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German Kindergartens Ordered To Pay Copyright For Songs
BBird writes "Deutsche Welle reports: 'Up until this year, preschools could teach and produce any kind of song they wanted. But now they have to pay for a license if they want children to sing certain songs. A tightening of copyright rules means kindergartens now have to pay fees to Germany's music licensing agency, GEMA, to use songs that they reproduce and perform. The organization has begun notifying creches and other daycare facilities that if they reproduce music to be sung or performed, they must pay for a license.'"
this is the apex of copyright bullshit, and it is a serious issue. "humming a song ? you need to pay us !"
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Pay up, you little bastards.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
Go fuck yourselves. Sincerely, The World
To the haters: You can't win. If you mod me down, I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine
The schools should go along with it. Make the parents send money with their kid every time they're going to sing in class. Charge admission to recitals to make it clear that you have to pay for licensing to hear your kid sing. In fact, make the kids hand the money over themselves, and tell them that every time they want to sing something they have to give money away. Maybe if it gets ridiculous enough people will notice.
I have to confess, i am very happy about this. This created a lot of waves and even the most conservative media outlets reported very critical about it. I think the copyright mafia used this time a shotgun for volley fire into their own feet. Though i am sorry for the kids, i am thankful for the allies this generated. The evil demasked itself...
CU, Martin
Note that this only applies to making copies of sheet music, not merely singing the songs (or arranging, or performing, or anything else). Same sort of thing is in effect here in Canada, and I'm sure many other places. Not a wonderful policy, but not the culture-destroying terror that the summary implies.
for song writers to create children's songs as free marketing material, license them CC or free for school usage.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Every culture out there in recorded and unrecorded history has had music and song. Heck, they even dug up a bone flute from 35,000 years ago. It's only in the last 70 years or so that it's become a business.
Song and dance is innate to human existence, just like food or breathing. Heck, animals sing and dance. Watch any mating pair of herons.
So now you're teaching those kids that singing a song is a business proposition, not a joyous thing. You pay to play. Talk about taking the fun out of something. And, maybe, just maybe, there won't be as many musicians because a lot of schools will eliminate music. It's just plain stupid.
By your logic, if I built a bridge, I would be owed royalties every time someone drove over it. If I built you a chair, I would be owed royalties every time you sat on it. If I wrote software, I would be owed royalties every time it's run (oh damn do I wish that was true, haha). Amazing concept: People get paid for working, not for past work that they already completed.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
So are you saying that the kids should be paid for signing? I'm confused.
Signing for the joy of it should be free. Playing music for the joy of it should be free. Just as dancing is free. I can copy a ballet and dance without royalties. What makes music special?
Education is a different business from any other; your product is not measured in profitability but rather in making better kids and citizens.
People affiliated with the german Pirate Party have created and published a song book (sorry, no english translation available) with several popular Christmas songs. They created the sheet music themselves and used only lyrics whose copyright protection has expired, so the song book can be freely used and distributed.
Rudolf Hess edited Mein Kampf. He was the very first grammar nazi.
This is the problem with points. They are illustrated better with metaphors -- the more the better -- but each metaphor introduces an opportunity to poke holes in the example [instead of what it is a metaphor of]. I've been wondering if there's a better way to communicate. Throw out all metaphors and just make a point? But then people often don't get it. Provide too many metaphors? But then people get caught up in the minutiae of the metaphor instead of the actual point.
-Clio
Karma: Bad (mostly from not giving a fuck)
Blog: http://clintjcl.wordpress.com
The Pirate Party reacted by releasing a song book of freely licensed notesheets and song texts. That's basically a big "fuck you too" to the content cartels and their fee-squeezing lackeys. The more they're doing that sort of bullshit, the more the people are willing to rebel.
http://musik.klarmachen-zum-aendern.de/nachrichten/gemeinfreie_notenblaetter_fuer_advents-_und_weihnachtslieder_3_update-588
wants his long overdue royalties, after all he's had to feed all those damn noisy animals all these years....
Sometimes the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train.
Nobody at GEMA looked at this lawsuit and said "Holy shit, guys, we're suing toddlers!" and had second thoughts?
No publicity is bad publicity, I know, but this is pushing it just a bit too far.
Sent from my CR-48
Copyright's purpose is being abused, that's what's happening here.
It's not like the teachers are trying to produce pirated sheet music to undermine the legitimate owners' monopoly, or to make a profit themselves. Traditionally educational purposes have always been exempt or less restricted than personal and commercial enterprises when it comes to copyright. The reason is that educating children is more important than the petty profit of today. Education isn't a competing business interest, it's a complementary service which supports and enhances all other aspects of life and business.
This is really just short sightedness on the part of GEMA. There's plenty of time to milk the children for all they're worth once they reach adulthood.
I want my Cowboyneal
Charging copyright fees for teaching children to sing is the epitome of greed.
Some kindergarten teachers might play the piano, or guitar, and provide music for the kids to sing along to. Not all of them will throw a CD on and play music through a sound system.
If the sheet music was legally purchased, then there's no reason the teacher can't play the song on the piano in the classroom. Usually, when such sheet music is purchased, the price includes such a license. I remember from grade- and high-school band that the charts we used were specifically licensed for our use (including performance).
I suspect the real issue is that the sheet music is being photocopied and handed out -- and that's the copyright violation.
IMHO copying sheet music for in-class use should be fair use and should be exempted from licencing requirements.
You assume German law has a Fair use clause?
I don't know. Just sayin...
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Weird Al stands on a gold mine!
"Oh, you mean those are not the 'real' words? Sorry, but his were free and yours were not."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
"Nazis........I hate those guys."
This is derivative of The Blues Brothers from ten years earlier.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=2EoOZKjAjlk#t=90s
Please send a royalty payment to Universal Studios - $1.00 per page view.
.
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Many people are basing their response on a gross misunderstanding. They are not charging kids to sing, they are charging for each kid to have their own sheet music. This is a common practice for all sheet music in band class, orchestra class, professional symphonic orchestras, church bands, ect. You could be outraged that they are targeting education or young kids, but not over the singing part unless you already disagree with the aforementioned common practice.
That brings me to an interesting point, / . is just "the ramblings of socially-inept, technology-literate news-mongers".
Fuck those little bastards. They think they can sing whatever song they want and get away with it? What gives them the right? They are pretty much stealing from music industry executives. I say make them pay, retroactively even. And if I ever hear any of you so much as hum a single bar of the theme song for the show The Greatest American Hero, I will be reporting you to the proper authorities! A free education while they leach off the system and their parents isn't enough for them, oh no, they will not be satisfied until they are able to sing any song they wish without paying the publishing company that owns the song. You see, the world isn't going to end now, it is going to end when those little rug rats grow up and it will be all because they thought they could sing someone else's song for free. Well guess what, not on my watch!
From Sean Kennedy's Tales From The Afternow ( http://rantmedia.ca/afternow/ )
(from transcript http://thinkforyourself.vaillife.net/assets/afternow/01tota.streamjack.doc ) -
It was a few years later when the REAL crackdown came. The Listener’s License. What a fantastic concept. I can’t believe it. See it happened like this. There was this - there is all this piracy, see everybody was - piracy was - Uh, piracy is now what they now consider a theft. See in order to combat piracy which was getting really rampant, all this information was flowing around nobody really liked that so they wanted it gone. And they wanted to get rid of piracy. But they couldn’t stop it.
The Internet was growing everyday. No one could stem the flow so they created the Listener’s License. Started real easy. See music, legitimate music to purchase, was, you know, say 20 bucks. And then what they did was, if you signed up to get this card, you know like a loyalty program card of the day. You’d get 75% percent off. So a 20 dollar CD became a 5 dollar CD. And you could buy it legitimately. For 20 bucks you would walk out of there with 4 CD’s. Amazing.
Of course people were signing up for it in droves, I mean why wouldn’t ya? You could go buy a pirate CD for 6 bucks or you could buy the reall thing for 5. Consumers are such mercenaries. So they signed up en masse.
2 years went by, 2 years. Then it became mandatory. See if you didn’t have your listener’s license, if you couldn’t present your card, well you weren’t able to buy music. Part of the licensing agreement came when you got the card. And all of sudden people were out in the cold.
But it wasn’t just the music you know. The listener’s license was created by the conglomerates. They all got together. If you wanted to see a movie, hey if you had your listener’s license you could get in for 2 dollars. (chuckle) 2 bucks. Oh you don’t have a listener’s license, well you can’t get in. See they couldn’t control the piracy so they stopped it at its source.
If ever you were found to be a pirate or if your computer was ever found to have MP3s that weren’t appropriate on it you were eliminated, your listener’s license was revoked and you were out of the loop. It's all private enterprise, you don’t have a right to music, you never had a right to it. It's all private.
No more movies no more shows. Can’t even buy art. Cause you can scan it. What if you scanned that picture? So, regulation of course is always the first step to total domination. But we didn’t see that either. We weren’t ready for the horror.
At that time the listener’s license had huge power. Not the power it has today, I mean now. If you do not have a valid listener’s license. I mean - well in our time you can’t do anything, I mean, you’re a pirate. If you can’t present, that is part of your paperwork. It’s part of your identification. See the listener’s license, after they came out with that. That was a huge step one.
But everyone was so focused on the listener’s license they didn’t see where the REAL power play was made. See everyone was so whipped up, and the media again, you know the corporately controlled media. Got everyone focusing on the benefits and the drawbacks, a big debate over the listener’s license. But then what they didn’t see was, was the regulations that went into play on the recording equipment. See that was the one that really came back. They started putting these standards on microphones and any kind of recording media. You wanted to record, well you gotta adhere to this standard. Because this is the future. Got to make sure the quality is there.
Chips were put into place. All recording med
Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
Since last year, SABAM (Belgium's RIAA) charges day cares and schools for the music they play in class:
see here
Youth organizations, neighborhood parties and small businesses that play radio during work already had to pay for this (or risk being raided by the copyright cops).
It is not so much that I have confidence in scientists being right, but that I have so much in nonscientists being wrong
they won't have any place to get their music from because no one would be publishing music anymore.
Yes, and that is only because of how our current capitalistic society works. If it is required of artists to demand money from people for goods that are in an infinite supply (and punish those that don't conform with artificial scarcity), then, through no fault of the artists, that is a flaw in our capitalistic society.
When someone violates someone else's copyright (such as downloading a song, for example), there are very few cases in which the person who owns said copyright is actually affected in the least. They never had the copyright infringer's money to begin with, so you can't claim that was stolen. They didn't lose the money, either, because as I said, they never had it. They remain completely the same as they were before. The only thing they 'lose' is an opportunity to have more money, but since they never had the object in the first place (and in almost all cases, they had no idea they even had such an opportunity to begin with), they haven't lost anything. Not time or resources (except the time and resources to build the initial product, but not only are those costs only incurred once, but it is not the fault of the copyright infringer).
It's interesting that you think that other people's time and investment isn't worth anything since the final product can be reproduced so easily.
The time and investment costs are only incurred once. However, I never said anything about their time being worthless, so that was a nice assumption (and this isn't the only assumption you made, either).
Either you fail to grasp the concept of what the actual product is (the music that took time to create and distribute, not the paper it's printed on), or you just don't care because you're a greedy bastard that thinks laws are bad because you just want shit for free. Which is it?
Nice assumptions and false dilemmas. I don't even listen to music, so I wouldn't download it or infringe upon copyright for it to begin with.
There is also more than two possible reasons I could have for making such an argument. I believe that artificial scarcity (and relying on scarcity to profit) harms society as a whole. I believe that we should not criminalize people who do not harm or even interact with the supposed 'victims' (for reasons stated above). That's not to say that I believe that artists don't deserve money. I believe that if someone likes a product (and they have the money to pay for it), they should, whilst in this capitalistic society, buy it.
Now, do I believe that we should just remove copyright laws and claim that the problem is fixed? No. That would just shift the suffering to the artists instead of the people we are currently criminalizing. I do suggest, however, that either society finds a business model that works so that we don't need to criminalize people who do no harm to others, or that we rid ourselves of our capitalistic practices.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Is it also your humble opinion that textbooks can be photocopied for free for in-class use? Exactly where you draw the line on fair use is a tricky thing. Suppose a teacher buys one copy of a sheet music book and photocopies it for 30 students. Maybe that's okay. Now maybe a school buys one copy of the book and photocopies it for 5 classes of 30 students each. Next maybe the school district buys one copy and photocopies it for dozens of schools, ending up with hundreds or thousands of photocopies of the original.
I don't think there is any question that a line must be drawn between fair use and infringement in these cases. Is there a specific number of copies that you would draw it at? One copy, one class's worth of copies, 50, 100?
For a book of sheet music of children's songs, schools may comprise a big portion of their customer base. The money from sale of the book must go to many people/entities after the retailer makes their cut: composer, arranger, editor, graphic designer, book layout, and ultimately a cut to the publisher as their profit for licensing the work and hiring the necessary people and managing them to a finished product. Maybe in this day and age it could be made more efficient with artists selling their sheet music online, but if you buy a book then you are taking the work of all those people I mentioned, and those people deserve compensation for their work. If you don't want to compensate them just don't use their work, use somebody else's.
I know that in the USA there are some fair-use copyright exemptions specifically for academic use, this seems like it can be solved in one of two ways: the German government can enact a specific law governing how fair use applies to this situation, such as purchasing one song book per class of up to 40 students which the teacher can then copy up to 40 times per year; Or the publishers can sell an edition of their songbooks which may cost more and is specifically licensed to be copied for classroom usage. I know that some teacher's editions of textbooks, solution manuals, and the like typically contain some language about what constitutes fair-use copying.