Slashdot Mirror
UK Police Busts Karaoke 'Gang' For Sharing Songs You Can't Buy (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The London Police have an Intellectual Property Crime Unit. They just issued a press release bragging about "dismantling" a "gang" running "commercial-scale copyright infringement." But if you look into the case, it turns out to just be three old guys who stream karaoke tracks that mostly aren't available from karaoke manufacturers. "This means that far from losing 'a significant amount of money,' music companies were actually deprived of little or nothing, since there were no legal copies that people could pay for." This "gang" didn't even sell any of the tracks they streamed — it seems to just be a hobby for some karaoke enthusiasts. "So why is Hodge calling what seems to be an extremely low-level operation 'commercial-scale?' It's probably because 'commercial scale' is a key legal concept that the recording industry has been trying to redefine to include activities that don't involve financial gain."
Yes, but you realize karaoke tracks are recorded to sound as much as possible like a recording someone else made famous, and the person who made it famous doesn't get a penny in royalties or license fees from a karaoke track. For example, I see that one of the karaoke tracks is of George Michael singing "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?" People who would buy that karaoke track want to sound like George Michael singing the song, so they record the track to sound just like the accompaniment that's on George Michael's record.
The problem is, George Michael doesn't receive a penny. The company that made the George Michael recording doesn't receive a penny. And, the song was written in 1930 by lyricist E. Y. "Yip" Harburg and composer Jay Gorney who are both long dead. In summary, nobody who was involved at any level in creating the intellectual property for a song that's 75 years old or the intellectual property of the 1999 recording by George Michael see a red cent.
Ignoring intellectual property laws that are this broken is absolutely reasonable. In fact, I would say that ignoring the intellectual property laws is an act of political courage until they decide to fix them.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Stop consuming media and go buy a damn guitar.