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ASCAP Declares War On Free Culture, EFF
Andorin writes "According to Drew Wilson at ZeroPaid and Cory Doctorow, the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers), a US organization that aims to collect royalties for its members for the use of their copyrighted works, has begun soliciting donations to fight key organizations of the free culture movement, such as Creative Commons, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and Public Knowledge. According to a letter received by ASCAP member Mike Rugnetta, 'Many forces including Creative Commons, Public Knowledge, Electronic Frontier Foundation and technology companies with deep pockets are mobilizing to promote "Copyleft" in order to undermine our "Copyright." They say they are advocates of consumer rights, but the truth is these groups simply do not want to pay for the use of our music. Their mission is to spread the word that our music should be free.' (Part 1 and part 2 of the letter.) The collecting agency is asking that its professional members donate to its Legislative Fund for the Arts, which appears to be a lobbying campaign meant to convince Congress that artists should not have the choice of licensing their works under a copyleft license."
Don't get me wrong.. this is really bad because they probably have a good chance of succeeding. As absurd as this is, essentially making it illegal to give the stuff you produce away for free, the media industry has a metric ass tonne of money and influence, and most importantly your average guy on the street is not going to understand or care.
I am just happy to finally see what I would describe as inevitable happen. And I totally don't blame the media industry. It a logical approach:
problem: something is costing us money
solutions: make it illegal
Should be interesting to see how this all unfolds.
or allow themselves to to be screwed
This is exactly what's going to happen. Lets not kid ourselves here.. most people don't care about any of this. The few people who have any interest in this.. even enough to never pay for media again.. are just a tiny little insignificant blip.
What else would you expect from extortionists, that they play fair?
ASCAP is asking its members to send donations to help out in a project against the free culture movement. They realize that no single organization alone can finance this 'war', and are trying to spread out the effort among their companies. They are using exactly the same strategy here that open source software like Linux uses - have large corporations that benefit from the project being successful all contribute to it, and allow the entire world to benefit from the result. If they lose, we win. If they win, they will have shown us that we can also win.
Why is it so hard for them to understand that at one time, music was about artistic expression?
If nobody could ever make one penny from their music, I guarantee you that music would not die.
It seems that the ASCAP should be going after the RIAA so that artists can actually make money on music recordings again. Forget about free. People are willing to pay for music, but even when they do, how much do the artists actually get anyway? Not much, if anything.
Can't say that I blame them... it's their industry and they're advocating for it - big surprise.
Uh, they apparently want to lobby Congress to pass a law which will prevent 'artists' from giving away things they've created.
If true, that is so mind-bogglingly retarded that I really don't know what else to say. Surely even Congress will have to laugh them out of the building?
That continues to baffle me. Apparently you can't make money off of copylefted music, so where did all this acclaimed money come from? If they can have deep pockets as copyleft organizations, then why doesn't ASCAP become one themselves?
I'm pretty sure that protecting your God-given rights to the works you've created precludes anyone else from releasing works under a free license. People who are releasing their works under a Creative Commons are stealing from the real artists, who work so hard to earn a living. They just want to get stuff for free. Good to see ASCAP has understood this simple fact.
I want to see the proper letter, with letterhead, contact details etc. At the moment this looks like it can be fake.
If it's not fake then these people are insane and by not wanting to allow people to choose another type of licence, they are taking away rights that they do want for themselves (to choose their own licence).
Assuming for the moment the letter is real:
It's not about music. And in case of music, if it's 15 years old or more, I have no problem with copying without paying for it. It should have paid the author, if not, tough luck, that's life.
The long copyright duration (essentially unlimited) also means companies and individuals who don't allow free copying after say 15 years, are hogging our past. Want to see a film again for nostalgia, or some music? (That you probably paid for already, via cable networks, records) Then you have to pay for it again. It's a great business model, getting paid for nostalgia etc. [ Note: Cleaning up very old records etc. and making those available should be rewarded, but for most music there's very little cost, lots of profit, and still lots of whining. ]
And is there a list of these donating members so I can boycott their products...?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
These morons want to prevent ME from releasing MY OWN SONGS under the Creative Commons?
It's idiot moves like this that led to do exactly that. Here: http://theexperiments.com/ All my band's music for free under the Creative Commons.
They can pry the Creative Commons from my cold dead fingers.
Free culture movement?? They either don't understand what those organizations fight for or they know and are completely twisting everything around.
Organizations like the EFF are fighting for the consumer to be free to use what they PAID FOR in ways not dictated by multi-million dollar organizations. I have no interest in "stealing" copyrighted content, nor selling or giving it away to others. But when I pay for music, video, text, pictures, or whatever, I should be able to use it on any device I own, for as long as I like, in a manner that I choose. Most consumers are not anti-pay, or anti-copyright, or anti-arts. We just want to be able to obtain quality, reasonably priced media, and enjoy it on our stuff without some company dictating which program we must use, or which operating system, or which device.
And if creators of content want to release things under Creative Commons, or Copyleft, or Public Domain, or whatever, that has NOTHING to do with fighting against commercial companies wanting to make a profit on their materials. They should have that choice, and it should have the protection of law, just like traditional copyrights. What do they propose? To FORCE people to not license content how they choose? What's next? Legislation to block donations to the Red Cross because it might compete with big business? Amazing...
Last I checked, the Creative Commons licenses were applied to the music by the people who created the music... you know, the ones who actually have ownership of the music per current copyright laws.
Clearly ASCAP's problem is that they assume they should own everything and receive all the money from whatever automatic and inescapable royalties they can bribe Congress into assigning to them instead of to the actual musicians. Musicians being allowed to let other people play their music for free are cutting into their profits.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
You seems to have forgotten your sarcasm detector, sir. Here, have mine.
To clarify the nuance of the argument, I think they are saying that if Artist A gives away their work for free, it is inherently undermining Artist B who is trying to sell an equivalent work. They're not saying that it's theft, they're saying it's anti-competitive. I would argue, though, that if you can't compete with free-as-in-beer then there's something wrong with your business model.
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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Yeah, we were having a slow month at the pirate party. Thanks for bringing new amunitions. Thanks for making clear that copyright is not the defense of all culture but the defense of an old model of culture financement.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Entities like ACAT can only blame themselves for the massive push back by the public regarding copyright. If copyright holders and managers had not gone out of there way to bri.. cough, give certain political entities rather large financial enticements to change copyright law so as the public are denied access to their own cultural heritage for an ever extended period of time then the push back by joe average they are experiencing now would not be happening, to put it simply, they (copyright holders) broke the original deal and now the public are saying stuff you. What I find amusing is that "all culture derives from prior works". For example I don't see bands paying chuck berries estate money for ripping of his guitar riffs but at the same time copyright lawyers are blocking all avenues or derivative works by the public even if it is satire.
ASCAP is already preventing coffee shops from hosting independent artists.
I'm pretty sure that protecting your God-given rights to the works you've created precludes anyone else from releasing works under a free license. People who are releasing their works under a Creative Commons are stealing from the real artists, who work so hard to earn a living. They just want to get stuff for free. Good to see ASCAP has understood this simple fact.
Are you trolling or seriously arguing on the side of ASCAP?
Who says that artists have God-given rights to their works for a start? I've personally done several years of Scriptural studies, can read and write in Biblical Greek and Hebrew and find nothing to support this strange idea of yours.
Let me use a parable to explain what ASCAP seems to be wanting to do. "At a large park there is a running track all the way around the public gardens. Many people use it every day, but when the weather is hot, they get really dehydrated and sometimes people even have heart attacks while running. An enterprising kid makes up a great drink with a mix of fruit juices and salts to sell to the runners. Some other youths set up a protection racket to make sure that the runners buy his product and take a large cut of money on the top for their 'services'. Meanwhile another kid also produces a good drink for the runners, but he really wants to just give it away. He sets up in another part of the park and starts to give away drinks on the hot days. The boys in the protection racket hear about him and come over to threaten him. When he doesn't seem likely to stop, they try and get the police to take him away."
That is what ASCAP is about. If I want to put a copyleft license on what I produce, what is that to them? If I want other people to enjoy what I've done, to use it and possibly copy it or improve on it, what is that to ASCAP? It doesn't mean that I want anyone elses work for free, it just means I want to share what I've enjoyed making with other people on my own terms. What is wrong with that?
sudo mount --milk --sugar
"THE NEW ENEMY"
I've been making a living releasing my music under Creative Commons licenses exclusively since 2006 (when I also quit ASCAP).
Creative Commons is not (necessarily) a "free license.
I understand that you're being sarcastic and you believe that you were making some sort of joke, but there are some issues about which I don't find snarkiness the least bit useful. Repeating verbatim what ASCAP really believes hardly qualifies as parody. And there are people out there that won't understand the subtlety of your wit and will believe that a bright Slashdot reader really does think this way so there must be some merit to such an argument, god forbid. For the sake of such simple folks, I politely request that you make your cleverness a little more blatant in regards to this issue, kthx in advance.
You are welcome on my lawn.
They are just being idiots about how they are going about fixing things. Bottom line? No one wants to pay for music anymore. Around half my income is derived from ascap. In the last ten years, seismic changes have occurred in television and film having nothing to do with the internet.
First, broadcasters stopped paying royalties for movie trailer music. Next, networks on cable stopped paying fees for music knowing that we would get paid on the backend through their endlessly repeating show schedule. By and large, they were right to a certain degree. Basically, they wanted us to get paid by the broadcasters but now the broadcasters don't seem to want to pay either
Now though, hulu has emerged and it is nothing short of a land grab. you only get paid a performance royalty if there are commercials in the show. Well guess what? Hulu does not pay out royalties even though there are millions of performances daily on their website.
And let's not forget the shady music supervisor that fills in his own name instead of yours in the cue sheets and then he gets the back end that you were supposed to get. It happens.
At some point you have to stop and ask yourself, what is the value of your work on a whole when everyone and there mother is hell bent on not paying you a dime.
Creating music for television or film is no joke. It takes a lot of time, energy and skill to learn how to craft a score to picture. Underscore is a lot different but still, lots of work. I mean, if everyone is cool with hearing the same loops from GarageBand and logic than really, what the hell do I know?
However, if you agree that while the world is not fair, just like licensing code, use of music needs a mechanism of payment that is fair.
I like creative commons, ascap is just misguided.
And finally, before anyone tells me to play live and find alternative revenue streams, licensing is the alternative revenue stream. I give all my music away because licensing makes it so I don't have to worry about actually selling anything.
Shame it's Patent Pending.
"Victory means exit strategy, and it's important for the President to explain to us what the exit strategy is." G.W.Bush
While the damage produced is probably nominal, the number of people that gulp pirated content is fairly large, not an insignificant blip.
You are of course absolutely right. The problem however is the the people who gulp pirated content may not stay that way for ever. Many previous movements in history have shown us that as people get older they generally become more inclined to toe the line and less inclined to break societies laws, however injust they may be.
Once upon a time when I was a student I pirated everything I watched. I always made sure my ratio was sky high and kept a permanent ultrapeer available on the gnutella network. Now I actually buy more DVD's than I pirate and very rarely use bitrorrent or any of the networks I thought were so important. I would also be horrified if the software I produce for a living was given away free without me seeing any benefit or giving my consent. The only thing I use bittorrent for is for things I am unable to buy, such as very old computer games or copyleft materials.
I am also far more conservative in my views than I was when I was young. I used to think nothing about being arrested for my beliefs (and as an eco-protester I frequently was) but now this is not something I would allow to happen.
Unfortunately this is how things are, just ask the vast majority of people from the sixties who have now given up struggling against the system and are now contributing towards it since it is in their best interests to do so. Generation after generation have tried to rock the boat while they were young then switched to steadying it in their middle and old age.
Even after all this though, I would certainly not ever support bittorrent being banned or non-copyright material being made illegal. The question however is how far I would be willing to go in order to campaign against laws that made such things illegal now I have other concerns that come with old age.
I dont read
Sarcasm detector...that's a useful invention
It does a good job of detecting an absence of sarcasm, giving a zero in such situations, but the sarcasm readout indicator gets sarcastic itself, giving a sarcastic zero when there is sarcasm. I'm beginning to think it may actually be just a "zero" sticker.
Sometimes I think groups such as ASCAP forget that copyright is about letting people copy things and defining how and when it should be done. It's goal is to encourage copying and development as a way of progressing science and art. The restrictions on copying is about convincing authors via the lure of money to develop something further.
But the restriction gets tighter and tighter... how is life-of-the-author plus 75 years (the term for individuals i.e. non-corporate authors) supposed to encourage an author to develop the something they created further? I'm pretty sure they can't create new material after they've died. Plus, progress often comes from combining other people's stuff together in new and novel ways, which copyright, an idea to promote progress, often blocks in its current form. Long ago copying was hard and temporarily limiting was no big deal to the public; today in the digital age, copying is so easy that it can happen by accident while sorting one's computer files.
Creative commons is about striking a balance between copyright and public domain-- to come to a place closer to what copyright originally was. ASCAP would now have me believe that an independent artist, who is not affiliated with them, choosing to utilize creative commons will somehow bankrupt them (or something similarly awful) and that this would... what? destroy culture? stop development? I don't know as they don't really explain why its bad-- just a vague 'trust us, it's bad for authors' answer. If they are really worried about their business, they need to evolve with the times or simply go under just like all other companies. They are no more special then any other company, nor should they be.
ASCAP say that the opposite side wants people to believe that music is free, and that they do not want to pay for it. First off, music is already free. The purpose of copyright is to barter away a tiny bit of its freedom for money to motivate creators to create. Second, I don't hear anyone saying that don't want to pay for music. I either hear people expressing they want a simple and affordable way to pay, or people expressing dismay over paying for the same thing the umpteenth time. Groups such as ASCAP are often against a simple affordable way of excepting people's money. It competes with their old dying way of doing business. Again, evolve or go under. They go and ask the government for help. The people are giving us less money, please force them to pay again. (Well, it's never gotten THAT simple.) When their market changes, they simply should not be going to the government and asking them to force the market to do something. It doesn't work. It never has... and it has the side-effect of creating headaches for everyone along the way.
*Sigh* My two cents,
David Romig, Jr.
The same argument has been going on in photography for a while now. The explosion of "microstock" agencies that facilitate Joe Blow Hobbyist actually licensing the one good picture he has ever taken really aggravates the old pros. Even worse are people who just post their stuff online and don't worry about people who choose to use it commercially.
The proverbial million monkeys have left their typewriters, and are taking photos now with digital cameras. I don't say that disparagingly. I am one of the million monkeys.
It probably sucks to be a pro when some hobbyist undercuts you on price, with pictures that are not as good... but good enough for many clients' uses. But I'm not going to support changing the laws to keep them or anyone else in business.
It's not the first industry that has been shaken up by changing technology (or culture) and it won't be the last.
What a fucking nightmare, where charity and social generosity is outlawed for the benefit of those who make a living mining and locking the commons under exclusive personal licenses. Plus I hate that the only truly applicable paradigm is Ferengi (TM).
I am also far more conservative in my views than I was when I was young.
Really? Because I found the opposite happened. I used to write shareware. People occasionally registered it, but not nearly as many people registered as used it without paying. Bugger. So I made it less and less functional, without registering. Even *less* people registered, and not only that but on BBSes (jeez, I'm giving my age away) people used to post cracks to get around the registration code.
As I grew up, my silly, naive and idealistic capitalist side waned and I settled down into the comfort of being a rabid old Commie. I gave my software away for free. I gave my music away for free. I gave my circuit designs (ones that I wasn't being paid quite a lot of money to do by my employer, but stuff like guitar effects) away for free. People posted on the Internet, oh yeah, use this stuff, it's quite good. People I spoke to at computer festivals and other such geekery pissups said "Oh you're the guy that wrote $thing? Cool, I use that" and bought me beer.
Long story short, fuck capitalism. Give the stuff you love away for free, and earn money from the stuff you don't care about.
Waiting for prostitutes to complain that there are people out there making love for free. o_O
For the millionth time, copyright infringement and stealing are very different things. If anything, released works 'belong to' the public, and authors, and the authors are just 'borrowing' certain rights from the public, so the closest thing to 'theft' would be the Sonny Bono Act, which actually deprived the general public of its rights, with the retroactive parts presenting no gain for the public.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
It's your choice to be protected by copyrights in exchange for donating the work to the public once the copyrights expire. You don't have to do that. You can keep the work a trade secret, and require buyers to sign non-disclosure agreements. In which case you don't enjoy the protection of copyright laws, but can keep ownership indefinitely, and can sue the hell out of buyers who distribute your works, and someone who takes one of your copies is committing theft, not just violating copyrights.
The problem is that the copyright organisations wants it both ways. They want to have their cake and eat it too. To both have the rights protected by the state, and be able to sue as if the author still owned all copies, and interminable extensions to the copyrights to keep income coming in even if nothing new is produced.
I have no problems with copyrights, if we go back to the original intent for copyrights and patents: To give the [b]creator[/b] (not a corporation) a [b]time limited[/b] monopoly on distribution [b]in exchange for[/b] transferring ownership of the work to the public. The time limit must be short enough to force the creator to not rest on his laurels, but continue to create.
And these days, when distribution happens so much faster than in the past, the time should be even shorter.
My recommendation: 5 years for patents, 2 years for copyrights.
No extensions, but make it easier to publish without public copyright protection for those who choose to do so, e.g. by making copyright cartels and opt-outs illegal.
the soviet system has about as much to do with communism as fred phelps does to christianity
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
You're declaring up is down.
Copyright is a statutory construction. Unlike nearly any other form of 'property', intellectual property is purely a legal tradition created as an indulgence, basically in response to what we now call lobbying.
Theft, on the other hand, is a universally recognized and deterred thing. Our notions of theft are from common law, but the legal recognition of theft is as old as anything we can consider law.
The most important aspect of the definition of theft is that it is about the deprivation of a rival good. If I steal a car from you, you are deprived of that car. That's how the word works, that's how the law works.
Infringement is a different thing. In plain language, in law, and in simple intuitive sense, at least to most people, when they think about it. I can no more steal the informational payload of your book than I can steal your soul. I could steal a physical book from you, or a thumb drive with a copy of a book. That would be theft.
They are just different things. By all means, you can continue to be wrong - I fully support everyone's right to be wrong. But you then shouldn't be surprised when people want to correct you, and perhaps wonder why you are trying to smuggle a bit of an emotional appeal ('you're depriving me of money that is rightfully mine") to what is actually a factual discussion. Blue is not red, and copyright infringement is not theft.
If you want to change the world such that copyright does, in fact, equal theft, I suggest starting a law career and look for a way to get an invitation to join the American Law Institute - they produce the Model Penal Code, which drives a fair amount of criminal law. Get them to recommend a change, and you have a chance (not much of one, but you'll do better there than whining here about it).
I forget what 8 was for.
Two years sounds good on paper until you write a super kick ass novel that XYZ Corp wants to turn into a movie. They'll write the scripts, shoot the film, create the special effects, print the reels, and at 12:01 AM exactly two years to the day the copyright was granted, ship the film out for a release date 2 Years + 5 days past the original copyright date. All perfectly legal since they did not, in any way, distribute your copyrighted work with anyone outside their company until after it had expired.
You, the author, will get absolutely nothing from this, XYZ Corp will rake in 60+ Million on opening weekend, over 150+ Million by summer's end, 200+ Million worldwide box office, and an additional 300+ Million after worldwide DVD sales are factored in.
A two year wait is nothing to an immortal legal entity with many of the same rights as an individual, two year copyrights are a joke. So are 90 years plus life of the author, anyone old enough to read this now will likely be dead before they can make any use of the ideas inspired by current copyrighted works. So much for progressing the useful sciences and arts!
A good compromise would be 25 years. Long enough to give an incentive for XYZ Corp to work with you, a popular novel being turned into a movie will be a money train for all involved and 25 years is a long time to gamble it will still be popular, while still being short enough that the inspiration to create new derivative works can be realized while you're still alive to do it; I've seen a few Star Wars fan-films that deserved the big-budget treatment and in a sane copyright world would have been allowed to.
[rant]
If I had the money I'd buy stock in "XYZ Corp", any large media company would work here, then sue their asses off for failure to maximize shareholder value through deliberate lobbying to extend the copyright term length. For example: When 20th Century Fox releases a Star Wars movie they earn 100+ Million in the box office; the worldwide box office, DVD, and broadcast rights will garner many times that value. Had Star Wars been allowed to pass into the public domain, which wasn't possible due to active lobbying by XYZ Corp, XYZ Corp could have also made its own Star Wars film and earn a comparable sum of money.
Yet through their successful lobbying of governments to extend copyright terms they have artificially impeded their ability to generate profit, an action which goes against the interests of shareholders. Consider the primary role of a corporation as defined by law, to legally maximize shareholder value to the exclusion of all other considerations. Maximizing copyright terms prevents the creation of a rich public domain, preventing the use of popular works that otherwise would have entered it. Through their actions to impede this process it negates their ability to create competing products using popular public domain franchises, in this case the creation of a competing Star Wars film, and creates a lost opportunity to maximize shareholder value.
[/rant]
I honestly think that all the recent attempts to reform copyright have been going about it the wrong way. Appealing to the loss of the public domain and the moral issues surrounding it, like the recent lawsuits to repeal the Micky Mouse Protection Act, wasn't going to work because the money side makes it look like we're trying to steal their stuff; even though they're ones who are stealing. You want to get copyright reduced to a sane time limit, you need to show that the actions of media companies to create ever longer copyrights impede the maximization of shareholder value.
All the flower power talk of morals and how it relates to the public domain will get you no where, show the courts that the actions of big media are hitting shareholders in the pocket book and we'll get the shorter terms we want!
Waiting for prostitutes to complain that there are people out there making love for free. o_O
First they would have to establish that there are people making love for free...
Can you be Even More Awesome?!