Universal and blanket licensing
p2pnet.net News:- It was big news. Vivendi’s Universal Music announced they’d receive a share of the sales for Microsoft’s Zune player. Beyond all criticism, this should ring a bell and prove the need for a blanket license for the Internet.
Most readers must remember there was a debate in France a few months ago about enforcing interoperability through the DADVSI law. This eventually mostly fell apart, but it wasn’t the real big deal in France. Fewer may remember that on the night of December 21, 2005, the National Assembly voted an amendment that permitted the downloading of music provided it was done without commercial motives.
This was called the “global license”, and was supposed to legalize P2P file sharing while compensating authors, composers, labels and publishers thanks to an extended copyright levy.
In a snapshot, this too fell apart. The day after, while we in France were preparing for Christmas and Internet users were celebrating this victory, the music industry and the French minister of Culture united to oppose the passed amendment.
The whole government reacted and opposed the so-called “legalization of piracy”. They opened a 150,000 euros website to display their propaganda. Following procedural magic, the National Assembly was asked to vote again for the same provision. The majority behind the government showed up in numbers at the Assembly, and made the global license history.
At this time, it was said that a private license would kill the music industry and the arts as a whole. It was said that not enough money could be raised through a copyright levy and that, above all, is was impossible to know with precision how to share the license revenue between the various artists.
The majors and the authors collective society stood up and yelled this would benefit only established artists and that small, unknown independent artists would not see a nickel. Artists believed this, the opposition party back-pedalled, and now talking about a “global license” has become a taboo in France.
Universal is not universal
And now we learn Microsoft will share revenue with the music industry when it sells its Zune MP3 player.
Universal Music Group Doug Morris declares that “we feel that there’s a great deal of music that’s (stored) on these devices that was never legitimately obtained, and we wanted to get some sort of compensation for what we thought we’re losing”. “I want our artists to be paid for the music that makes these devices popular”, he added.
Wait a minute. How what’s that called, Doug?
Yes, a copyright levy! That’s exactly what it is.
The whole idea behind the blanket license is that if you can’t sell the works, especially in a networked immaterial digital world, then you should look at where the money goes and take a share there to compensate authors.
Universal and Microsoft team up and make their own private blanket license. UMG says it will share the money 50-50 with its artists. But on what basis?
And how come the sharing computation was impossible with a state imposed license and becomes possible when it emerges from a private agreement? Fifty-fifty looks like a fair deal, but with a traditional copyright levy, the major labels receive only a quarter of the revenue. Guess why they refused it?
But finally and most importantly, will small artists or labels have resources to obtain similar deals with Microsoft? Doubt is highly permitted. Will file sharers be free to download UMG music on non-licensed platforms? Of course not.
It is governments’ responsibilty to understand UMG’s message that they need to be compensated for so-called “piracy”, and then to set-up a blanket licensing system that will benefit not only them, but every major and small labels. But that will, above all, put an end to the stupidity of suing people because they listen to and share music with their peers.
France lost its chance to be the first to make this progressive move, but it showed a path.
Could not Canada now follow the lead and make it happen?
[FROM: p2pnet.ca]
Guillaume Champeau – Ratiatum.com
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November 11th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
good luck… somehow I see this coming up in court… an invidvidual downloads a MP3 from a UMG contracted artist, and will end up in court under suit by RIAA.
He’ll use the defense that he owns a Zune. A portion of the funds he paid the retailer to get the Zune went to UMG, so in effect, he already paid UMG for any “illegal” downloading of their MP3s.
That argument will get shot down, and this whole agreement will be shown for the farce it is.
UMG will be double-dipping
November 12th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
“an invidvidual downloads a MP3 from a UMG contracted artist,….”
Blanket contracts have always had these unsurmountable problems:
1. No one know what songs are covered, as no list (catalog/repertoire) is issued with the license. And even if a list was given to licensees, it would already be obsolete, as the catalog/repertoire changes continuosly.
2. No one know how the money is to artists/songwriters.
3. No one knows how much money is diverted (stolen if you may) before any of it reaches the artists/songwriters.
The UMG-MS deal have the same flaws plus some more, Here are some concerns:
- are recordings are sold through sub-contractor or sold outright to another record company covered by the blanket agreement?
- who notifies who when changes are made to the licensed repertoire?
- is he right to copy tranferred when the devise is sold to another person and the new owner has no proof of purchase?
- have songwrites authorized the blanket license that may include their songs?
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com