copyright holder on certain decisions relating to distribution. Of wish MySpace would be a distribution channel.

However, all of that is for not as Warner obviously has no rights anymore.

Re:Registered?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, in the US you do not have to register it to own the copyright. Placing a copyright notice on the work is sufficient.

And I can then file for a registered copyright, and if you are unable to PROVE that you "copyrighted" the material first, I now own your material.

every bloody thing you write is copyrighted unless explicitly released into the public domain

NO. The correct sentence would be "every bloody thing you write is copyrighted until it is made public"

There are a lot of loopholes in copyright law, so consider the following a "cover your ass" primer.

When you originally create the "art" (example: you write a story) you have an implied "manuscript" copyright which covers material that has not, or was not intended to be, distributed. The idea is that if someone breaks into your house and steals your draft copy and distributes it, you still own the copyright and can get control back. It is NOT meant to protect any distributed or published material.

If you distribute the work at all, published, etc. and do not put a RESTRICTION notice on that work, then you just entered it into the public domain and anyone can take it and do what they want with it. That means if you just put (c) on the material but don't say HOW it can or can't be used, you might be able to sue someone to make them give you "credit" but you're out of luck if you don't want it used or want to charge them, etc. because you gave implied permission to distribute it.

If a work of "art" does not have a registered copyright it's a your-word-against-theirs situation. Don't be an idiot, register the copyright for ANYTHING that you plan on distributing. Ever.
You might have heard about the "post-office copyright" mechanism (i.e. mail yourself a copy via certified mail). This does not protect your copyright exactly.. it just gives you a good record to protect the "manuscript" copyright. For example, you have a story that you don't want to pay to get a registered copyright on, but want to make sure you have it documented as yours in case it somehow gets out or is leaked, etc. Once you're ready to publish it (online or off) then you'd better register it if you want to protect your control over the material.

Re:Registered?

[cpghost]

That's one of the many screwed-up things about US copyright law;

This particular point is just the result of the US (and nearly every other nations') implementation of the Berne Convention.

Re:Registered?

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought that the 'everything is copyright' was due to some international treaty.

Re:Registered?

[LihTox]

True; change that to say "one of the many screwed-up things about the Berne Convention."

Re:Registered?

[Homburg]

If you distribute the work at all, published, etc. and do not put a RESTRICTION notice on that work, then you just entered it into the public domain and anyone can take it and do what they want with it.

No, that's not right. It's still protected by copyright; it's only in the public domain if it explicitly contains a declaration to that effect. The presence of a copyright notice may affect the damages you can claim, but it doesn't fundamentally change whether or not a work is copyright.

Re:Registered?

[LihTox]

You're right: if a copyright is important to you, you should register it for maximum protection. I'm looking at it from the consumers' point of view, though, where every published work is a potential minefield unless it is explicitly placed in the public domain. It's in the murky gray area between registered copyright and public domain where owners and users alike get shafted.

Re:Registered?

[jimicus]

You don't even need the notice; every bloody thing you write is copyrighted unless explicitly released into the public domain. That's one of the many screwed-up things about US copyright law; you can have copyrighted material which gives you no indication as to who owns the copyright, let alone how to contact them.

You don't in the UK either, but it's generally advised that you do put a copyright notice on because it's effectively a big sign saying "This is my work. I know my rights", which will immediately eliminate the (admittedly somewhat flimsy) defence of "How was I to know it was under copyright?"

Caution: IANAL.

Corporations have more rights than individuals

[tekrat]

This is yet another example of Corporations having more freedoms and rights, than people do. People can vote, but corporations can lobby. People go to jail when they break the law, corporations maybe pay a fine at most -- some in fact, seem to get money from the government for breaking the law.

I urge everyone in the United Corp.. uh States of America, to incorporate themselves so that they finally have rights.

Remember that faxed letterhead carries more weight than actual legal precidence....

Re:Corporations have more rights than individuals

[nomadic]

This is yet another example of Corporations having more freedoms and rights, than people do.

Not really. People can vote, but corporations can lobby.

People can lobby, too.

People go to jail when they break the law, corporations maybe pay a fine at most -- some in fact, seem to get money from the government for breaking the law.

I don't really see how you can jail an abstract legal entity like a corporation. They certainly do jail corporate officers for actions taken on behalf of their corporation. They also shut down corporations, too--look at Arthur Andersen, or any number of stores/real estate developments that are shut down because of health code or environmental violations.

Re:Corporations have more rights than individuals

[PiSkyHi]

I don't really see how you can jail an abstract legal entity like a corporation.

Which is precisely why they exist.

Re:Corporations have more rights than individuals

[mfleonhardt]

Um...I own 10% of a corporation (annual gross revenue < $150K/yr). You better believe I could get have damages awarded against me personally if the corporation lost a lawsuit to someone. Corporations are nothing more than organized groups of people. They are as capable of malice as they are of empathy (read: not at all).

Likewise, unions, such as the American Federation of Musicians (or whatever the British equivalent may be) is in place as another organized group of people (with equal freedom, right & opportunity). The whole unions vs. corporations thing is just a struggle between two groups of people with conflicting interests. I'm fed up with people complaining about both corporations and unions. It's the equivalent of blaming the the car that just cut you off instead of the driver.

Re:Corporations have more rights than individuals

[hamanu]

What corporation do you own 10% of that does not confer limited liability to you via the concept of corporate personhood? In order to sue you personally they'd have to "pierce the corporate veil" which doesn't happen very often. I think you're BSing here.

Re:Corporations have more rights than individuals

[Maximum Prophet]

I'm fed up with people complaining about both corporations and unions. It's the equivalent of blaming the the car that just cut you off instead of the driver.

Not really. Mobs have a different psychology than regular people. It's similar to the way people can be more rude when they think they are anonymous. Remember - "No snowflake in an avalanche feels responsible".

Re:Corporations have more rights than individuals

[Anonymous Coward]

To hyberbolize is to lie.

Re:Corporations have more rights than individuals

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're too stupid to recognize the irony in the statement you just made, then you don't have a right to be taken seriously in the first place.

Re:Corporations have more rights than individuals

[mfleonhardt]

I won't reveal to you the identity of the corporation, but how hard do you honestly think it would be to "pierce the corporate veil" of such a small company? My post is based on legal advice all company shareholders have received. A judge can rule that if a company's holdings aren't substantial, a plaintiff can go after officers and shareholders directly--in fact it's more likely the smaller the corporation's holdings are. I'm no corporate lawyer, which is why I defer to one, who told me all of this.

Sue Warner Brothers.

[FlyingBishop]

If people had been able to stream this over the internet, he could easily have lined up dozens of concerts paying tens of thousands of dollars each, all because Warner Brothers fradulently claimed copyright to his work.

Throw in some pointless punitive damages, and that ought to net him a good 6 million dollars, right? I mean if it works for the RIAA...

Re:Sue Warner Brothers.

[ignavus]

Warner should be made to pay for every time the track wasn't downloaded!

Amazon sells the track

[SiChemist]

I found "A girl like you" on Amazon's mp3 downloads. Sent them an e-mail asking about the rights with a link to the Guardian article. If I get a reply, I'll post it here.

It's from a "Greatest hits" album, so I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that the label has rights to it.

Re:Amazon sells the track

[characterZer0]

The label may have non-exclusive rights to distribute it. That does not mean they can stop the copyright holder from doing anything with it.

Re:Amazon sells the track

[Anonymous Coward]

I love how people here on Slashdot who clearly have no idea how convoluted various licensing and distribution deals (especially ones concerning multiple entities in various countries) try to pretend that there are always simple questions that can be answered by totally uninvolved third parties. Let us know what Amazon's response is, as well as how you try to tell them that they should stop selling the song, even though you have ZERO knowledge of what exactly is contained in those licensing/distribution contracts between Edwyn Collins, his management company, his publishing company, and the record labels, both in the UK and in the United States.

Re:Amazon sells the track

[s0litaire]

The Record labels DON'T have rights to sell the track (their rights to sell ran out years ago!)

The Blog post said:

A Girl Like You is available FOR SALE all over the internet. Not by Edwyn, by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him.

So the music label is basically stealing Edwins work and not paying him.

Re:Amazon sells the track

[TheRaven64]

So? They labels have already established that they consider $150,000 a perfectly reasonable fee for distributing a work without a license, so send them a bill.

Re:Amazon sells the track

[Skapare]

Convolution is no excuse when making fraudulent claims on copyrights owned by someone who is not a party to such deals.

Re:Amazon sells the track

[Eevee]

You mean

The Blog post said

Don't believe everything you read. Without going over the contracts that Edwyn signed with a fine-toothed comb, all we have is someone claiming that they believe the labels are in the wrong. This may be correct, it may be incorrect, it may be in some legal limbo where both parties have certain rights to the song. We don't know.

Re:Amazon sells the track

[s0litaire]

The Blog post was written by his Manager (and Wife) so it's safe to say she knew what she was talking about.

Re:Amazon sells the track

[SiChemist]

Amazon's reply:

Hello,

Thank you for your interest in the Amazon MP3 Music Downloads store.

The content available in our Amazon MP3 Store is provided by record labels and their distributors. The agreements to provide this content were arranged with these companies. Any questions you have regarding content should be directed to record label or distributor.

For additional information and a list of partners we work with, please visit our MP3 Music Labels and Artists Guide at this URL:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200212210

Thank you for your interest in Amazon MP3 Music Downloads.

Please let us know if this e-mail resolved your question:

Re:Amazon sells the track

[omnichad]

You won't get a reply. They'll just remove the MP3 from everyone's MP3 player, issue an apology, and then put it back.

Re:Amazon sells the track

[Trogre]

Wait, are we allowed to use the word 'stealing' in this context again?

Re:Amazon sells the track

[Anonymous Coward]

So the music label is basically stealing Edwins work and not paying him.

Iff they are illegally copying his work, on a large scale, for profit, the term would be (criminal) copyright infringement, not stealing. What's the maximum penalty for that in the U.S.? $150,000.00 per instance? And how many unauthorized copies of his songs have they sold by now?

How would that work

[Kupfernigk]

How, exactly, does one register copyright at the Library of Congress on a piece of music?

I'm not trolling. How would you do it? The score? How would a bureaucrat, exactly, identify that a performance is indeed the same as the score - without expensive lawyers getting involved? The title? Easily changed. The composer? Need to go to law to force $evil_corporation to admit they don't have title.

I suspect this is more about Myspace=US corporation, Warners=US corporation, where is Scotland?

Re:How would that work

[Volante3192]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead_sheet

Re:How would that work

[coolsnowmen]

The performance is not the same as the music, in copyright law.
http://www.ehow.com/video_2384677_register-copyright-music.html

Re:How would that work

[mcgrew]

It's simple, you get a registration form, fill it in, send it with two copies of the work (you could send two copies of the score and two copies of the recording and cover both at the same time). It's not like a patent, it only costs $30 (unless they raised it again; I paid $20 for my copyrighted computer programs back in the early eighties). No lawyer is needed unless someone infringes your copyright.

About a year after you send the forms and copies you get your certificate.

Re:How would that work

[Zordak]

It's $35 now, you do it all online, and it only takes you about 6 months to get your certificate. It's really cheap and really easy. There is no reason not to do it if you have anything that has even a remote chance of being infringed by somebody.

Re:How would that work

[cpt kangarooski]

Go to the US Copyright Office webpage -- www.copyright.gov -- and read through circulars 50 and 56a. As for verification, there generally isn't any, but committing fraud against the copyright office isn't in the interest of the copyright claimant, even if only discovered later.

Re:Let's get the car analogy out the way quickly..

[gnick]

This comment is written by gnick and is therefore copyrighted. Since it was written at work and it took me approximately 1.5 hours to write/edit/Preview/Submit and I make approximately 1 bazillion dollars an hour, this comment is worth $1.5 bazillion (US).

At my incredibly modest royalty fees, replicating this comment (e.g. downloading, printing, etc) costs only $5. If you've read this comment, please contact me for PayPal information to submit your payment.

sample licensing?

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't mentioned in the article and I doubt MySpace's music copyright system is sophisticated enough to be aware of this, but the drumbeat in "A Girl Like You" is a sample from the Len Barry song "1-2-3."

It is likely that Collins got permission to use that drumbeat sample for records and CDs and stuff, but to release online might require renegotiation.

Re:sample licensing?

[kthejoker]

Assuming that it was a standard sampling royalty contract, then no, whoever holds the copyright to Collins's song can do with it what they please, via physical or electronic media.

So...

[UncHellMatt]

...in effect, what this is suggesting is that MySpace is run by people of roughly equal intelligence to the majority of it's users?

Re:So...

[mcgrew]

...in effect, what this is suggesting is that MySpace is run by people of roughly equal intelligence to the majority of it's users?

Oh, the irony...

But I own the patent on car analogies

[mpapet]

Therefore, please send a royalty of $5 USD for each infringement (aka view) to my papal account www-data@localhost.

Re:But I own the patent on car analogies

[Stanislav_J]

Therefore, please send a royalty of $5 USD for each infringement (aka view) to my papal account www-data@localhost.

I had no idea His Holiness was a Slashdot user....

Re:But I own the patent on car analogies

[Anonymous Coward]

not only that but he has pictures of my wife on his mail server!

Re:But I own the patent on car analogies

[Anonymous Coward]

Must have been Him as that was a lot of bull.

Re:But I own the patent on car analogies

[PiSkyHi]

Not only that, but he practically runs Ebay.

Standard operationg procedure?

[Dotren]

It seems like I've read previously somewhere a case where the record industry had claimed copyright on something they didn't actually own.

I'm starting to wonder if they don't train their watchdogs to send out DMCA notices for any music they see online thinking it's better to risk a simple apology later if they don't own it than it is to leave potentially copyright infringing music online.

Re:Standard operationg procedure?

[The Moof]

It'd just be nice if they actually enforced this:

I swear, under penalty of perjury consistent with United States Code Title 17, Section 512, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

(taken from a boilerplate DMCA takedown notice)

Registering a musical work with a lead sheet

[tepples]

How, exactly, does one register copyright at the Library of Congress on a piece of music? [...] How would you do it? The score?

Yes. A common way to register a musical work (as opposed to a recording of that work) is to submit a lead sheet or other score.

How would a bureaucrat, exactly, identify that a performance is indeed the same as the score

One who registers a copyright in a derivative work, such as a recording of a musical work, has a duty to disclose the underlying works on the form. In the case of fraudulent registration, you probably will need attorneys and expert witnesses.

Finally, not a problem for the little guy!

[mattwrock]

My band (The Stone Bunnies, if you care) has their original stuff on both MySpace and Facebook. While I don't expect it to get us a label, it is good to a site to show to fans and bar owners. It gives us people who are doing it for fun a place to demonstrate our creativity. The system has long been set up that studio music is the "calling card" for the artist, and any real money is made in live performance. Since he has a label, why doesn't he just create his own site and link it on MySpace or Facebook?

Is so simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Ignore the copyrights, and kill the lawers if they go to your house. Do not obey stupid laws like DCMA, simple that

So... can he claim damages?

[eepok]

People are getting charged $150,000 for every song they allow to be uploaded. Well, this guys is being denied the opportunity to advertise his music... for months. And the involved parties know about it. He's even sent his version of a "cease and desist". So what's the formula for damages? When does he get to collect.

Re:So... can he claim damages?

[selven]

Zero. Damages scale proportionally to the ratio of capital available to the plaintiff compared to the defendant.

It takes about 10 minutes to fix this...

[herojig]

1. Post the song on a hosted website of your choosing (other then myspace). 2. Link to the song from the myspace page to the hosted file. 3.Get these articles of /.

Yup...

[Urza9814]

Many years ago I had a myspace profile entirely removed for uploading one song that I created using 'cat [textfile] > /dev/audio'. Yea. Apparently the title I decided to give it was too close to a song that they had listed in their database as being copyrighted or something so they killed my entire profile immediately. I sent a couple emails to the address they had given to contact in such cases and I never got a response. I'm amazed he even managed to get in contact with anybody...

Re:Yup...

[Zordak]

Actually, his wife/manager got in contact with somebody from Warner Music, who were claiming to own the copyright. There's nothing in the article that says he's ever had any contact with MySpace at all. If he had tried, I suspect it would have been similar to your experience.

Re:Yup...

[Just Some Guy]

Many years ago I had a myspace profile entirely removed for uploading one song that I created using 'cat [textfile] > /dev/audio'.

They probably thought you were ripping Skinny Puppy.

Why Warner Brothers and not EMI

[Holi]

Well aren't the Smithereens signed with Warner, they have a song from 1989 called "A Girl Like You". Is it possible that due to identically named songs this is actually a misunderstanding?

Re:Why Warner Brothers and not EMI

[Anonymous Coward]

How does Warner (and Myspace) distinguish theirs from the other three "A Girl Like You", which include Atlantic and EMI?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Girl_Like_You

I mean yeah, sure, it /could/ be a misunderstanding over same title, but the same title problem isn't new in the music business. Precedent exists.

Re:Why Warner Brothers and not EMI

[Anonymous Coward]

But he wants to stream it, or auto-play in one of those horrible embedded flash mp3 players. Or even worse, embed it in the page so it starts blaring once the page is loaded, that was really popular in 1995*.

* Or today, if you look at MySpace pages.

facepalm

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. Stop using the most popular and widespread social platform for promoting music; use niche services that no one knows about instead. Just look at how MySpace screwed over that one guy who has a recording contract. *facepalm*

If you make music, you'd be a fool to not take advantage of MySpace. The only reasons I can see for not doing so are 1) your music sucks, you know it, and you don't want people to hear it; or 2) you're a pretentious prick who thinks his music is too good for MySpace. I agree your business shouldn't depend on MySpace, but it's still a great way to promote your band. And if MySpace refuses to let you stream your music, why pay attorney fees when you can just cancel your account?

Or just use your own streaming player?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you just HAVE to use myspace:

1. Hide the myspace player with CSS.
2. Upload your own mp3 and use your own flash player or one of the many easily available ones.
3. ??????
4. Profit??

Especially since myspace has recently started with popup ads WITHIN the built-in myspace mp3 player.

He can already claim

[Anonymous Coward]

See this post:

http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1395955&cid=29671207

They are still selling illegal copies of his work.

Label it

[SEWilco]

Obviously he needs to start a label called "Major".

Well of course!

[tkrotchko]

"MySpace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major [label] can claim a copyright"

Do you think that's by accident? The major labels have gone out of their way in the past 10 years to convince the governments and public that they are the sole gatekeeper for music. It's to their benefit to create that thought so that passing laws to codify their position and become the sole gatekeeper for music actually seem reasonable.

myspace

[__aazsst3756]

Myspace? Nobody goes there anymore... it's too popular.

Sue BOTH Warner Brothers AND Myspace

[Skapare]

Myspace should have a dispute mechanism whereby the dispute is sent to the company making the claim, requiring them to provide PROOF of copyright ownership within 30 days. Failure to provide such proof then allows the disputed work to be posted. If proof is provided, the disputer shall have the right to obtain a copy of the proof for not greater than the cost of copying the documents (presumably at this point to sue the pants off the company making the fraudulent claim). That should let Myspace off the hook. Instead, this is a "MYSPACE FAIL" so they are complicit in the tort.

Never met a girl like you before

[hoover]

If he tried streaming "never met a girl like you before", I guess the Geneva convention was considered applicable for the abysmal guitar solo... good riddance and hats off to the guys in The Hague! ;-)

Hope this gets resolved soon

[jd80026]

Dozens of fans are eagerly waiting to hear this song again.

iFail

[conureman]

Sorry, I was thinking of FaceBook. God, I hate being wrong.

Re:iFail

[Mister Whirly]

No, MySpace originally started out as a way for bands to get their stuff out there, and maintain contacts lists easily. It is why I signed up for it about 4 years ago. Facebook started out as a way for high school and college friends to find each other easily. I remember way back I think you even needed a school email to sign up for Facebook.

Re:iFail

[Dragonslicer]

Facebook started out as a way for high school and college friends to find each other easily. I remember way back I think you even needed a school email to sign up for Facebook.

I believe Facebook was originally only for college students. It was a bit of a big deal when they started adding high schools as well (that was before it opened to the general public, of course). Originally, yes, you did need a .edu email address from a college that Facebook had added to their system. I even still have my email/password saved in Firefox from when you still accessed http://schoolname.facebook.com/

Re:iFail

[TheGreenNuke]

You young whipper snapper, I remember when it was still THEfacebook.com as shown in this Orginal Facebook layout. Now get off my lawn.

Re:iFail

[Anonymous Coward]

That you act like you were in the room for the origins of MySpace, but are unsure of the "way back" origins of Facebook (which came after MySpace and less than seven years ago) makes me skeptical that you are a good source of information on either.

Re:iFail

[c_forq]

Shit, not only do I still type thefacebook out of habit sometimes, but I remember meeting people and becoming friends because we were one of the twenty people on facebook on campus.

Re:iFail

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait, four years is way back?

Damn kids. Get off my lawn.

Re:iFail

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I could remember things that happened 5 years ago.... wow... you must be at least 12 with that kind of recall.

Re:iFail

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember when thefacebook actually had separate pages for different schools, and if your school didn't have a page you couldn't join. I used to check it everyday waiting for them to add my school. Yeah, I was lame...

Re:Jews

[Yvan256]

Jews are gross, Lois. It's the only religion with 'ew' in it. - Peter Griffin, Family Guy

The lables own the artists

[bobjr94]

That happens all the time. The band Streetlight Manifesto spend their own money making their first official video, there label forced them to remove the video saying it was a copyright infringement. The band had no rights to use their own music for any purpose.

Re:The lables own the artists

[dfxm]

With all due respect, you don't know the details of Streetlight Manifesto's record deal (and maybe they don't either). I wouldn't be surprised if they don't own the copyright to their music, but their record label does.

Courts will side with the law no matter silly it is. You just have to hope that these cases get enough attention so that people realize we need to change these laws!

Re:The lables own the artists

[adf92343414]

In this case, the guy (not Warner) owned the copyright to his own music.

My ... space?

[Domini]

Seems more like their ... space...

Erm, bad jokes aside, who still uses the "MySpace of the web" (meaning MySpace) anyway?

Oops....

[mcgrew]

That should have read "If you buy two of his CDs, that's one RIAA CD you don't have the money for."

Duh...

Required by Law

[spun]

The Majors are required by law to care only about shareholder profits. Any publicly traded corporation can be sued if they put anything else but the bottom line first. They have a fiduciary responsibility to make money for their shareholders. If they use shareholder money to promote art, make music, and support artists without making money for said shareholders, they are breaching that fiduciary responsibility.

Re:Required by Law

[zippthorne]

That should be easily solvable by putting appropriate language in the charter before incorporating and issuing common shares.

Re:Required by Law

[Anonymous Coward]

Bullshit. Ignorant people like you trot this shit out all the time, and it's simply not true. Companies can set whatever policies and goals they desire. There are countless for profit publicly traded companies devoted to things like "clean energy" or "renewable farming" whose policy is only to take actions that further those goals, even if other paths would bring in more short term profit.

So do everyone a favor and shut the fuck up about something you clearly know nothing about.

Re:Required by Law

[Just Some Guy]

If they use shareholder money to promote art, make music, and support artists without making money for said shareholders, they are breaching that fiduciary responsibility.

And that's why most corporate employees sit on folding chairs (when they're allowed to sit), and take turns being the desk. And also why all major publicly traded retailers have stopped buying new wholesale goods, because short-term profit (read: this week) is always the most important thing.

A board of humans could make the case that promoting art, making music, and supporting artists is making money for their stockholders. I am unsurprised that the boards of RIAA member corporations, by contrast, do not make such a case.

Re:Required by Law

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The Majors are required by law to care only about shareholder profits.

All corporations, public and private are required to make only those profits they can make by, you know, following the law. Filing a fraudulent claim of copyright is illegal. Warner is committing fraud, and MySpace is acting as an accessory. Why is this so difficult for corporate apologists to understand?

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

You mean, the way things used to be before corporate interests had the laws changed in their favor? I, for one, would love to go back to the days when corporations' scope of activities were severely limited by law.

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

Corporate apologists consider justice to be something like groceries, i.e. something you send someone out to purchase when you need it.

Re:Required by Law

[Anonymous Coward]

The Majors are required by law to care only about shareholder profits. Any publicly traded corporation can be sued if they put anything else but the bottom line first.

So -- by law -- companies that pollute because it's cheaper than proper disposal are just being good corporate citizens?

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

You can't break the law to make money, yet. But if you, say, ship your manufacturing off to a country that where there are no environmental regulations, then you are doing right by your shareholders. If many companies start doing this, and seeing a profit, then shareholders can successfully sue companies that don't, or replace the boards.

Many people who would never think to throw trash in their neighbor's yard will, essentially, hire someone to throw trash in their neighbor's yard, and they will sleep like babies at night, believing they are good people.

Re:Required by Law

[omnichad]

Back to the industrial revolution? Before the East India company? How far?

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

Not much in the way of joint stock limited liability corporations before the the East India Company, was there? Maybe a few Dutch corporations. But I'd say, back to the early days of the US, when corporations like the EIC were seen as despotic enemies, and all corporations were limited to only perform the business for which they were chartered, could not own stock in other corporations, were limited in duration, were limited in geographic scope of business, and had no human rights as a legal person.

Re:Required by Law

[Lord Kano]

I must disagree with you. Corporations have always been persons. The word incorporate implies that. A person is merely a legal entity. If your neighbor's dog bites you, you can't sue your neighbor's dog, because the dog's not a person. You have to sue your neighbor.

Personhood is what obliges corporations to obey the law and by extension why they have rights.

LK

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

Wrong. The word corporation derives from the word corpus, meaning body, yes, but in this case, 'body' is used as a synecdoche to mean 'group.' Is the marine corps a person? Same derivation.

Corporations were not considered persons. They had no right to own stock in other corporations. They had legally limited life-spans. They could only operate where their charter said they could, doing the business the charter specified. And most importantly, until Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad in 1886, corporations did not have human rights. Interestingly, the decision about corporate personhood was not made by the Supreme Court justices, but by a law clerk who inserted his own opinion into the decision before publishing it. The Supreme Court had specifically said they were not deciding on the larger issue, yet somehow, it was decided. Odd, don't you think?

Your folk etymology of the word corporation and personal opinions on the subject do not add up to a valid argument. Perhaps you should read up on the history of corporations, as you seem to be deficient in factual knowledge of the subject.

Re:Required by Law

[sjames]

That's an old dodge and is simply false. All they have to do is call it an investment in 'good will' and show somehow how that good will helps them. I can easily see how being considered one of the good guys would help them sign more and better artists and reduce the odds of being targeted for a boycott for examples.

There is absolutely nothing in the law that requires directors of large corporations to have their morals and ethics surgically removed, they just usually do so.

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

There is absolutely nothing in the law that requires directors of large corporations to have their morals and ethics surgically removed, they just usually do so.

Why do they usually do so? I say, the system encourages it, even if not strictly required by law. We have a system that is predicated on the idea that humans are selfish creatures. We can be, but only when we see everyone around us being selfish. By starting from the assumption that people are selfish, our system creates the very problem it seeks to correct.

Re:Required by Law

[fishbowl]

Simple solution: Form a corporation and use these amazing powers yourself?

Re:Required by Law

[fishbowl]

Corporations are powerful because they can aggregate wealth in ways that individuals cannot. Some tightly-knit families who pool resources can also operate like corporate entities. It's aggregate wealth that gives them power, not some magical special laws that so many people seem to believe exist, but cannot cite. The very phrase "corporate personhood" is a biased way of pointing out that corporations have rights and responsibilities under the law. If corporations didn't have rights, the people who own and operate those corporations would have rights, and the situation would be no different.

The real problem is that they have indefinitely long lifetimes and can build wealth that individuals rarely even aspire to, and those things give them power. Proposed solutions such as limiting their lifespan or limiting their wealth aren't going to get far.

Re:Required by Law

[RobertLTux]

In fact in the FTC filings REQUIRED BY FEDERAL LAW when giving the numbers for a corporation there is always a line item (or line items) labeled "good will"
and in many cases its not a small number at all. and of course in the tax write offs for say Budwieser they list off all of the charities they gave to
(and the number of times they had to hit the STOP BEER!! button to bottle water for some disaster or another).

lack of a "Good Will" number (or a small number) is a sign of a dieing company (i think TSCOG lists a nonzero amount of good will and you know how they are doing)

Re:Required by Law

[Lord Kano]

What have we here? Neo-progressive revisionism and liberal elitism. Not only do you know better because you've read the claptrap at reclaimdemocracy, but words do not mean what they say they mean...I'm going to enjoy taking these apart.

You're deliberately attempting to muddy the waters. I'm not talking about "human rights", one must clearly be a human to have "human rights". There is a difference between a citizen, a person and a human. One must be human to become a citizen not so to become a person. Corporations STILL do not have human rights.

SCC v. SPR did not grant new rights to corporations, the issue had never been raised before. The Constitution doesn't grant rights. The Courts do not grant rights. Rights are preexisting. The fact that you invoke a concept like "human rights" reinforces that point.

Corporations were once limited to what's included in the charter. At one time corporations couldn't own property. That proves nothing. At one time women, a specific type of person, could not own property. At one time human beings, a specific type of person, could be owned as property.

As for my "folk etymology", let's take a look. You say folk, I say race ipsa loquitur.

• person
  c.1225, from O.Fr. persone "human being" (12c., Fr. personne), from L. persona "human being," originally "character in a drama, mask," possibly borrowed from Etruscan phersu "mask." This may be related to Gk. Persephone. The use of -person to replace -man in compounds and avoid alleged sexist connotations is first recorded 1971 (in chairperson). Personify first recorded 1727. Personable "pleasing in one's person" is first attested c.1430. In person "by bodily presence" is from 1568. Person-to-person first recorded 1919, originally of telephone calls.

• 1398, 4"to put (something) into the body or substance of (something else)," from L.L. incorporatus, pp. of incorporare "unite into one body," from L. in- "into" + corpus (gen. corporis) "body" (see corporeal). The legal sense first recorded in Rolls of Parliament, 1461.

Both person meaning "in bodily presence" and incorporate meaning "unite into one body" predate the founding of this Republic.

I should read up on pseudo-populist drivel? You should learn the meaning of the words that you use.

LK

Re:Required by Law

[Lord Kano]

Some tightly-knit families who pool resources can also operate like corporate entities.

It's the ability and willingness to do so is what makes them powerful families.

It's aggregate wealth that gives them power, not some magical special laws that so many people seem to believe exist, but cannot cite.

How about this?
Is the US Code a good enough citation?

• (10) "Person" includes a natural person (including an individual Indian), a corporation, a partnership, an unincorporated association, a trust, or an estate, or any other public or private entity, including a State or local government or an Indian tribe.

Again, it's not a magical special law that I can't cite. It's the US Code.

LK

Re:Required by Law

[falconwolf]

Any publicly traded corporation can be sued if they put anything else but the bottom line first.

And a corporation could have it's corporate charter revoked if it no longer serves the common or public good. And if this behavior qualifies as a good then things are really screwed.

Falcon

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

Corporations benefit the rich and powerful. I'm neither. Any corporation I formed would not be very powerful, or well capitalized. But that's besides the point. The point is, the corporate form creates a moral hazard. Whether or not I can use it too, it is wrong.

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

Wrong again. Corporations have human rights. Did you even read the court decision I mentioned? No.

So you think corporations have a moral right to the same rights as us, after you say they don't have human rights. Make up your mind. Cognitive dissonance is keeping you from putting two and two together in your head. Good job catching my is/aught fallacy, but there was a reason corporations were so limited, they are an unchecked focus of power. People can use the corporate for to shield themselves from liability while amassing huge amounts of power over others.

A group is not a person, plain and simple. You are trying to argue that there is no difference between an individual and a collection of individuals. That's stupid.

Nice etymology, but 'to form into one body' means, 'to form a group' not 'to form an individual out of individuals.' Your personal wishes on the subject do not change the meaning of things.

In short, you've demolished nothing. You've formed no cognizant counter argument to my argument that corporations should not have human rights, in fact, you flat out support my argument by saying, "I'm not talking about "human rights", one must clearly be a human to have "human rights". " My argument, backed up by court documents pointed at through wikipedia, shows that corporations DO have human rights, and that this is a recent thing.

Does it hurt when you fail that badly? You got beaten by a social anarchist, boy. Schooled, even. Hope you enjoyed it.

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

I've been advocating for that penalty for a while. It's not like the actual business would disappear, or even the employees would get laid off, necessarily, the components of the corporation would be sold off to other, less evil companies.

Re:Required by Law

[fishbowl]

>Again, it's not a magical special law that I can't cite. It's the US Code.

It doesn't give them powers that it denies you, which is my point.

Re:Required by Law

[sjames]

The system does encourage it through a lack of personal responsibility, a lack of appropriate law enforcement, and a lack of consumer transparency. Those taken together result in a situation where a sociopath will have an economic advantage over someone with a moral compass to guide them.

The whole idea of incorporation insulates individuals from liabilities incurred by the corporate entity. All in all, that is too important to simply set aside, especially in our overly litigious society. Without that, it might actually become impossible to conduct business at all. However, it unfortunately allows a less than ethical executive to maximize reward while minimizing personal risk. This is exactly the sort of position that attracts a sociopath. They seem to actually believe such a state of affairs to be their right.

That is compounded by a system of law enforcement that allows a large corporate entity to statistically profit from behaviours that are certainly unethical and often of questionable legality. If the fine for being caught is not at the very least the total amount they stand to gain divided by the likelihood of being caught, they will inevitably choose to risk the fine every time. That is, if the fine for stealing $1000 is $2000 but you know you will only be caught 1 out of 4 times, you steal 4 times (=$4000), pay the fine once ($2000) and end up with a tidy profit. Naturally this only works if you bear no personal liability for such unpleasantries such as jail. In the business world, if you're large enough, crime pays and honesty suffers from weaker performance.

If criminal penalties were more significant for corporations then sociopathic leadership would be a liability rather than an asset for the corporation and it's stockholders.

Absent a significant legal deterrence, consumer preference to deal with more ethical corporations could have an effect. The problem there is that there are so many re-branding deals, subsidiaries, and other such that it can be hard to know exactly who you are doing business with. Half the time the "no-name" brands are just a front for another brand. Then there are so many ethically questionable corporations it can be hard to figure out if there even IS a decent one, or failing that, which is the least unethical.

If there was enough transparency so that consumers could actually equate buying brand X to supporting slavery, poisoning people's environments, fraud, etc then perhaps that could make a difference.

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

Limited liability is obviously not a prerequisite to doing business, quite a few sole proprietorships and partnerships still exist. There is an inherent moral hazard in absentee ownership. The hired managers do not, will not, and can not have the owners interests at heart to the same extent the owner would if they were managing their own business.

The question is, to what extent is this organizational and legal structure a benefit, to what extent is it a detriment, and how can we increase the benefits while decreasing the detriments. You've got some good ideas, I think transparency would help. People do, for the most part, want to do the right thing.

Re:Required by Law

[Lord Kano]

Corporations have human rights. Did you even read the court decision I mentioned?

The decision you mentioned said nothing of human rights. The clerk even cleared his choice of words with the Chief Justice before the decision was released. Humans and persons are not the same thing under the law. Can you name a single corporation that has received citizenship? Political asylum?

So you think corporations have a moral right to the same rights as us, after you say they don't have human rights. Make up your mind.

Inability or unwillingness on your part to understand a difference doesn't mean that there is no difference. You keep trying to frame the issue with respect to human rights. There is no such position. Corporations are persons, not humans.

Good job catching my is/aught fallacy, but there was a reason corporations were so limited, they are an unchecked focus of power.

At the time, there was a reason why women and black people were so limited. That doesn't make it any more right.

People can use the corporate for to shield themselves from liability while amassing huge amounts of power over others.

People can do all kinds of nasty things with freedom, that's no reason to deny it to them.

A group is not a person, plain and simple.

Physically? No. Legally? Sometimes.

Does it hurt when you fail that badly?

I'll let you know if and when that happens.

LK

Re:Required by Law

[sjames]

I would say that limited liability is not needed in a sane legal system, but even a sole proprietorship or small partnership is advised to form an s corp these days. Not that thet prevents a nuisance suit from destroying the business, but it does keep it from also taking away the owner's home.

Absentee ownership is more of a problem. Notably most publically traded companies do have mostly absentee owners. Unfortunately, since most stock holders only own a tiny fraction of any one company, they don't feel like it's unethical behaviour has anything to do with them (if they even find out about it). By the time mutual funds add more degrees of separation, they may not even know they (indirectly) own stock in an unethical company.

It's worth noting that however well the unethical executive manages to drive profit, they generally wreck the company sooner or later, as soon as an opportunity comes up that allows them to personally profit at the business's expense. I don't know exactly what to do about that, but I do know that that problem is of more financial concern to a long term investor than to a day trader.

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

What I mean is that every right granted to humans is, if applicable, granted to corporations. Political asylum is not a human right, at least, not everyone recognizes that just anyone has the right to it. And corporations have citizenship. They have all the protections that come along with citizenship. A corporation has a right to free speech. It can be discriminated against. It can hold property. Every right granted to US citizens is granted to corporations.

It did not used to be that way, a corporation could not own just any property, like stock in other companies. A corporation could not be slandered. It had no right to free speech. Oh, the individuals making up a corporation had all those rights, but the corporation itself did not. A person's right to free speech entitles them to lie to you. Fox News sued for their right to lie to us on the air, and won. Is that really a good thing?

A corporation is a tool for oppression. It is not a human held in slavery, it is slavery. We went from right to wrong, not the other way around, by giving corporations rights that people have when the people that make up a corporation already have those rights individually.

Your freedom ends when it infringes mine. You don't have the freedom to shit in my yard, you don't have the freedom to steal from me, your right to swing your fist ends with my face. Why do we make racketeering illegal? Why do we make conspiracy illegal? Why do we make Ponzi schemes illegal? Why do we take away people's freedoms to use those forms of business? How does the corporate form differ from a ponzi scheme in such a way that we allow the one but forbid the other?

You aren't defending freedom. Well, you are defending the freedom of the powerful to oppress the less powerful. That results in a net loss of freedom, so you aren't really defending freedom at all. If a particular legal form results in a net loss of freedom, we deem it immoral and restrict others' ability to engage in that. Everyone has the right to defend themselves from aggression. Everyone has the right to band together to protect themselves from those with more power who would use it against them.

I say, corporations let the powerful more easily oppress other people, and we have every right to fight that. We have every right to limit what kinds of activities others engage in, when those activities hurt third parties. We do not have to give, oh let's just call them civil liberties, to arbitrary groups of people when the individuals making up those groups already hold those rights, as individuals.

Feel free to request more schooling from me any time, I'm happy to provide you with an education.

Re:Required by Law

[Lord Kano]

What I mean is that every right granted to humans is, if applicable, granted to corporations.

Exactly! Human rights are those things that are only applicable to humans.

Political asylum is not a human right, at least, not everyone recognizes that just anyone has the right to it.

Well, not just anyone can have it. Only human beings that are she object of political or religious persecution.

And corporations have citizenship.

Prove it. Do you have a link? Preferably one to a reputable site.

A corporation has a right to free speech. It can be discriminated against. It can hold property. Every right granted to US citizens is granted to corporations.

First, rights are not granted. They are preexisting. Second, can a corporation vote? Can a corporation hold public office? Third, free speech is for persons, not just citizens.

It did not used to be that way, a corporation could not own just any property, like stock in other companies.

A lot of things "used to be". Changes nothing.

How does the corporate form differ from a ponzi scheme in such a way that we allow the one but forbid the other?

For starters, it's possible for every corporate investor to make money.

I say, corporations let the powerful more easily oppress other people

You can say it all you like, that doesn't make it true.

Feel free to request more schooling from me any time,

That's funny. You have to provide "some" before you can provide "more".

LK

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

You know, you almost succeeded in diverting attention away from your initial argument and into a morass of conflicting definitions. Let me draw attention back to the your initial reply:

I must disagree with you. Corporations have always been persons. The word incorporate implies that. A person is merely a legal entity. If your neighbor's dog bites you, you can't sue your neighbor's dog, because the dog's not a person. You have to sue your neighbor.

Personhood is what obliges corporations to obey the law and by extension why they have rights.

This was in reply to my assertion:

Not much in the way of joint stock limited liability corporations before the the East India Company, was there? Maybe a few Dutch corporations. But I'd say, back to the early days of the US, when corporations like the EIC were seen as despotic enemies, and all corporations were limited to only perform the business for which they were chartered, could not own stock in other corporations, were limited in duration, were limited in geographic scope of business, and had no human rights as a legal person.

I have successfully showed that corporations have increased their rights, whether we use the terms 'human rights' 'personal rights' or 'civil liberties' is irrelevant. My point is that corporations were limited in their rights, and now they are not. It was never any sort of major point that corporations were considered 'persons' or not. The point is the encroachment of corporate power over individuals.

You attempt to defend this by likening corporations to slaves, which is ludicrous. You do not actually argue as to why it is good for corporations to have more rights. You do not actually argue as to why it was bad that their rights were limited. By comparing them to slaves, you attempt to engage emotions, not logic.

Let's define the parameters of this discussion more clearly so we are not sidetracked into little semantic games, okay?

It is my position that the extension of corporate rights is a bad thing. Let me list the specific limitations I think are positive:

1.) Corporations could not own stock in other corporations.
2.) Corportations could only do business as outlined in their charter.
3.) Corporations could only do business in the area outlined in their charter.
4.) Corporations had a limited lifespan (although this was never carried out in practice, so I mention it only for the sake of completeness.)
5.)Corporations had no right to free speech. Only individual humans did.

Now, these limitations did not in any way limit the rights of individuals. They limited the ability of groups of individuals to hold power over others. Granting corporations unlimited rights has allowed them to exert enormous amounts of power over each of our daily lives. This power comes without any sort of representation, and amounts to tyranny.

Now that I have made my points clear, perhaps you could attempt to discuss them rather than trying to throw the discussion off track with useless debates over semantics.

Re:Required by Law

[Lord Kano]

You know, you almost succeeded in diverting attention away from your initial argument

I made no such attempt.

I have successfully showed that corporations have increased their rights

That much is not in dispute. Corporations do have the use of more rights now than they did 200 years ago. So do women. So do black people.

whether we use the terms 'human rights' 'personal rights' or 'civil liberties' is irrelevant.

Not at all. Words have meanings and their meanings are important.

You do not actually argue as to why it is good for corporations to have more rights. You do not actually argue as to why it was bad that their rights were limited.

Correct. I do not.

By comparing them to slaves, you attempt to engage emotions, not logic.

You're throwing around terms like "evil", "bad" and "good", those are completely subjective. You are appealing to emotion at least as much as I am.

Granting corporations unlimited rights has allowed them to exert enormous amounts of power over each of our daily lives.

First, corporations do not have unlimited rights. Second, who granted these "rights"?

This power comes without any sort of representation, and amounts to tyranny.

Corporations answer to stockholders. You want representation? There's an easy to get it.

Now that I have made my points clear, perhaps you could attempt to discuss them rather than trying to throw the discussion off track with useless debates over semantics.

Or IOW, give you a change to win for once.

LK

Re:Required by Law

[spun]

Corporations aren't people! Why are you defending a group of people, who already have rights as individuals, as if the group were itself a person deserving of our sympathy? Equating a corporation with historically oppressed groups is simply inaccurate.

Meanings are important, but I've stated what my meaning is. Perhaps I used the wrong words, but we aren't here to debate the meanings of words, we are here to debate what I meant, which is that corporations have too many rights, because they aren't humans. They shouldn't have the same rights as us, they are things, not people.

Corporations exert enormous influence over our daily lives, far more than the King exerted over the American colonists. One person, one vote is fair. One dollar one vote is not, when the corporation exerts even more influence over the lives of the poor than the rich. Maybe you feel we should restrict voting rights to land owners?

I am arguing for limiting the rights of corporations. You have not presented a valid counter argument. We, the actual human citizens, granted them those rights. Corporations, not being human beings, have no moral claim to any rights. They have all the moral claim to rights that automobiles do, they are simply things, not people. We gave them rights because we felt it would benefit us, the humans. If we feel that giving them rights does not benefit us, there is no reason not to revoke those rights.

There. I think I've made my point of view clear, so try to confine your arguments to addressing my actual point, if you can.

Re:Time for an indie-myspace: SoundCloud

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, such a young, fresh upstart already exists:

Check out Soundcloud. The whole point of soundcloud is to allow signed and unsigned artists and even indie-labels to share their music with interested people.

Music tagging, favoriting, timed comments, integration with other platforms and a fresh user interface makes me like it a lot.

Plus, it's not contaminated with the major labels and based in Germany so less prone to false DMCA takedown notices.

Re:Let's get the car analogy out the way quickly..

[houghi]

This comment is written by gnick and is therefore copyrighted. Since it was written at work and it took me approximately 1.5 hours to write/edit/Preview/Submit and I make approximately 1 bazillion dollars an hour, this comment is worth $1.5 bazillion (US).

At my incredibly modest royalty fees, replicating this comment (e.g. downloading, printing, etc) costs only $5. If you've read this comment, please contact me for PayPal information to submit your payment.

Re:Let's get the car analogy out the way quickly..

[Divide By Zero]

This reply is written by me. Since it was written at work, and I work for the federal government of the United States of America, it is in the public domain, and available for anyone to copy, use or modify as they see fit. Feel free to bill my employer for your five bucks.

Re:iFail again!

[conureman]

crap. Kinda ironic considering I changed my sig prior to posting this AM. Like washing the car to end a drought, eh? Anyway, I tried looking up my cousin's band on MySpace after I posted, and found it on Facebook, that's what started the confusion.

Re:iFail again!

[Mister Whirly]

Well, neither site is currently pursuing what they started out as. Both have morphed into the generic social sites that are near impossible to tell apart by features or stated purpose these days...And when the next Facebook comes along Facebook will be the new MySpace.

"A Girl Like You" ... I love that song!

[uslurper]

Hey if you get a chance to listen to Edwin Collins song "A Girl Like You", it is definitely worth the listen. The guitar buzz, classy piano, and groovy beat mix well behind Edwins vocals.
One of my top-picks for one-hit wonders.

Licencing issues aside, I hope the best for the guy.

Steve Thompson

[Darth Cider]

The same thing happened to songwriter, Steve Thompson, who posted a non-downloadable song he'd composed as an example of his work. (Recorded by Sheena Easton and Barbra Streisand.) Myspace cancelled his account until he took a ridiculous "copyright education program." He was lucky, in that a lawyer from Sony BMG sympathized and intervened.

Re:Steve Thompson

[Darth Cider]

Erratum. Celine Dion, not Barbra Streisand.

Re:Let's get the car analogy out the way quickly..

[gv250]

This comment is written by gnick and is therefore copyrighted. ...

If you've read this comment, please contact me for PayPal information to submit your payment.

Please send me your PayPal account name and password so I can submit a payment.

The song is up now

[Anonymous Coward]

Just looked at his Myspace and the song "A Girl Like You" is there now with over 550k plays.

Well...

[Anonymous Coward]

Change the name of the song and repost it.

Umm...

[Locke2005]

Doesn't the DMCA provide penalties for falsely claiming ownership of copyright to get content taken down? It would be pretty easy to set up a phony corporation, claim copyright of all the content on Warner Brothers' website, and order them taken down, wouldn't it? If the ISPs actions are any different when the shoe is on the other foot, it pretty much proves that it is an unjust law, doesn't it?

They must have gotten it worked out

[alex_guy_CA]

I'm listening to "A Girl Like You" on his myspace page right now.

Corporations provide abrogation of responsibility

[spun]

Maybe I'm dense here, but how does what you said relate to what I said? Having chairs and desks are necessary to make money. Paying artists, and otherwise acting in a moral fashion is obviously not. I never said that corporations have to make the most money they can, this week, at the expense of long term profitability.

But corporations have been sued for not taking advantage when they could. Corporations are a tool for abrogation of responsibility. They let otherwise moral individuals use proxies to engage in immoral activities those individuals would never, themselves, engage in. If one man murders another, it is clear who is to blame. If a corporation does it, the corporation will not face the de3ath penalty. More than likely, it will just face a fine. Was any human even jailed for the disaster at Bhopal? No. If I poisoned thousands of people, though, I would likely be put to death. The corporate form creates immortal, immensely powerful psychopathic entities.

Re:Corporations provide abrogation of responsibili

[Just Some Guy]

Having chairs and desks are necessary to make money. Paying artists, and otherwise acting in a moral fashion is obviously not. I never said that corporations have to make the most money they can, this week, at the expense of long term profitability.

But doing those things is increasingly important to continue making money. The RIAA members are fighting on at least three fronts: trying to prevent copyright infringement, trying to compete with indies and new venues like MySpace, and trying not to totally screw artists to the point that signing with a major will come to be seen as riskier than staying indie.

Until very recently, they could make a pretty good business out of screwing artists. In a day of instant global communication and increasingly viable alternatives, they'd be well advised to rethink their short-term priorities - much like buying desks for office workers and restocking warehouses is a good idea for regular retailers.

Maybe file a DMCA takedown request ..

[roguegramma]

Maybe file a DMCA takedown request against yourself, then file a counternotice :-P

So you want to send a corporation to jail?

[jjo]

To say that corporations receive unmerited special treatment because they are punished only by fines, while people go to jail, is nonsensical. As the old saying goes:

"A corporation has no body to be kicked and no soul to be damned."

It is utterly impossible to send a corporation to jail, since it is

"an artificial being, invisible, intangible and existing only in the contemplation of the law" [John Marshall].

The only penalty available for the corporation itself is a fine or forfeiture. However, a corporation always acts through people, and these people can be jailed if they knowingly cause the corporation to commit a crime.

Re:Let's get the car analogy out the way quickly..

[Anonymous Coward]

Using this logic, no man should ever have to pay child support, since the actual time spent doing any work creating the baby is done and over in just a few minutes.

What about SoundExchange fees?

[davek]

How does this fit in with the SoundExchange Rules of Extortion? Doesn't that "agreement" mean that the media cartels claim default ownership of all music? Therefore, this guys claim is moot because he needs to pay a fee to stream any music on the internet anyway.

Re:Let's get the car analogy out the way quickly..

[Anonymous Coward]

...the actual time spent doing any work creating the baby is done and over in just a few minutes.

You're doing it wrong.

I'm sick and tired of this crap being spouted..

[schon]

*sigh* This crap gets spewed out every time there's a discussion about a corporation acting badly, and it's pure bullshit.

Corporations are *NOT* required to make money for their shareholders, unless that's what they told the investors.

The Majors are required by law to care only about shareholder profits.

Bullshit. Show me the US Code, Title, and section of said law.

Any publicly traded corporation can be sued if they put anything else but the bottom line first.

No. Publicly-traded companies issue a prospectus, which states what the company does to make money, and what the "values" of the company are. If they deviate from this, they risk a lawsuit, but the prospectus *DOES NOT* require them to put "making money for their investors" as their #1 priority. It is the investor's responsibility to read the prospectus and understand the goals of the company before they invest.

If a shareholder decides the company is not making them enough money, they can sue. But if the company is operating within it's prospectus, the suit will be thrown out of court.

Re:I'm sick and tired of this crap being spouted..

[spun]

And what will you find in the prospectus of all modern megacorporations? Morals? No, you will find, "We exist to make money.'

Corporations are immortal psychopaths with no conscience and immense power. They allow individuals to profit without individual responsibility. People profit from actions they would find morally reprehensible, by investing in corporations that act in a morally repugnant fashion. Those investors sleep soundly at night, because someone else has made the decision to poison Bhopal, to employ children for sixteen hours a day in sweatshops, to murder union organizers. They didn't do it. Besides, EVERYONE is investing in corporations, so it must be all right, right?

No.

Corporations represent an unacceptable moral hazard. Not only do they let people profit without guilt from actions they would find morally repugnant, they create a manager class who have their own interests at heart, not the owners' interests. In fact, that manager class has done everything they can to enlarge the scope of corporate and managerial power and privilege, lobbying governments to change laws to favor corporations and the manager class. The corporation as we no know it comes from hundreds of years of this. Perhaps you should read a little bit about the history of corporations.

Re:I'm sick and tired of this crap being spouted..

[fishbowl]

>>The Majors are required by law to care only about shareholder profits.

>Bullshit. Show me the US Code, Title, and section of said law.

It's just an exaggeration of the idea that a shareholder can claim damages based on irresponsible decisions by a corporate board, which is true, more or less. But it's a ridiculously biased, agenda-driven exaggeration, that comes nowhere close to reflecting reality.

Re:I'm sick and tired of this crap being spouted..

[falconwolf]

And what will you find in the prospectus of all modern megacorporations? Morals? No, you will find, "We exist to make money.'

"In keeping with the unorthodox corporate image that Google presents -- the phrase "Don't be evil' was written into its I.P.O. prospectus -- the company used a modified Dutch auction to sell its shares. A Dutch auction is supposed to make it easier for individual investors to buy stock and minimize the usual first-day 'pop' by seeking out the fair-market price."

Perhaps you should read a little bit about the history of corporations.

And perhaps you should learn about history as well as stockholder activism and socially responsible investing. It was partially because of these that apartheid ended in South Africa. Many shareholder activists pressured the companies they owned stocks in to either push for freedom in South Africa or to disinvest from South Africa.

Falcon

reverbnation

[andreyvul]

It has all the music-streaming I need and nothing more (music videos belong on youtube).
I use it to upload my midi2mp3 compositions.
And IMSLP for the scores themselves.

And their licences are CreativeCommons-Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike
I don't really care which version: it's not gpl2 vs gpl3

Myspace Sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

He deserves it for dealing with that scum company Myspace, which not only is an ugly corporate dynasty that stands in the way of music, it plays music at a very low bitrate which makes it sound like crap. That guy should join BetterStream.com and he'll be as happy as a pig with music quality that is ten times better and a nice presentation and easy to use and sell music from. Checkout this album page an artist can create in minutes and listen to the quality.

http://www.betterstream.com/bsdb/album/2/

Easier than it seems...

[Anonymous Coward]

Tell Warner co. : "You have 3 days to fix it or I'll change to another company". Why? They have enough money and laywers to fix it ASAP (just like the time they take to send DCMA notes).

Artist appears to be allowed to stream it now

[prowley]

I went to his myspace page a few minutes ago and watched the video of "A Girl Like You." It's the one at the bottom of the list.

Re:Let's get the car analogy out the way quickly..

[robbrit]

Just to let you know, I used this comment a school assignment.

Wasn't it the major labels that implored us to

[falconwolf]

think of the artists?

The major labels have only ever thought of how much they can milk from the artists who create music.

Falcon

corporate ethics suffers from sociopathy

[gobbo]

I once was a manager in a corporation whose strategic mandate was "to counteract the transnational corporate agenda" --- because that was the only way to ensure the future profitability of the corporation. Naturally that mandate was kept somewhat quiet.

It came about because of the nature of the corporation's demographic: youthful indie filmmakers. Without that kind of a motive actually driving policy decisions, the brand would fade. Not only that, but because the employees were pretty much being exploited, without giving them a 'labour of love' morale the turnover would have been too high. Interestingly, as the shareholders and directors slowly turned that mandate into lip service, the business began to suffer and required much more intense marketing and more aggressive hiring to grow.

I think that there is enough educated cynicism in the regular population that many corporations could justify ethical social values to their shareholders under the banner of developing customer loyalty. However, my anecdotal experience is that to float to the top in a large corporation requires some degree of sociopathy, unless you get there before the organisation gets too large. YMMV. (cf. Dilbert)

Why presume that the artist is guilty?

[falconwolf]

Having your content taken down and having to fight to get it back is pretty sucky.

It does suck but if Myspace doesn't take it down it can be held liable for copyright infringement. That is one of the criticisms of the DMCA.

Falcon

Re:Think and can I troll?

[NSN A392-99-964-5927]

Seems to me that if you don't like MySpace, you can always just dump it, and tell everybody why.

And the five people that visit your site will find that it's having issues because you didn't pay your hosting bill, or went over bandwidth, or since you don't know jack about admin'ing a website just plain doesn't work right, and they'll go back to MySpace where things are familiar, and everybody else is going.

It's not a matter of whining about their policy. The problem is that they have one policy towards large companies with powerful lawyers, and a different "fuck you" policy towards everyone else, but still claim to only have one policy for everybody.

This is why MyGaySpace has no space. just check my homeboy page http://www.fluxradio.org/ everything is private. I stream when I want to and so do other artists, DJ's and producers. I use Icecast http://www.icecast.org/ Netbsd, Debian and FreeBSD servers, set up round robin DNS so I can avoid this bullshit. I have servers in different countries that load balance and stream from Canada. Where getting sued for playing some music is bit of a problem for authorities. OVH networks provide a juicey connection as well. Why do you need myspace or any of these other moron sites to get music out? If one has done their homework, you just do not need myspace, twitter, facebook, youtube, beebo and the rest of the other sites jumping on the Bandwagon for fame and fortune. Tune of the day - Tangerine Dream "stratosfear"

go back in tyme

[falconwolf]

Back to the industrial revolution? Before the East India company? How far?

Back to when both East India companies, Dutch East India in 1602 and the British East India Company in 1604, were granted charters because they served the common good.

Falcon

This will get fixed

[commodoresloat]

Don't worry, folks. "Tom" will straighten this out immediately.

Sure it does

[commodoresloat]

the site apparently has no mechanism or system to fix the problem the label created.

I thought that was Tom's job?

selfishness

[falconwolf]

I say, the system encourages it, even if not strictly required by law. We have a system that is predicated on the idea that humans are selfish creatures

Ah but even Adam Smith said the best way to improve everyone's life was by people pursuing their own self interests. "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages." Quote from The Wealth Of Nations, Book IV, Chapter II, p. 456, para. 9..

Falcon

Re:selfishness

[Anonymous Coward]

It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
And a certain degree of fair play.

Re:selfishness

[spun]

The thing is, modern economic research has shown we are not primarily self interested. People are more motivated by notions of fairness and reciprocity than by self interest. Well, most people. In the right circumstances.

Specifically, about 15% of the population is always 'good.' They act fairly, and reciprocate even if it hurts them. About five percent are always 'evil.' They will always take advantage. The rest of the population will do what everyone else is doing. If everyone is acting selfishly, they will too. If everyone is acting fairly, they will do that. Nobody likes being taken advantage of, so in a system that encourages selfishness, people will be, rather than being taken advantage of.

Google ,'fairness reciprocity economic experiments' or look up 'game theory' and games like the dictator game, the ultimatum game, and the public goods game. There are others I can't remember off the top of my head, but that should give you a start in the right direction.

Remember, Adam Smith also said, "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all. " and "It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion. "

Re:selfishness

[falconwolf]

The thing is, modern economic research has shown we are not primarily self interested. People are more motivated by notions of fairness and reciprocity than by self interest. Well, most people. In the right circumstances.

The key phrase being "Most people. In the right circumstances." Most people in the right circumstances can also be brutal prison guards and torture people. The Stanford Prison Experiment had to be ended after 6 days even though it was scheduled to last 2 weeks. People have asked how Germans allowed the NAZIs to get away with the Holocaust. A teacher in 1967 in a California high school was asked this so he set up an experiment, which got out of control, the The Third Wave. A fictionalized account was written as the book and movie "The Wave". Finally the German remake, "Die Welle" was released in 2008. Read some of the results Google returns.

Remember, Adam Smith also said, "Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all. " and "It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion. "

Adam Smith also believed in small government. He argued for a limited government, the role being to "provide national defense, the administration of justice, and public goods. In other words, it should protect citizens from external and internal aggression and supply goods that the free market may not provide."

Falcon

Re:selfishness

[spun]

So, if the market is not supplying a needed public good, then it is up to government to supply it? We all benefit from good health care for all, making health care a public good. Therefore, according to Adam Smith's reasoning, government should provide health care.

You've actually reinforced my point about human nature. There is no one human nature, we all have different natures that are activated by different circumstance. We can't just say, 'People are selfish,' and stop our analysis there. We need to look for the circumstances that encourage selfishness. If human nature seems ugly, it is the system and not human nature that is to blame.

Modern economic research has shown that systematic changes can encourage or discourage selfish behavior. The most important aspect is the accessibility of justice. When people can punish unfairness in others, they will do so, and everyone will act with fairly and reciprocate. When people can not punish unfairness in others, they adopt selfishness themselves as a defense against being taken advantage of.

The question is, do we let the sociopaths dictate the rules of the game, or do we honor the bulk of humanities inbred sense of fairness?

Re:selfishness

[falconwolf]

So, if the market is not supplying a needed public good, then it is up to government to supply it?

Yes, if a free market doesn't provide a public good then I have no problem with government doing it, local or state. However not if the Constitution does not give the federal government the authority, if you want the feds to do it but the Constitution doesn't authorize it then propose an amendment.

We all benefit from good health care for all, making health care a public good. Therefore, according to Adam Smith's reasoning, government should provide health care.

You missed something, Smith said government should "supply goods that the free market may not provide." The free market has not been given the chance to provide health care. Under a freer market, notice the "r", a person living in Arizona would be able to buy health insurance in New York. However that's not possible now, each state controls who can sell insurance in the state and sets what type of insurance is offered. Then there are the tax breaks involved. During World War II the feds passed wage control laws, employers were not allowed to offer employees higher pay. And FDR issued an executive order controlling prices. This created problems for those employers, prospective employees wanted more pay, so to make it easier for employers to find employees they were allowed to offer employees benefits such as health insurance. The government then gave a tax break to those employers who did offer it. However the self employed and those who want to buy their own health insurance do not get tax breaks. If individuals and the self employed had a level playing field, they got the same tax breaks or employers did not get the breaks, then insurance companies would compeat to insurance the millions of people in the market for insurance. Combined with health savings accounts (HSA) people could decide what type of insurance they would pay for. A single or a couple without dependents, children, could elect to deposit money in an HSA to pay for normal health care costs and buy catastrophic coverage for serious injuries, illnesses, or disabilities. Then because they pay normal costs out of pocket, because filing insruance claims are expensive for doctors if you pay out of pocket they will reduce their charges, the cost of catastrophic coverage would be low. Meanwhile a family of 4 may want to get full coverage for the parents, if a parent can't work their income may be reduced, and pay out of pocket for normal health care cost for the children with coverage for things like broken bones.

Notice how the Time article says "That's how we ended up with the health-insurance system we have now, based on employers. You get a tax break if you get your insurance through your job. If you get a raise and use it to buy your own insurance instead, you have to pay taxes on that money. (Ditto if you use your raise to pay doctors directly.) Almost everyone takes the tax break. The market for insurance bought by individuals is, as a result, small and stunted, which is all the more reason to stay in the employer system." However even with tax breaks some employers can't afford to offer health insurance.

The question is, do we let the sociopaths dictate the rules of the game, or do we honor the bulk of humanities inbred sense of fairness?

Did you read about the Stanford Prison Experiment? Brutality is inbred as well.

Falcon

Re:selfishness

[spun]

A market can be made unfree by government decree, or by the actions of those in the market. A monopoly or monopsony is not a free market, for instance. A pump and dump scheme makes the market it is done in unfree, in that it no longer has the important and beneficial characteristics of a free market. Government intervention can actually make markets MORE free than if it were left up to the participants.

Interesting bit about the birth of insurance, but I'm not sure how accurate it is. In many states including mine, you can set up a pre-tax medical fund and pay for any medical expenses out of that, which kind of demolishes the main argument of the Time piece. But the insurance system is an oligopoly, not a free market, so you as an individual, even working with pre-tax money, do not have enough buying power to get a good deal. And the privately created barriers to entry into the insurance game ensure that nobody new can get in and ruin the entrenched player's profits.

Yes. We have the capacity for loving kindness and fairness, and we have the capacity for utter brutality. As my father is a noted psychologist, I grew up knowing about the Stanford experiment, the Milgram experiment, and many others. My point is that we can understand the conditions that lead people to treat others with fairness, and the conditions that lead people to treat people with brutality. We can increase the former conditions while limiting the later. Systems that lead people to act brutally are inefficient and unhealthy systems, while systems that lead people to act with loving kindness and fairness are efficient and healthy systems.

Health care is a type of good can't be fairly traded in a free market. The imbalance of information is simply too great, skewing the costs. It is also a public good, in that good health in others contributes to everyone's well being.

But more than that, providing health care to all is a moral issue. We are the only rich and powerful nation that does not see it as such. Every nation that has socialized health care framed it as a moral issue: letting the poor die is just wrong.

Re:selfishness

[falconwolf]

A market can be made unfree by government decree, or by the actions of those in the market. A monopoly or monopsony is not a free market, for instance.

Agreed, and usually it's government that grants those monopolies.

A pump and dump scheme makes the market it is done in unfree

Like SCO?

Interesting bit about the birth of insurance, but I'm not sure how accurate it is

If you mean employer provided insurance besides the "Time" article there are other sources. Findarticles has this article, "Health care in the twentieth century: a history of government interference and protection". At employer provided health insurance historyGoogle has more.

In many states including mine, you can set up a pre-tax medical fund and pay for any medical expenses out of that, which kind of demolishes the main argument of the Time piece.

Does it really, can you cross state lines to buy insurance? States control who can and can not offer health insurance in each state. The federal government has the 2 biggest insurance plans, Medicare and Medicaid, with the states practically running Medicaid. And that, employer provided insurance, was the basis of the "Time"article.

Health care is a type of good can't be fairly traded in a free market.

I compleatly and totally disagree.

But more than that, providing health care to all is a moral issue. We are the only rich and powerful nation that does not see it as such. Every nation that has socialized health care framed it as a moral issue: letting the poor die is just wrong.

That's right it's a moral issue and the government has nothing to do with it. The best government can do is get out of the way and let private citizens and organizations provide health care.

Falcon

copyright law

[falconwolf]

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/115.html#c

That's only applicable in the US, he's in the UK.

Falcon

It is about MySpace.

[falconwolf]

MySpace has no legal obligation to allow the music on their servers though, so it's not really about MySpace.

Falcon

recordable media

[falconwolf]

I especially like in Canada where they get money for any writable CD sold, because it's naturally being used to copy their music without permission. (Never mind independents that cut their own records.)

I don't know about Canada but in the US musicians don't have to pay the tax on blank media.

Falcon

A shaggy haired guy who's hair you'd love to cut

[falconwolf]

No desire to be a barber, thank you. Did you ever notice that everyone in the places you hang out has similar hair to yours? Were you ever tempted to shave your head just so you didn't conform so much?

I almost did have my hair shaved off, when I went into the Army. I got up to the barber and was asked how much I wanted cut off. Thinking I wanted to get it over with I said everything, but the barber said he couldn't cut everything off. And of course having hair cut wasn't able being non-conformist, it was the opposite, about being a carbon copy. After I got out I cut my hair a couple of tyme, but only because I got sick and tired of people saying I needed to cut it.

Gosh, look at that graphic of Adam Smith, the father of modern economics and free markets. Is that a wig or long hair?

Falcon

Re:Required by Law?

[MacWiz]

The Majors are required by law to care only about shareholder profits.

While this may be the case (I thought Warner Music was privately held), looking at the industry sales for the past ten years, it's difficult to see any evidence of this taking place.

For almost the entire decade, the industry has been on a campaign to alienate listeners and deprive them of any outlet to find new music without paying for it first. Did those 40,000 lawsuits do anything for the bottom line? Not having caused enough damage yet, now they're going to piss off the artists as well, further reducing the number of intelligent people willing to do business with them.

Not that I have a problem with that...

If the majors don't "promote art, make music, and support artists," then there is no compelling reason to expect they will ever be profitable again. These things they are not supposed to care about are the foundations on which the industry's earlier success was built. Abandoning them in favor of meeting short-term accounting goals almost guarantees long-term failure.

They have a "fiduciary responsibility"? They've already lost 2/3 of their sales. When does that start? When they hit bankruptcy?

Must be fixed

[AG the other]

It's up on his site now.

http://www.myspace.com/50shadesofblue

AG

revocation of corporate charter

[falconwolf]

I've been advocating for that penalty for a while.

As have I. I've argued for corporate charter revocation for more than 10 years, ever seen I heard of it about 12 years ago. What I really like about it is companies wouldn't get away with stuff like Exxon Valdez or Bhopal, India. While Union Carbide paid a small settlement, Exxon hasn't paid the Alaskan Fishermen a dime from destroying fishing after more than 20 years. They've managed to keep it tied up in court.

Not that corporations are worse than government, at least none have killed millions in a Holocaust or tens of millions in a revolution. Even today government is the biggest polluter in the US.

Falcon

Re:revocation of corporate charter

[spun]

Corporations aren't worse than governments, we, the people, just have less control over them. With government, at least we have mechanisms, available to all citizens, for controlling and directing the system. With corporations, most stakeholders have no control over the system. When government goes wrong, there is no one to blame but the citizens, in the end. When corporations go wrong, only the shareholders are ultimately to blame, not the customers, not the suppliers, and not the workers. Representative governments and corporations do share one particular moral hazard, though. They both institutionalize a managing class who's interests diverge from that of the other stakeholders.

Re:revocation of corporate charter

[falconwolf]

Corporations aren't worse than governments, we, the people, just have less control over them.

Perhaps you misinterpreted me, my point is that corporations aren't worse than governments, unlike corporations government is an evil, necessary perhaps but an evil. And it's best to keep their power limited. We also have more power over not just corporations but all voluntary businesses than we do government, except at the local level. Which is why most government should be local. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote the wonderful book "Democracy in America" describing how during his tour of America in the early 1830s almost all government was local and how free people were. Of course there was slavery but for freemen, and there were Black Freemen some Blacks even owned slaves themselves, the liberty they enjoyed was almost limitless.

With government, at least we have mechanisms, available to all citizens, for controlling and directing the system.

What good are the mechanisms if they aren't used. For instance what happened to all that talk about impeaching Bush last year? There was more talk about putting Bush admin officials on trial when Obama came into office, what happened with that? The last tyme a sitting US president came close to impeachment was Richard Nixon but he resigned in 1974 first. His VP, who became president, then pardoned him. There were only 2 presidents who went through impeachment hearings before congress, Andrew Johnson in 1868 and Bill Clinton in 1999. Neither one was found guilty.

With corporations, most stakeholders have no control over the system.

Most stakeholders have more control than they realize or are willing to exercise. How many stockholders file petitions or vote on corporate issues? How many employees use collective bargaining? How many suppliers say they will not accept a price below X dollars? How many buyer or clients say they will not buy more than X dollars? People complain Walmart drives local shops out of business or pay low wages, yet how many of those people shop at or work for Walmart?

Now both businesses, no just corporations, and governments will grab as much power as they can but it's easier to control a business than a government. You can boycott a business legally but if you try that with government you may find yourself facing firearms. Randy Weaver couldn't stop the feds from killing his family at Ruby Ridge, not without giving up his freedom after the government framed him.

Falcon

Ooh, BTW don't confuse what I say above about Randy Weaver as support for him. If he was a supremest as the feds say I disagree with that but I also disagree with the feds framing him when he refused to inform for them.

Re:revocation of corporate charter

[spun]

The only point of clarification I need to bring up here is that by 'most stakeholders' I was specifically excluding shareholders. The system is designed to let them exercise control. Oh sure, it's one share one vote not one person one vote like in a democracy. But stockholders have control, they are the owners. The workers, customers, suppliers and neighbors also all have a stake in the endeavor, but they have no representation in the decision making process.

Governments and businesses are no different in that you can only boycott them if you have an alternative. What Randy Weaver was trying to do was not a boycott, it was theft. He was taking the services of the government, like armed protection, roads, a legal system, and so forth, without paying for them. Try to do that to a corporation and see what happens. To boycott a government or a business, by definition, you need to leave the store and not partake of the goods and services. As far as I know, nobody was forcing Randy to stay in the US. He had the same freedom that some poor schub living in a company town and dealing with the company monopoly does: he could leave. Might not be easy, and there may not actually be any other options out there for him, but that is not the fault of the government or business itself, is it?

If I don't like the menu at McDonalds, but it is three in the morning and no place else is open, that does not give me the right to camp out in McDonalds and demand they feed me caviar for two cents a spoonful. If I don't like the country I'm in, but I like every other country even less, or can't get citizenship, that does not give me the right to demand that the country do things my way. Either stop voluntarily taking the goods and services offered, or shut the hell up.

Re:revocation of corporate charter

[falconwolf]

The workers, customers, suppliers and neighbors also all have a stake in the endeavor, but they have no representation in the decision making process.

Sure they do, workers can choose not to work for an employer, customers can choose not to patronize a business, and suppliers can choose not to supply a buyer. There may not be a choice you like but there is a choice and as such people can effect corporations.

What Randy Weaver was trying to do was not a boycott, it was theft. He was taking the services of the government, like armed protection, roads, a legal system, and so forth, without paying for them

BS!!! Boy, do you have your info wrong. Randy Weaver's family was not shot, or charged, for refusing to pay taxes. The FBI only files charges against him when he refused to become an informant for the FBI. And as for theft of government services that's BS too. There are many of us who are quite willing to pay to use roads and so forth. There are even some who advocate privatizing roads and services, but many oppose that.

If I don't like the country I'm in, but I like every other country even less, or can't get citizenship, that does not give me the right to demand that the country do things my way.

Isn't that exactly what's going on now? Take health care, people are demanding it be nationalized, made into a single payer system, or otherwise turned into socialize medicine. If they want it they can move to Canada or almost anywhere else. Some of us believe in and want what the USA was supposed to be, small government with it staying within the limits put on it by the Constitution of the USA.

Falcon

IMRadio Will Play Edwyn's A Girl Like You

[IMRadio]

once again, this situation shows how confused the current music industry (and MySpace) are these days. At IMRadio.com, all artists receive equal airplay on a radio station that is finally by musicians for musicians.

Think again

[conureman]

I think the ownership issue is a bit obfuscated for some of us. As near as I can find out, Setanta Music was the label that released the song, and Columbia has it on a soundtrack album. I suppose WB had some claim to it once, or surely Grace Maxwell would have pointed that out in the BLOG. AFAIK, when a major label makes a distribution deal with an indie, they don't secure ownership rights as well, and certainly per TFA that was not the case here. All I can say is that I have insufficient data to verify any of these assertions and I wish some one would make an informed disclosure regarding the facts.

Gaaah!

[conureman]

That would be Setanta Records.

health care in a free market

[falconwolf]

Health care is a type of good can't be fairly traded in a free market.

Oh, I left something out in my previous reply to this post, as it happens I had 2 appointments at my doctor's office today and I was running a little late.

Now let's see what freer markets in health care can do. In 1999 the cost of LASIK eye corrective surgery was "well over $2,000 per eye", whereas "in 2001 one in five surgeons was offering LASIK for less than $1,000 per eye." Competition cut the cost of LASIK by almost half. Or take medical tourism, it has also driven surgery costs down. Even with airfare and any hotel stay flying to China, India, Russia, or other countries the costs are lower, and you can get care just as good. While medical care cares are rising in general, competition has driven cost down in some medical fields.

Just as real competition in other fields, such as computers, drives costs down competition in medicine has and will continue to drive costs down. Heck, despite the complaints Walmart gets about driving pay down they have also driven living costs down. My doc has given me a few prescriptions, just today she adjusted one of them, and although the clinic can send them electronically I ask for a printed form so I can go shopping for the lowest cost. With Walmart's $10 max price on thousands of drugs, they have been the lowest price for all of the prescriptions I've been given but one. What I think is ironic is that the one price that was lower was at Target yet for other drugs Target cost twice as much.

Falcon