Slashdot Mirror
German Copyright Group To Collect From Creative Commons Event
bs0d3 writes "In Leipzig, Germany, an 8 hour music/dance party event was organized to play nothing but creative commons music the entire time. A German copyright group called GEMA told the organizers that to be certain that no rights were infringed, it would need a list of all artists including their full names, place of residency and date of birth. After the event GEMA sent an invoice for 200 euros. They claim that behind pseudonyms some of their artists may be hidden and produce things that they would not earn anything from. According to German law, you are required to prove that an artist is not with GEMA. So even though GEMA probably does not have rights to any of the music, they are not required to prove that they do."
Sorry if this is off-topic, but I desperately need to find out what Sourceforge's top downloads are. Does anyone know where I can get this information???
It has become necessary that we all ignore copyrights from this point on, in civil disobedience. This has really gone too far. Take a look - an organization that represents a minority of the population's interests, can have more privileges than all other citizens, and other citizens are obliged to that minority. this is against democracy. property rights, cannot come before democracy.
Read radical news here
title says it.
they should rebel, the gema artists that is.
also germans should rebel, because gema is collecting money it has no way to deliver to the lawful owner(the artist).
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
This is really sick, and sadly the same here in Hungary. A specific rightsholder group is granted legal monopoly on all the music business, and there is no way for art to exist outside them. They also have the right to tax all storage media because "they would be used for piracy anyway".
I asked our beloved SAZAS about this matter. The question specifically was: what was your opinion on playing open-source / cc music in a waiting room? The reply was that since all authors must report to SAZAS and report their incomes and creative commons authors do not, such music was illegal in Slovenia.
A German copyright group called GEMA told the organizers that to be certain that no rights were infringed, it would need a list of all artists including their full names, place of residency and date of birth.
So, to be sure no rights are violated, they need to be given private details about 3rd party individuals that they have no right to know?
The SACEM still sent a bill.
The treasurer of the band (not paying attention...) paid it.
After becoming aware of the error, the treasurer tried to reclaim the money, to no avail.
So, then the composer sent a letter to the SACEM, explaining to them that they had solicited money in his name, and that he wanted to have it.
A couple of weeks later, a bank transfer showed up at the band's account (not the composer's personal account) where the fee was reimbursed in full, but no explanation, nor excuse...
Probably, in the German case, it might not be so simple, as they played stuff from multiple composers, and if one composer complains, the GEMA could always claim that they solicited money on behalf of the other composers...
...is always more profitable than working, because you hardly have any overheads. You just need to supply the occasional fawn for your lawyers to swallow whole, before going into torpor until their next court date.
At some point, our leaders and their pet intellectuals are going to have to deal with the fact that one of the most basic assumptions behind our societies - that profitability is equivalent to economic success - is fundamentally flawed.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
I have long opposed extreme copyright terms and bad copyright law, and supported the public domain and creative commons licensing - but I have also supported paying artists for such work as they have copyrighted. I have always tried to buy a legitimate copy of music I like, where it has been available, and encouraged others to buy legitimate recordings.
But this is simply too much. If the copyright organizations are going to insist on collecting money for works they do not own nor represent, then they can go to hell. Really, this is just extortion. They deserve no more sympathy.
Guys, the TFS is bullshit. Germany has no concept of "copyright". But even many Germans don't know that.
We have "Urheberrecht", which is like "authors' right". The privilege of the original author to get something for his work. As opposed to the privilege to "copy" (usually the badly paid works of others).
The former once made sense in pre-Internet times. The latter is based on the lie that one could actually control who makes a copy of what information, and was designed to abuse artists from the very beginning.
The GEMA was originally there, to collect the money for those artists, and hand it straight to them. That service did cost a small monthly membership fee.
But nowadays, the GEMA is a bunch of 80+ dudes that keep practically all the money for themselves and buy seconds yachts and huge mansions.
While the membership fee is more expensive than what they get out for 99.9% of the artists. (I'm not even exaggerating.) Most members get something like 50 cent or less.
But GEMA acts like if you don't do anything, you're automatically a member. Without asking you.
And if you want out, they often simply act like it didn't happen and keep collecting "for you" anyway.
Oh, and their fees for "performing" a song are crazy high. High enough that no Internet radio station here could afford it, even with lots of advertising. (We tried, and had to shut down.)
This is my biggest bone with copyright laws - it gives rights to collect copyright fees to private entity - and what's most important - they don't have to prove that it is their representative they collect money for. Our local agency claims that they have rights to do it so, and after author will make agreement with them, they will pay money back (minus admin fees of course). This is bordering with absurd, but honestly, people lack of insight in such difficult subject helps heavily, as lobbyist groups have freeway to copyright laws.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
What if they don't pay? GEMA would have to take them to court, right? Is a judge really going to make them pay, without GEMA pointing out even a single song played at the event that infringed one of their artists' copyright? Is there any precedent for that in Germany?
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
The main problem with "your own creation" is the part, that is not your own creation. As all creations are cultural creations, e.g. only possible with a cultural and social background, and any (theoretical) creation that isn't founded in the social and cultural background, is non-understandable for any other than the creator and non-distingushable from random noise for everyone else, every creation is 95% background and 5% original creation. But it gets protected as if 100% of it was solely the accomplishment of its creator. A property has its welldefined limits, where it is easy to say where the property begins and what belongs to the environment around the property. Patents at least attempt with the claims system to point out the limits which distinguish between background and creation, but normal works of Arts don't. There is no claims list where the artist points out which of the work is reference, quote, copied from somewhere else, taken from nature etc.pp., and of which part the artist thinks to be actually his original creation. Persiflage and satirical usage can further muddy the water
If you look into court cases of plagiarism, you'll notice how complicated the differentiation between "original" and "non-original" can get, and how it depends on the actual argument of lawyers and quoted precedences, which part of a work is "creation" and which is not.
The idea of "give the creator the right to his creation" is well intended, but often very naive and unworkable. Sadly though, I have no solution how to improve on the idea to make it workable.
I've been stuck in the same dilemmy in Germany now for more than ten years, and how crazy this whole legislation is and has always been never occurred to anybody in public.
This goes so far that the rates are actually too low to really complain about, but high enough to be a big headache for small concerts and stuff.
If an artist is signed with GEMA (so, get's money from them), he even has to pay GEMA fees in case he organizes a concert himself, for himself, only playing his own songs.
He will get the money back later, of course - but subtract bureaucracy fees. Same goes on for CDs!
It's just completely crazy. So as an artist, you are either "in" - and pay to eventually get paid - or "out" - and you never get paid at all.
The winners? Big acts, as usual.
Never mind the copyright arguments. How do you prove you are not a member of some group? Do you need official papers stating all the groups you don't belong to?
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
"The idea of "give the creator the right to his creation" is well intended, but often very naive and unworkable. Sadly though, I have no solution how to improve on the idea to make it workable."
Is suspect a workable solution would include reducing the term that copyright and other intellectual "property" rights last. Copyright is meant to be a limited privilege afforded to the creator of a work, in order to reward the creator and thus encourage the creation of intellectual works. A noble intent, which has gotten lost over the years as corporations started receiving copyright and realised they could increase profits by lobbying the governments of this world to increase their copyright terms step by step until the current ridiculous system of decades of protection after the death of the artist.
It is now considered by many politicians to be inalienable rights and thus the original compromise between the freedom of expression and reward for authors/creators has been lost.
A workable solution would be to start from the assumption that there is no copyright any more and then reintroduce the original compromise in the context of modern society.
No. It is a terrible idea.
What if you buy a BMW 1201Whatever and later on this car becomes a classic collectors car, making it worth more money than it originally was? Shouldn't BMW get some of the money?
What if you buy a designer shirt from Le Whatever and later on this shirt becomes a "vintage" collectors shirt, making it worth more money than it originally was? Shouldn't Le Whatever get some of that money?
What if you buy a house and later on property prices go up and the house becomes worth more than what it was. Shouldn't the person who sold you that house get some of the money?
No. When you sell something, you've sold it. Meaning you've lost all claims to it. That is the risk of selling something. You may lose future income, but you have also protected yourself from the item losing value by realising its value in cold hard cash.
If the artists want to profit from future price rises, they should sell a share of the paintings. They can then still profit from future price rises, but obviously they have to take the risk of the painting actually decreasing in value over time.
The artist having the cake and eating it too is not fair. Not fair at all.
This is beyond ridiculous. These people live outside of reality (and at our expense).
With this in mind, US copyright was created as a balance, an incentive to people to produce in return for a LIMITED copyright before the works fell back to the public domain. Limited used to mean 14 years, as in people were personally supposed to see their own works go out of copyright to have incentive to create more to keep the money coming in.
Other posts say public disobedience is needed to fix this, but I think what we really need is much more public education. Most people (and I'm SURE, most Congresspeople) don't know shit about IP law. Lawmakers are happy to go along with what their industry lobby friends tell them they need. The public at large is at best woefully ignorant and at worst dangerously ignorant about what is and is not allowed under copyright. Trademark and patent law could be OK with relatively little reform. Copyright law needs a major overhaul. Until the public (and Lawmakers) realizes that, it will continue to be business as usual.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?