‘Viva la revolucion!’ New Warner, MySpace, farce
p2pnet news view | P2P | Music:- It’s a one-way street for the Big 4 record labels, Vivendi Universal, EMI, Warner Music and Sony Music.
Our way.
‘Screw You!’ – they tell their customers as they try to sue them back into being clueless consumers.
Now, in the latest debacle Warner, promoter of another one-way ‘licensing’ project it’s calling Choruss, and Rupert Murdoch’s MySpace, say a songwriter he can’t do what he wants with his own song.
“Mesanna alerts us to a blog post from the wife/manager of pop singer Edwyn Collins discussing the hellish experience she’s gone through trying to offer up Collins’ most famous song, A Girl Like You, on MySpace,” writes Mike Masnick on Techdirt.
On MySpace, “This is Grace here, the manager,” writes Grace, continuing:
“I apologise for hijacking Edwyn’s blog. I’ve been in a long running battle with myspace and a major label which is claiming the ownership of A Girl Like You. That’s why it has not been here in it’s entirety for ages. THEY WON”T LET US. It’s a long, boring Kafkaesque story. I’m pissed off. We want to allow people to download it for free. Edwyn owns it, he should be able to what he wants. When I read about artists supporting the majors and Murdoch cartels even further it irritates me somewhat. So I posted this reply to the statement issued by the Featured Artists Coalition following their meeting at Air Studios. Music legally and freely available on the internet now!”
So, “Here’s my post, says says (we did made the paragraphs) »»»
I am Edwyn Colllins manager. Let me tell you a story.
At the beginning of this year I noticed that Edwyn’s myspace had gone bit wonky and I tried to upload the tracks back on to the music player. His most famous track, which he owns the copyright in, as he does for most of the music he’s recorded in his life (preferring to go it alone than have his music trapped “in perpetuity” to use the contract language of the major record company) is called A Girl Like You. It’s quite famous. Lo and behold, it would not upload, I was told Edwyn was attempting to breach a copyright and he was sent to the Orwellian myspace copyright re-education page.
Quite chilling, actually. I naturally blew my stack and wrote to myspace on his behalf demanding to know who the hell was claiming copyright of Edwyn’s track? Which, incidentally, he always made freely available for download on myspace, something which amazed his followers.
Eventually, after HUGE difficulty, I was told Warner Music Group were claiming it. I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn’t. That is because Myspace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major can claim a copyright.
Warner’s were one of the lead petitioners in the attempt to put those three stoner lads in Sweden in prison recently, remember.
A Girl Like You is available FOR SALE all over the internet. Not by Edwyn, by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him. Attempting to make them cease and desist would use up the rest of my life. Because this is what they do and what they’ve always done.
And it’s not just majors.
If I had a fiver for all the dodgy indie labels we’ve been involved with I’d have £35 or thereabouts. (Exceptions: Heavenly and Domino).
Andrew Loog Oldham said that getting ripped off (by the industry) was your entrance fee to the music business of the sixties, so get over it. He’s right and things have not changed. We are very over it, but nonetheless aware of who the biggest bootleggers around are.
It’s not the filesharers.
Personally, we’ve always loved bootlegs. Even when Edwyn was really skint at the fag end of the eighties, I remember being in Camden market and seeing some tapes of a couple of his shows on sale. I tried to buy them but the stallholder somehow knew who I was and said “free to the management.”
I failed to see how that guy selling tapes of Edwyn or even U2 or anybody on the list of signatories above could harm their career.
And then, “she’s got a nice little message for the Featured Artist Coalition and its silly petition to try to stop file sharing,” says Mike on Techdirt.
“But anyway, as an earlier post said, this is not really an argument worth having,” Grace says, adding:
“The gig’s up. You might as well take a position about when you want the sun to come up in the morning. It’s over. Now let’s get on with working out a wonderful new way for music lovers to enjoy music for free or for a small subscription that makes it legal and easy to hear ANYTHING and allows the artist to reap the rewards of such freedom of access.
“Viva la revolucion!”
(Thanks, RW)
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
one-way ‘licensing’ project – ‘Tens of thousands’ sign up for Choruss, June 12, 2009
Techdirt – Edwyn Collins Can’t Give Away His Music Thanks To MySpace, Warner Music, October 5, 2009
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I am Edwyn Colllins manager. Let me tell you a story. At the beginning of this year I noticed that Edwyn’s myspace had gone bit wonky and I tried to upload the tracks back on to the music player. His most famous track, which he owns the copyright in, as he does for most of the music he’s recorded in his life (preferring to go it alone than have his music trapped “in perpetuity” to use the contract language of the major record company) is called A Girl Like You. It’s quite famous. Lo and behold, it would not upload, I was told Edwyn was attempting to breach a copyright and he was sent to the Orwellian myspace copyright re-education page. Quite chilling, actually. I naturally blew my stack and wrote to myspace on his behalf demanding to know who the hell was claiming copyright of Edwyn’s track? Which, incidentally, he always made freely available for download on myspace, something which amazed his followers. Eventually, after HUGE difficulty, I was told Warner Music Group were claiming it. I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn’t. That is because Myspace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major can claim a copyright. Warner’s were one of the lead petitioners in the attempt to put those three stoner lads in Sweden in prison recently, remember. A Girl Like You is available FOR SALE all over the internet. Not by Edwyn, by all sorts of respectable major labels whose licence to sell it ran out years ago and who do not account to him. Attempting to make them cease and desist would use up the rest of my life. Because this is what they do and what they’ve always done. And it’s not just majors. If I had a fiver for all the dodgy indie labels we’ve been involved with I’d have £35 or thereabouts. (Exceptions: Heavenly and Domino). Andrew Loog Oldham said that getting ripped off (by the industry) was your entrance fee to the music business of the sixties, so get over it. He’s right and things have not changed. We are very over it, but nonetheless aware of who the biggest bootleggers around are. It’s not the filesharers. Personally, we’ve always loved bootlegs. Even when Edwyn was really skint at the fag end of the eighties, I remember being in Camden market and seeing some tapes of a couple of his shows on sale. I tried to buy them but the stallholder somehow knew who I was and said “free to the management.” I failed to see how that guy selling tapes of Edwyn or even U2 or anybody on the list of signatories above could harm their career. But anyway, as an earlier post said, this is not really an argument worth having. The gig’s up. You might as well take a position about when you want the sun to come up in the morning. It’s over. Now let’s get on with working out a wonderful new way for music lovers to enjoy music for free or for a small subscription that makes it legal and easy to hear ANYTHING and allows the artist to reap the rewards of such freedom of access. Viva la revolucion!
October 7th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
We have to destroy all the big corporations of parasites and criminals before they destroy our societies.
We have to eradicate the music movie and others mass media corporate parasites once and for all now.
The health insurance pharmaceuticals, tobacco parasites shall be next. This has to be done no matter what it’s take.
The greed of these huge corporations is not sustainable and if we they stay around or societies, even may be our occidental civilization will collapse.
October 7th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Yet another tale of corporate greed and underhand dealings, nothing new in this for most readers here, what would be of interest is whether this issue has been resolved and myspace have looked over their flawed copyright management procedure.
October 7th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
I’m keeping up with the strike of not purchasing any music or DVDs and enjoying the free downloads. I look up to see which studio/label owns the said “copyright” to that free file, and I just give that label name the middle finger. I would give the fist if it was someone’s head from the labels.