RIAA innovation control
p2pnet.net News:- The index page intro to p2pnet’s current Top Story says, “If you can hear it, Corporate Music wants to own and/or control it. All of it. And that includes digital radio.”
Here’s a comment post on the subject:
Read on >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Big Music is already extracting exorbitant fees from the webcasting community through the one-sided statutory ‘rights’ agreement that was imposed on ALL ’small’ webcasters.
Contrary to what they be trying to make people believe, they are already getting compensated from digital radio, from small webcasters on live365 and ShoutCast to the big services like REAL, AOL, Yahoo, etc.
They want to have their cake and eat it too, and stuff it down their pants, and in their pockets, and anywhere else that can manage to stuff it.
Furthermore, unlike the Grokster/Morpheus controversy now before the Supreme Court, these recording technologies have a clearly non-infringing use. They can record talk-shows and news broadcasts on digital radio. Talk shows, because the are contemporaneous, largely unscripted, and many times deal with matters of ‘public concern,’ are largely uncopyrightable as they fall into the category of a ‘performance’ rather than ‘a creative work in a fixed medium.
Stationripper, Replay Radio, et al, can be used to record these broadcasts and that would certainly constitute a ’substantial non-infringing use’.
What the RIAA would really like is for the Government to make any kind of software development illegal with obtaining some kind of Government issued permit, like a ham radio license.
Each programmer who then wanted to initiate a development project that would subsequently be released for use by person other than the developer would require a permit from the Government, just like a building permit.
The conditions of the permit would allow for inspection of the project documents and code at any time and revocation of the permit and confiscation of all project materials if it was determined that the project was not conforming to the terms of its orginal Government approved permit.
Before distribution can occur, the end result of the project will be subject to a thorough review by some Government agency employing a panel of experts from the intellectual property ‘industry’ who would issue findings about modification and changes that would be required before release.
That way, no one like Greg, Scott, or Applian can ever come up with one of these annoying applications that actually allow people to listen to music they’ve already paid for in some fashion under terms and conditions other than those imposed by the RIAA and their patrons, unless of course, they feel like spending a couple of years at Club Fed.
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Something you think we should know? tips[at]p2pnet.net
See:-
Top Story – Big Music vs Digital Radio, p2pnet, May 28, 2005
May 29th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
…justice and innovation for none.
TT
May 29th, 2005 at 7:10 pm
You have lost your mind…
I can’t believe the level of paranoia you tech guys are suffering from…
Take a pill buddy…
May 29th, 2005 at 7:51 pm
Prehaps when you have spent a bit of time reading what has been attempted and is being attempted you may well understand that paranoia hasn’t anything to do with it. Rather that it is a reality they are looking at.
May 29th, 2005 at 8:19 pm
No. You take a pill. A reality pill.
May 29th, 2005 at 11:45 pm
Instead of spending your time reading propaganda put out by P2P sites take a moment and read the US Solicitor General’s brief in the Grokster case.
Or better still actually read what Mitch Bainwol of the RIAA said in the January press conference about not trying to overturn the Betamax decision.
You guys are so busy reading your own propaganda you have lost sight of the facts. The RIAA’s position isn’t at all what you say it is. They are actually promoting P2P now… but with the provision that copyrighted material be filtered. The same can be said for Wayne Russo and Shawn Fanning… So who is trying to stifle innovation? The people that won’t pay the creators for their works!
I know you want your music and movies for free, but don’t let your greed warp your logic….
May 30th, 2005 at 1:02 am
With filters? Lols, prehaps you should take your own recommendation and do read up. To date there has been no filter developed that distingishes between legal mp3’s and those copyrighted to any degree of accuracy. The best they could come up with last year was a program that died a quiet death. Why? Same reason, it made no distinction betweeen what was needed by the computer operating files and what was a legal mp3. While the RIAA has been great to suggest such filters, one thing to make them work is missing. A database. Since that database can’t be put up by anyone but the music majors, it has been an absolute failure to get one to work without them publishing such a data base. To date they have been most reluctant to do so. It is very easy to claim the need to install filters. It is a whole nother ball game to develop one that actually functions.
“…about not trying to overturn the Betamax decision. ”
No, they have been steadily at removing fair use rights that make such a decision work. At present the fair use rights are undergoing a steady bombardment to make them unuseable. From broadcaster flag attempt, to the “works for hire” passage (a very sneaky one that was), to attempted mandating of how equipment will be designed to obtain a license to use certain patents. All of it ties together to mean that you can’t make use of fair rights. DRM is nothing but an end run around those fair use rights without having to change the laws. In its self, DRM is unconstitutional as it is now configured. It has no ending date. The purpose of copyright is to protect for a “limited time” an authors works. At the end of the “limited time” those works become public domain.
As it is, the RIAA has been caught in so many twisted and contradictory statements of its own making that believing anything they say is like believing a compulsive liar.
May 30th, 2005 at 2:17 am
hahahahahahahaha
God, thats funny =)
May 30th, 2005 at 6:03 am
You might take a moment to read the constitution before you talk about DRM violating constitutional rights. Fair Use is not in the constitution… but Article 1 section 8 guarantees the creators a right to earn a royalty on the copying of their works. And why are you so concerned about a copyright lasting only a ‘limited time’? Do you actually OWN any copyrights? Or are you just itching to get you hands on somebody else’s work so you can cash in on it like Grokster is doing….
If you are going to call the RIAA liars then back it up with a quote that catches them in a lie…. Not that I care to defend the RIAA,
I say this simply so you will have to go read something from the source instead of some P2P propaganda site.
Also, go read what Shawn Fanning and Wayne Russo are saying now… as well as Larry McVoy’s article in Forbes saying that Open Source is stifling innovation….
May 30th, 2005 at 6:07 am
You are certainly a master of debate! That was a brilliant comeback. I haven’t heard an argument like that since I was in the third grade….
Dude, if you have a point make it…
May 30th, 2005 at 6:32 am
the Elite Torrents site was shut down yesterday by the FBI…
SO if you think the Feds aren’t going to pop you for stealing movies and music on P2P networks you are dead wrong!
You will be looking at several years behind bars and a
fine you will NEVER stop paying as long as you live
Since you can’t escape it by declaring bankruptcy…
May 30th, 2005 at 10:37 am
“So who is trying to stifle innovation? The people that won’t pay the creators for their works!”
You must be kidding.
The cretors frequently get nothing. Most of the money that should go to the “creators”, be they composers, artists, programmers go to the cartels that have kidnapped the copyrights. In the case of composers, the kidnappers are the publishing companies that turn the alleged 50 percent they give to composers into one to ten percent, if the composer is lucky. Many get nothing.
BTW, the Copyright Office nor any Congressional entity has ever done a study to determine how much money really goes to the creators. As a result all copyright theories, such as that it promotes creations, are junk theories not backed up by any economic and cash flow analyses.
Just consider Microsoft. Bill Gates is not a creator. He is just a seller of the software. He splits the grater part if the profits take among shareholders, managers and salesperson at Microsoft, very few of which are “creators”. The “creators”, the programmers, are employees that produce for the company who then owns whatever they produce.
Let’s cut out the “creator” crap.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
May 30th, 2005 at 4:11 pm
Having been a professional songwriter for the last 27 years, most of which I’ve spent as a staff writer for major music publishing companies and I have also been involved in major lawsuits and audits AGAINST music publishers, I can tell you for a FACT that you’re figures are full of crap… Most music publishers pay most of the money they owe to writers… Yes there are exceptions, but they are just that; exceptions. Most music publisher audits catch music publishers NOT COLLECTING money that is owed them due to incompetence or lack of staffing. This hurts writers, but it is more a symptom of the low pay that the current copyright law provides writers AND Music publishers… We only get 8.5 cents a copy of the CD… that is controlled by Congress so we are essentially working under state Socialism… if you want to help songwriters get paid, then help us get that number raised by writing your congressman! And stop stealing the music!
I’ve also been an artist on 3 major labels and I can tell you they don’t pay unless you make a LOT of money… but that is because they recoup your recording and promotion costs (nowadays upwards of two million dollars an album) This is agreed on by contract BEFORE the artist records. If you don’t agree with the contract then DON’T SIGN IT… Go independent and make your own record and promote it yourself. Don’t take their money and then bitch about it when they recoup it from your earnings…
As to whether Copyright actually promotes creation… Here’s the only fact you need to know… before 1895 there was a US copyright law for songwriters but it didn’t cover British and Irish songwriter’s work so US publishers simply stole British and Irish music and the United States only produced one major songwriter the entire century (Stephen Foster) who died at 37 years old with 38 cents to his name! After 1907 the US songwriters got a copyright law that gave them 2 cents per 10 cent copy of sheet music and protected ALL music… then for the next thirty years we had the ‘Golden Age’ of American composers producing the Gershwins, Cole Porter, Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg, Oscar Hammerstein and Richard Rodgers (the list goes on and on)
After the French revolution they did away with copyright laws and in a few years there were no more novels being written in French so they reinstated the copyright laws and Voila’, new novels in French began reappearing!!!!
Why do you P2P guys not understand that when you don’t pay people, they don’t work?
What is so hard about that concept? Could it be that it runs against your rationailzation that you aren’t hurting anybody by stealing the music instead of paying for it…
Dude, when you steal there’s always a victim! You are talking to one…
May 30th, 2005 at 4:27 pm
As to this claim by Rafael Venegas’ heirs… it appears that they sued, lost in court, and were charged to pay the legal fees of the defendant.
Sounds like they didn’t have a case and the Judge felt it was a frivolous lawsuit….
As to Peer music… I was contacted by them once to find the heirs of Earl Fatha’ Hines because they had a bunch of money with no address to distribute it to… It took me two days but I found the estate’s address and Peer sent them the money. I know this to be a FACT… So why would they go out of their way to find an heir to a LARGE estate and then try to steal from some guy I’ve never heard of!?!? BTW, all they had to do was sit on the money a couple of years till no one claimed it and by law it was theirs…
May 30th, 2005 at 4:31 pm
I took a reality pill and you know what I learned?
You have nothing original to say….
May 30th, 2005 at 6:20 pm
Dang I hate when folks just play dumb-ass to try an make their point.
The constitution points out the “limit” of copyright protection. The drm does NOT respect that limit and is therefore unconstitutional.
You should tell your masters you tried your best to earn your paycheck, alas your arguements are at best poor.
I am much in agreement with the RIAA on one thing. That everyone, I mean everyone should delete, remove, and otherwise see to it that NOTHING remains behind that could be an infringing file. I would grant them the obscurity they so desire. Instead I welcome them to d/l all the legal mp3 files that they would wish to share, free of charge or at least with a modest fee and with permission of the preformer AND without DRM included.
Open source is the best thing going. You keep your protected, outrageous high priced software. I hope you are happy with it. It is one of the reasons we are so intruded upon by spam and malware. Instead I will enjoy the open source software that isn’t so prone to security attacks, hacks, viruses, trojans, and the like. Make my day and do so. I have no wish to read what other industry shills have to say.
May 31st, 2005 at 3:06 am
“You might take a moment to read the constitution before you talk about DRM violating constitutional rights. Fair Use is not in the constitution… but Article 1 section 8 guarantees the creators a right to earn a royalty on the copying of their works.”
and if you read further down that that section which serves your point of view, you’ll also note that:
amendment 1 guarantees people the right to free expression (violated by the “notice and takedown” provisions of the DMCA)
amendment 4 guarantees people the right against search and seisure without government consent (also violated in wholesale by the DMCA)
and last and most egregiously violated:
amendment 5 guarantees people the right to due process of law before their life, liberty, or property is taken from them
(DRM and the DMCA remove due process of law by delegating legislative power to private industry in violation of the constitution, violate due process laws by allowing 500 unrelated cases to be subpoenad as one, and by denying software and hardware developers the right to create a tool simply because it COULD be used to circumvent an incompetently created DRM scheme)
Now which one violates more clauses of the constitution, p2p or copyright law? I say the latter, and I hereby disregard it and choose to live freely and constitutionally. Screw these greedy ***s
May 31st, 2005 at 4:59 am
Notice and takedown applies to copyright violation… in other words a Federal crime, NOT an act of Freedom of Speech. As the Supreme court so recently said “No one has a first ammendment right to the copyrighted works of others” So sorry you can steal the works of others and call it your ‘constitutional right’
The DMCA doesn’t allow the Government the right to search and seizure unless you have violated the law… in which case you have
forfeited your rights… Don’t expect to walk into a store with a ski mask on and run out with a bunch of stolen CD’s either then complain when the cops show up and search your house…
the 500 cases being prosecuted as one will be totally unecessary once the Supreme court overturns the 9th circuit court and allows the RIAA to shut down the illegal P2P services instead of having to sue individuals… Grokster and their ilk are hiding behind their customers like Human Shields saying “We aren’t stealing the music they are!” They use the Sgt. Schultz defense “We see nothing, We know nothing”
to say the DRM violates due process is just such a ridiculous .
Take a moment and look up the definition of due process… that should clarify things for you.
Now legalizing hacking of copyprotection schemes might offend your
greedy sensibilities, but dude, it is somebody else’s property you are trying to steal and they have a right to try to lock it up. Do you leave your car unlocked in the Supermarket parking lot?
“Which one violates more clauses of the constitution?” Whoever takes copyrighted material without paying the royalty guaranteed by the constitution… simple as that.
And now let’s talk about greed… how many songs have you stolen from songwriters and artists? How many studio musicians, recording engineers, background singers, secretaries at music publishers and record labels, record store clerks, rack jobbers, and record producers have you put out of work… how many of them have lost their homes, their families, their life’s work….
Just so you can steal the music…
Remember Live Aid? Remember Farm Aid, Remember the 9/11 concert for the victims, remember the Tsunami relief concert…
Well there’s the greedy ***s you are stealing from… hope you feel good about yourself…
May 31st, 2005 at 5:14 am
“The constitution points out the “limit” of copyright protection. The drm does NOT respect that limit and is therefore unconstitutional.”
Though I realize that you guyz are still crying in your beer over losing the Copyright extension case, (Larry Lessig didn’t turn out to be so hot in courtroom did he?) Congress has the power to determine what ‘limited’ means and they have decided that life plus seventy is limited… SO even though your argument has NO legal legs at all, let me refute it by saying show me a DRM system that lasts longer than life plus seventy and I will agree with you *HAHAHAHAHAHA*
“You should tell your masters you tried your best to earn your paycheck, alas your arguements are at best poor. ”
I have no earthly idea what you mean by this… so please try to be coherent and logical and stick to the topic so we will have a basis for discussion…
I am glad that you are deleting ALL the illegal mp3 files from your system. It is never too late to ‘do the right thing’. Welcome to the world of Fairness and Justice. Henceforth you Karmic state will improve massively…
Now, about open source it is not me saying that it doesn’t work I am merely quoting one of it’s founders (Here is the quote from Forbes recently)
“Since 1993, Larry McVoy has been one of the closest allies to Linus Torvalds, creator of the open source Linux operating system.
Yet after all these years, McVoy has come to believe that the open source business model, which is all the rage these days among computer makers like Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ – news – people ) and IBM (nyse: IBM – news – people ), cannot generate enough money to support the development of truly innovative software programs.”
I think that James Madison had it right when he put copyright DIRECTLY into the Consitution… Innovation can’t survive without it.
May 31st, 2005 at 5:38 am
“What the RIAA would really like is for the Government to make any kind of software development illegal with obtaining some kind of Government issued permit, like a ham radio license.”
Then back it up with at least one single quote where a spokesperson for the RIAA actually said something like this…
Otherwise, admit you are simply engaging in hyperbole for the purpose of promoting your point of view… Truth be damned…
May 31st, 2005 at 12:42 pm
To the uidentified person, who once worked for Peermusic:
“it appears that they sued, lost in court”
I do not know where you got this fact but that is wrong. In our case publishers Peermusic and ACEMLA were declared copyright infringers, for illegally licensing music that belonged to us. Our beef is the incredibly low amount damages that were awarded to us: $5,000 from Peermusic and $16,000 from ACEMLA, a far lower amount than they actually earned from the illegal licenses they issued. It is also too low because they actually stole the right to songs by presenting themselves as owners. It was not merely using songs without licenses. We have appealed the low sentences.
“and were charged to pay the legal fees of the defendant”
This fact is also wrong. Peermusic claimed that we lost our ownership claim of some songs so we we should pay them about one million dollars in legal fees. As it turns out Peermusic was ordered to pay our legal fees.
“and then try to steal from some guy I’ve never heard of”
Regading the ownership (or theft) of several songs, that we are appealing. The songs, composed by my father (the guy you never heard of) were acquired by Peermusic after a Peermusic executive wrote a letter that says: “I have made a study of the works of this author and I find that we have not received various manuscripts, reason for their not being registered in Washington. Is there a way to get said manuscripts without the author suspecting that we need them to register in Washington.”. During the trial Peermusic said that they had a right to “acquire” songs from my father without his suspecting it. In my opinion that is stealing. The judge decided that the songs belong to Peermusic and we are appealing that. An ineresting fact is that at least one of the stolen songs was not written by my father. Peermusic actually stole the song from an unknown composer and pasted my fathers name to it as the composer. To our knowledge Peermusic never paid royalties for our father’s song to my father and to us (in 12 years, after his death). The Judge decided that the song belonged to Peermusic. We have appealed that decision too.
The whole story and the mentioned Peermusic letter and the music of the “guy I’ve never heard of: can be found and heard here: http://www.gvenegas.com
“THE BIGGEST MUSIC THEFT AND MYSTERY IN MUSIC HISTORY”
I wonder, are you still working for Peermusic?
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
May 31st, 2005 at 1:17 pm
“you’re figures are full of crap”
Here is a challenge:
How much of the money collected by the performance societies of , about 1.5 billion dollars in the USA and the billions received by recording licensing agencies (Harry Fox), go to the songwriters or songwriter heirs?
The fact is that no one knows.
No one has seen a profit and loss statement of a publisher.
No one has seen a listing of income by the owners of music publishing compaies and a listing of income of composers.
Sure, we hear annectdotes of individual songwriters that get some money and many that get nothing.
Sure, a few composers or their estates were business savy enough or had the right connections to avoid getting shafted received millions in royalties. But here we are talking about a few select ones.
Can someone point to an open audit that gives the numbers?
Here in Puerto Rico, I estimated that our two most famous composers, who are probably among the most recorded songwriters in Latin America, should have earned about 400 and 50 million dollars respectively. The 400 million dollar composer probably left an estate woth less than a million dollars. The 50 million dollar composer died peniless. Their names are Rafael Hernadez and Pedro Flores.
I think the writer missed the point, that the real winnwers are not the creators by the busineses that exploit the works of the creators. This is so in musc, in software, in technology, in science.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
May 31st, 2005 at 1:40 pm
If I go to jail for downloading movies. I will NOT pay any fines imposed. Instead, I will write software to strike back at my persecutors. Downloading is not stealing. If I buy a grapevine from a nursery, I have every right to make and root a cutting and give that cutting to others. This is the same as copying and sharing a music file. Fair use is fair use, and it is not stealing!
May 31st, 2005 at 3:03 pm
If you want a statement of earnings and distribution of the largest performance society in the USA all you have to do is go to the ASCAP yearly membership meeting, as I do each year, and they will give you the statement and also discuss it publicly with anyone who wants to ask a question at that time…
Also, just for your enlightnement, their yearly earnings are around 750 million TOTAL… Also, songwriters, elected by the general membership compose HALF of the board membership so they get to see where the money goes at every turn…
Harry Fox is a different matter…. they collect the money for the publisher from the record labels… you will have to audit your publisher and get source documentation from them to find out how much you made or didn’t make. They are not required to publish their numbers since they are a privately held organization.
As far as seeing a profit or loss statement from a music publisher that depends again on whether they are privately held or not…
But you can audit to determine what your own earnings are. Or participate in joint audits with organizations like the Songwriters Guild of America.
“Sure, we hear annectdotes of individual songwriters that get some money and many that get nothing.”
Well, some get a lot of cuts and others don’t…
“Sure, a few composers or their estates were business savy enough or had the right connections to avoid getting shafted received millions in royalties. But here we are talking about a few select ones.”
This statement may be true in Puerto Rico (I don’t know) but isn’t true in the US. In any event, people can’t be protected from themselves. If someone signs bad contracts or if your judicial system is corrupt and won’t enforce the law there isn’t much to be done in ANY area of commerce is there?
“Can someone point to an open audit that gives the numbers?”
Most audits are conducted and then the results are under a gag order because the writers get more money that way. The Songwriters Guild of America has collected millions of dollars in audits but they won’t publish any individual results. You can read about some of their lawsuits however… I just don’t know where they are posted!
As to your estimates of the earnings of your composers in Puerto Rico, even using the CURRENT 8.5 cent rate 400 million dollars equals 4,068,500,000 sales! That’s a LOT of records my friend…
Almost one for every person on Earth… I’m surprised I’ve never heard of them… Puerto Rico has a great music scene but excuse me for thinking your figures are a bit optimistic. Especially since I am fairly certain that the roaylty rates we are talking aobout here are 2 cents instead of 8.5… I’m sure your father was a great composer, no disrespect meant here, but everybody seems to think there is more money in songwriting than there actually is…. You can make a living at it, but not a killing…
The real winners aren’t the writers OR the Music publishers who are BOTH getting screwed by low royalty rates… the real winners are the public who get the music under a compulsory license! IF we could negotiate higher rates for our music in the marketplace then there might actually be composers earning 400 million dollars (Which, by the way, is the estmated value of Paul McCartney’s catalog last time I checked, but then he was a Beatle, wasn’t he?)
May 31st, 2005 at 3:10 pm
Good… Stay in jail my friend…
Your analogy of grape vines is amusing but not applicable…
a “COPY”right is just that… the “right to copy” and it is owned by the composer, not you. The simple act of buying one CD doesn’t mean you have the ‘unlimited’ right to make COPIES of the songs!
Fair use is supposed to be limited to FAIR use… taking a composer’s music and violating the copyright law by distributing the song without permission of the composer is a Federal crime and the FBI has the right to pop you for it. This right has NEVER been in doubt…
May 31st, 2005 at 3:19 pm
My apologies for not taking the time to read the entire site… I was just glancing thru, but now the link isn’t working for me so there is no way I can go back and check out what you are saying…
May 31st, 2005 at 6:32 pm
“Notice and takedown applies to copyright violation… in other words a Federal crime, NOT an act of Freedom of Speech. As the Supreme court so recently said “No one has a first ammendment right to the copyrighted works of others” So sorry you can steal the works of others and call it your ‘constitutional right’ ”
“The DMCA doesn’t allow the Government the right to search and seizure unless you have violated the law… in which case you have
forfeited your rights… Don’t expect to walk into a store with a ski mask on and run out with a bunch of stolen CD’s either then complain when the cops show up and search your house… ”
- once again a comparison of a physical theft to copyright infrigment… If I ’stole’ cd’s I’d be depriving the store owner of the cd’s. so yes it’s theft. Copyright infrigment is NOT theft. And the cops would have to show proof that I did it before they could bust down my door, not some corporation saying “here’s a list of 500 people we belive have violated out copyright, get ‘em”
“the 500 cases being prosecuted as one will be totally unecessary once the Supreme court overturns the 9th circuit court and allows the RIAA to shut down the illegal P2P services instead of having to sue individuals… Grokster and their ilk are hiding behind their customers like Human Shields saying “We aren’t stealing the music they are!” They use the Sgt. Schultz defense “We see nothing, We know nothing” ”
- no such thing as illegal p2p services. You want to talk illegal, how about racketeering and price setting. These are crimes, yes? Yet the cartels get away with them all the time.
“Now legalizing hacking of copyprotection schemes might offend your greedy sensibilities, but dude, it is somebody else’s property you are trying to steal and they have a right to try to lock it up. Do you leave your car unlocked in the Supermarket parking lot? ”
- I’m all for legalizing the hacking of copyprotection schemes. I’m against copyright protection schemes that remove an individules right to fair use. And once again a comparison to physical property and a copyright. It just doesn’t work as they are not the same thing. But, ok, let’s extend your comparison of the copyright to a car. I can’t just make 500,000,000 exact copys of my car (at no or minimal expense) and rent them to people (at exhorbient rates). However, If I could do that, I don’t have the right to lock them up with special keys that will only unlock if they are driving to the supermarket that I support and no where else.
“Which one violates more clauses of the constitution?” Whoever takes copyrighted material without paying the royalty guaranteed by the constitution… simple as that.
- hmmm, one side a little bit?
“And now let’s talk about greed… how many songs have you stolen from songwriters and artists? How many studio musicians, recording engineers, background singers, secretaries at music publishers and record labels, record store clerks, rack jobbers, and record producers have you put out of work… how many of them have lost their homes, their families, their life’s work…. ”
- I have never deprived an artist, songwriter, or even the cartels of their songs. Therefore I have stolen exactly none.
As for the people being put out of work, there are many reasons for that. Walmart and other large chains for one, are putting smaller stores out of bussiness. The job losses at record companies, well let’s see they need to cut jobs to ensure managment get’s the ridicously large bonus they soooo deserve, then there is also the recesion everyone is living through. Oh that’s right, things that effect other bussiness’s shouldn’t effect the cartels.
Remember Live Aid? Remember Farm Aid, Remember the 9/11 concert for the victims, remember the Tsunami relief concert…
Well there’s the greedy ***s you are stealing from… hope you feel good about yourself…
-hmmm, never said I wouldn’t support the artists. I’m against the expoitation of artist so the cartels can get their $$. I’m also not against artists who work for a living, you won’t find me real supportive of anyone who thinks they deserve millions for a short time of work.
May 31st, 2005 at 6:45 pm
umm, they already tried to get it so that new software would have to be approved by them… where you been?
May 31st, 2005 at 8:25 pm
“If you want a statement of earnings and distribution of the largest performance society in the USA all you have to do is go to the ASCAP yearly membership meeting, as I do each year, and they will give you the statement and also discuss it publicly with anyone who wants to ask a question at that time…”
Yes, spend a fortune to go to a huge auditorium (ASCAP has over 200,000 members), scram a question about the data in a 20,000 page computer printout that you have not seen and that says how much each member was paid and how much of it reached the songwriter. Why ASCAP does not even know how much of the publisher share actually is paid to the songwriter. Sorry but I do not like your system.
“Also, just for your enlightnement, their yearly earnings are around 750 million TOTAL…”
Yes, but that is only for the ASCAP share of performance royalties in the US. I would guess that worldwide, the performance royalties add up to many billions of dollars, none of it tracked by any organization or government.
“Also, songwriters, elected by the general membership compose HALF of the board membership so they get to see where the money goes at every turn…”
Sorry. ASCAP has two type of Directors. composers and businesspersons. Guess who talks about money, legal and strategy matters? Guess who is in charge of awards, contests and other composer ego trip activities.
Harry Fox is a different matter…. they collect the money for the publisher from the record labels… you will have to audit your publisher and get source documentation from them to find out how much you made or didn’t make.”
Easier said than done.
“They are not required to publish their numbers since they are a privately held organization.”
Yes, they are “privately held” by the publishers, not the songwriters. Very convenient, for the publishers.
“As far as seeing a profit or loss statement from a music publisher that depends again on whether they are privately held or not…”
No, it depends on the laws. The laws do not protect songwriters, so there are no government or IRS audits of the publishers. It is that simple.
“But you can audit to determine what your own earnings are. Or participate in joint audits with organizations like the Songwriters Guild of America.”
Sorry, but the idea is not so good.
“Well, some get a lot of cuts and others don’t…”
Recently a Peermusic agent said in a radio program that the so called ASCAP sampling, made to determine how royalties are split among the song owners, was “ABSURD” because the name of the songs (some in Russian, some in Chinese, some in Spanish) could nor be determined by the ASCAP listener. Before that an ASCAP rep said on a television program that the sampling was made by a contractor whose names was, when asked. confidential. Then if the distribution is based on absurd data developed by an unknown firm.
“This statement may be true in Puerto Rico (I don’t know) but isn’t true in the US. In any event, people can’t be protected from themselves.”.
In Puerto Rico, due to existing monopolies, if a composer wanted his songs performed, he had to assign the songs to an American publisher through a contract he could not understand, in English and with many legal and music business terms that even the lawyers do not understand well. Few composers undestood English here.
Yes people can be protected from the fraud of others. If you want to call that protection against themselves, fine. But that is what governments are supposed to do and sometimes do, until they are hijacked by political investors.
“If someone signs bad contracts”
But if ASCAP is a composer association (like a union?) why does it not lobby so that the leonine contracts of the publishers are made illegal? Oh I know, ASCAP is also the union of the publishers.
“or if your judicial system is corrupt and won’t enforce the law there isn’t much to be done in ANY area of commerce is there?”
If we have a corrupt court, that is the one sent here by Americans.
“Most audits are conducted and then the results are under a gag order because the writers get more money that way.”
Sorry, but this makes no sense.
“The Songwriters Guild of America has collected millions of dollars in audits but they won’t publish any individual results. You can read about some of their lawsuits however… I just don’t know where they are posted!”
This is an admission that something was wrong. If money was collected after doing an audit, then something was found to be wrong. What was that, if you please?
“As to your estimates of the earnings of your composers in Puerto Rico, even using the CURRENT 8.5 cent rate 400 million dollars equals 4,068,500,000 sales! That’s a LOT of records my friend…
Almost one for every person on Earth… I’m surprised I’ve never heard of them… Puerto Rico has a great music scene but excuse me for thinking your figures are a bit optimistic. Especially since I am fairly certain that the roaylty rates we are talking aobout here are 2 cents instead of 8.5…”
I estimate that Rafael Hernandez records have sold over 5 billion copies. Just one of his songs, “El Cumbanchero” alone has been recorded over 500,000 times. I estimate sales of over 5 billion records. At the current statutory rate of 8.5 cents per record, that is over 400 million dollars, just one song. He had many othe very popular songs. Each one of his hits should have made him wealthy.
“but everybody seems to think there is more money in songwriting than there actually is…. You can make a living at it, but not a killing…”
I do not know what a killing is, but great songs can make a great deal of money. If there is quality, the promotion and honesty at pay time, a songwriter may make a good living.
“The real winners aren’t the writers OR the Music publishers who are BOTH getting screwed by low royalty rates… the real winners are the public who get the music under a compulsory license!”
Actually no one gets compulsory licenses from the Copyright Office, because they are useless for public performance. While the Harry Fox licenses suggest they are compulsory licenses, they are not.
Your suggestion that publishers are getting screwed must mean you have seen profit and loss statements and must know how much money the publisher invested (so as to conclude a low rate of return on investment). Else you may not know that they are getting “screwed”. You then must be an insider of a publisher. Just a guess.
Composers, i know they are getting screwed. I talk to them almost daily and I see their royalty reports and hear their comments and complaints.
“IF we could negotiate higher rates for our music in the marketplace then there might actually be composers earning 400 million dollars”
If composers issued mechanical licenses combined with performance licenses they can charge whatever they want, legally speaking and what the market will bear. Perhaps better songs should cost more. But this joining of of license type, recordings and performance, through one real composer organization will not happen as long as publishers own Harry Fox and control ASCAP and bradcasters control BMI.
“(Which, by the way, is the estmated value of Paul McCartney’s catalog last time I checked, but then he was a Beatle, wasn’t he?)”
I like some of McCartney’s songs and I am glad he was successful, The problem is that others just as good get almost nothing. Pedro Flores was possibly more sucessful than McCartney, a fact few Americans know because his market was Latin America. But his publisher was from New York, the biggest, and he died penniless. A funny thing: An agent of the publisher (Peermusic) is now the President the Pedro Flores Foundation. I wonder why.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
May 31st, 2005 at 9:49 pm
As much as I have enjoyed this discussion I am back composing today so I don’t have time to go into great detail here but I simply MUST reply to a couple of quotes then say adios amigo…
“I estimate that Rafael Hernandez records have sold over 5 billion copies. Just one of his songs, “El Cumbanchero” alone has been recorded over 500,000 times. I estimate sales of over 5 billion records. At the current statutory rate of 8.5 cents per record, that is over 400 million dollars, just one song. He had many othe very popular songs. Each one of his hits should have made him wealthy.”
One song has been recorded over 500,000 times and purchased by 5 billion people? First of all therre aren’t now nor ever have been 500,000 recording artists on this planet or any other… pluss 5 billion sales would be more than all records sold worldwide in a year… Seriously, are you standing by these figures?!?!?!
“If we have a corrupt court, that is the one sent here by Americans.”
You are entirely correct, and I would suggest joining whatever Puerto Rican separatist movement that may still exist…
“In Puerto Rico, due to existing monopolies, if a composer wanted his songs performed, he had to assign the songs to an American publisher through a contract he could not understand, in English and with many legal and music business terms that even the lawyers do not understand well. Few composers undestood English here.”
It is up to the Puerto Rican composers to join together like the American composers did and fight for their rights. The Songwriters Guild got the publishers to start working from a boiler plater contract that was agreed on by negotiation in 1931… It took twenty years to bring the publishers to the table but the American songwriters did it and you can too….
“The laws do not protect songwriters, so there are no government or IRS audits of the publishers. It is that simple.”
Ther are indeed IRS audits of music publishers…
“Most audits are conducted and then the results are under a gag order because the writers get more money that way.”
Sorry, but this makes no sense. ”
No it makes perfect sense… the writer gets MORE MONEY if s/he agrees not to go public with the information they learned in their own audit… and the Writers always agree!
May 31st, 2005 at 9:50 pm
No they haven’t…
and you cannot prove that statement.
Case closed!
May 31st, 2005 at 10:16 pm
No they haven’t…
- yes they did, it was the induce act
and you cannot prove that statement.
- anyone can by looking at the information on the induce act. or the act itself. For starters take a look at the information on the EFF’s website regarding the induce act and what it could be used to do.
Case closed!
- yup it is.
May 31st, 2005 at 10:16 pm
OK here are the answers for you…
“once again a comparison of a physical theft to copyright infrigment… If I ’stole’ cd’s I’d be depriving the store owner of the cd’s. so yes it’s theft. Copyright infrigment is NOT theft.”
This is a distinction without a difference… the fact is you are depriving the store owner of a sale; the songwriter of a royalty, the artist of a royalty, the record label of a sale, the music publisher of a royalty… All of which adds up to a Federal Crime.
And that make you a criminal, though by your definition you are NOT a thief *HAHAHAHAHAHA*
Copyright is the exclusive right to COPY thus any unlicensed copying is a violation of my constitutional right to control the COPYING of my work…
“- no such thing as illegal p2p services. You want to talk illegal, how about racketeering and price setting. These are crimes, yes? Yet the cartels get away with them all the time.”
Oh Really? No such thiing as an illegal P2P network then read this…
“Elitetorrents now reads, This site has been permanently shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.The Elite Torrents network, had more than 133,000 members who collectively downloaded 2.1 million files, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Homeland Security Department.”
FBI shut ‘em down baby… cuz the were illegally swapping copyrighted files… Club Fed here they come!
“You want to talk illegal, how about racketeering and price setting. These are crimes, yes? Yet the cartels get away with them all the time.”
What does that have to do with songwriters? Of which I am one… you justify stealing billions of songs on P2P networks because the record labels were caught price fixing? Wow there’s some convoluted morality for ya’… dude, listen to yourself… you don’t honestly believe you are striking a ‘blow against the MAN’ by stealing songs from artists and songwriters do you? Didn’t your Mama ever tell ya’ two wrongs don’t make a right?
” I have never deprived an artist, songwriter, or even the cartels of their songs. Therefore I have stolen exactly none”
let me re-phrase so you can understand it… “How many copyrighted songs have you copied WITHOUT the permission of the writer and artist? Go ahead, you are anonymous here… admit your Federal crimes… How many thousands of dollars have you deprived people of who worked their entire lives to get one stupid break in the music biz only to have the money stolen from them by people like you who think you have a “right” to copy their work for free!
Geeeeeezzzz how ethically bankrupt do you have to be to steal from musicians?
It isn’t Walmart that has put over half of the songwrtiers in the country out of business in the last five years… Walmart has been around since the 70’s… Nope, it was illegal copyright infringement…
“I’m also not against artists who work for a living, you won’t find me real supportive of anyone who thinks they deserve millions for a short time of work. ”
Oh, like the guys who set up Grokster? Who are selling advertising using music they never created or licensed? How’s THAT for getting paid a lot of money for NO WORK AT ALL???
Have you got it now!?!?!
May 31st, 2005 at 10:16 pm
OK here are the answers for you…
“once again a comparison of a physical theft to copyright infrigment… If I ’stole’ cd’s I’d be depriving the store owner of the cd’s. so yes it’s theft. Copyright infrigment is NOT theft.”
This is a distinction without a difference… the fact is you are depriving the store owner of a sale; the songwriter of a royalty, the artist of a royalty, the record label of a sale, the music publisher of a royalty… All of which adds up to a Federal Crime.
And that make you a criminal, though by your definition you are NOT a thief *HAHAHAHAHAHA*
Copyright is the exclusive right to COPY thus any unlicensed copying is a violation of my constitutional right to control the COPYING of my work…
“- no such thing as illegal p2p services. You want to talk illegal, how about racketeering and price setting. These are crimes, yes? Yet the cartels get away with them all the time.”
Oh Really? No such thiing as an illegal P2P network then read this…
“Elitetorrents now reads, This site has been permanently shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.The Elite Torrents network, had more than 133,000 members who collectively downloaded 2.1 million files, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Homeland Security Department.”
FBI shut ‘em down baby… cuz the were illegally swapping copyrighted files… Club Fed here they come!
“You want to talk illegal, how about racketeering and price setting. These are crimes, yes? Yet the cartels get away with them all the time.”
What does that have to do with songwriters? Of which I am one… you justify stealing billions of songs on P2P networks because the record labels were caught price fixing? Wow there’s some convoluted morality for ya’… dude, listen to yourself… you don’t honestly believe you are striking a ‘blow against the MAN’ by stealing songs from artists and songwriters do you? Didn’t your Mama ever tell ya’ two wrongs don’t make a right?
” I have never deprived an artist, songwriter, or even the cartels of their songs. Therefore I have stolen exactly none”
let me re-phrase so you can understand it… “How many copyrighted songs have you copied WITHOUT the permission of the writer and artist? Go ahead, you are anonymous here… admit your Federal crimes… How many thousands of dollars have you deprived people of who worked their entire lives to get one stupid break in the music biz only to have the money stolen from them by people like you who think you have a “right” to copy their work for free!
Geeeeeezzzz how ethically bankrupt do you have to be to steal from musicians?
It isn’t Walmart that has put over half of the songwrtiers in the country out of business in the last five years… Walmart has been around since the 70’s… Nope, it was illegal copyright infringement…
“I’m also not against artists who work for a living, you won’t find me real supportive of anyone who thinks they deserve millions for a short time of work. ”
Oh, like the guys who set up Grokster? Who are selling advertising using music they never created or licensed? How’s THAT for getting paid a lot of money for NO WORK AT ALL???
Have you got it now!?!?!
May 31st, 2005 at 10:21 pm
Wrong again…
The Induce Act, which you OBVIOUSLY haven’t read in the original,
says NOTHING about software being submitted to the RIAA for approval…
Just admit it… you can’t quote ANYTHING, ANYWHERE that is an ORIGINAL source document that coroborates your ridiculous claim.
Face it, You’re busted dude!
May 31st, 2005 at 10:52 pm
you really should read the induce act and why it was shot down. It made it so any program that might possible be used in any manner to infringe could be sued out of existance, so yes you would need the riaa, mpaa and every other letter organizations approval before you wrote code.
June 1st, 2005 at 12:21 am
It isn’t Walmart that has put over half of the songwrtiers in the country out of business in the last five years… Walmart has been around since the 70’s… Nope, it was illegal copyright infringement…
you sure it’s not due to the cartels releasing remakes, and the same old crap (sure the words are different but how many of todays songs really differ) over and over again.
June 1st, 2005 at 12:34 am
Hey, I HATE the music today and I HATE writing it… but then people keep buying it so I HAVE to keep writing it…
The kids who complain the loudest about how crappy the music is are the very same ones downloading nearly a billion copyrighted songs every three weeks! If it’s so bad why don’t they go out and SUPPORT the good guys on the independent labels making great music instead of stealling the crappy stuff!?!?!
And let’s face it, the music has been bad ever since corporate America took over the music biz back in the 70’s but the songwriters survived anyway right up until Napster!!!! Then we started getting wiped out in record numbers… we were the biggest losers in income in the entire US economy in 2002-3… *yikes*
That was due MOSTLY to illegal downloading…
I know that when faced with the damage they have done people would rather deny responsibility than feel the shame… tha’s only human… but the facts are still the facts no matter how you spin them!
Illegal downloading is a crime and all crimes have their victims…
June 1st, 2005 at 12:43 am
I not only read the induce act I went to Washington and lobbied for it… on my OWN dime…
And let me REPEAT… SHOW ME the language in the (now defunct) bill that states that the RIAA wants all software approved by them before release… because that is what this article claims!
Let me quote the article,
“What the RIAA would really like is for the Government to make any kind of software development illegal with obtaining some kind of Government issued permit, like a ham radio license.”
Since you can’t produce ANY statement from an ORIGINAL source that corroborates this claim then the article should be retracted and an apology should be printed!
SO how about it?
How about some Truth and Fairness?
Be a Man and admit you made it up!
June 1st, 2005 at 1:00 am
The 500,000 recording figure for the song “El Cumbanchero” is published in the Rafael Hernandez museum here in San Juan.
The comment that there are not 500,000 recording artists is wrong in context. The recording of El Cumbanchero have been made spread over about 70 years, througout every country in the world, by label professionals and independent amateur artists.
“You are entirely correct, and I would suggest joining whatever Puerto Rican separatist movement that may still exist…”
Instead I think I will move to Canada. There they seem to have more respect for culture and artists. Unfortnately American copyright cartels are trying to mess up Canada too. So I will wait and see if the cartel suceeds. But the weather is better here…
“The Songwriters Guild got the publishers to start working from a boiler plater contract that was agreed on by negotiation in 1931… It took twenty years to bring the publishers to the table but the American songwriters did it and you can too….”
I dont get it. American publishers still claim that song assignments last forever. That is what Peermusic claimed during our lawsuit even though the songs were not generting any income for us beneficial owners and the American court agreed with Peermusic (we are appealing that).
Peermusic said at the trial that they had never returned a song to any songwriter. This means that they take the songs, put them on the ASCAP/BMI and Harry Fox lists and that is it, No promotion at all.
Now, Peermusic is an American publisher. It would them seem to me that American songwriters have never negotated a beneficial agreement with the publisher so that songs can be managed by the publisher only as long as the publishers do their work and the song generates a reasonable income. It is mandated by plain decency. It makes one cry to see composers that get no royalties from their songs and cannot get the songs back because stubborn publishers need big song lists so as to get a bigger piece of the pie and income if by chance the song is recorded and big sales are made, accidentaly.
“It is up to the Puerto Rican composers to join together like the American composers did and fight for their rights.”
I wonder, how come composers from Puerto Rico. American citizens, do not benefit from the agreement that the Guild has made with the publishers?
Back in the 50’s a composer society was set up. My father was one of the founders. Most important local composers became members. What hapenned? Peermusic (a publisher) created a competing organization. Most important composers were under Peermusic contract based on time period contracts, where the composer promised to to give their future song production to the publisher. So the songwriters joined the Peermusic created composer association and guess what? The local organization was destroyed and the new composer organization disappeared. It is beyond me why a composer would join a “union” created by the company, the publisher.
“No it makes perfect sense… the writer gets MORE MONEY if s/he agrees not to go public with the information they learned in their own audit… and the Writers always agree! ”
Oh, you are talking about lawsuit related audits. But that audit is useless to songwriters that are not part of the lawsuit.
“Ther are indeed IRS audits of music publishers…” Do you know any composer or beneficial song owner (like me) who has ever seen an audit with the figure “percent of royalties paid to royaltiy incomes” ? I beleive that there is no such a figure published for any publisher and if they were they would not show anything like the 50 percent royalties songwrites are told they will get.
My basic point is: The accounting is dishonest. There is no single organization that has an oversight function over royalty payments. Every once in a while I get get information about the sale of specific records, only to lear that the composers of the songs got only a small fraction of the royalties.
As to the music we own that is included in about 75 records, 15 or more by Sony (millios of copies sold, without a license, we sued them in 2001, no judicial action yet), no one has paid a single cents, which only shows that American copyright laws protects the record companies but is ignored by the same record companies.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
June 1st, 2005 at 3:23 am
OK… assuming that the song has been recorded for 70 years 7 days a week 365 days a year it would have to have been recorded 19 1/2 times a day every day for 70 years to get to 500,000 recordings…
wow… I know the guy who wrote ‘Silver Bells’ and it has been recorded all over the world hundreds of times but it isn’t even CLOSE to as popular as your Dad’s song… (according to your figures)
Moving to Canada isn’t nearly as easy as you might think… (sadly, or I would be there tomorrow! I tried and was rejected during the seventies because I was too poor)
Songs after 1976 revert to the composer after 35 yeasr no matter WHAT the song assignments say. Songs before 1976 had to be terminated after the first 28 years but often the composers sold the right to termination to the publisher (as I am sure you know)
Or lost their paperwork and let the termination date slip by.
Once you sign the song to a publisher they will never let it go until they have to, no matter whether they are pitching the song or not. This is usually because they advanced money to the composer and it is often the only guarantee they will recoup their investment…
You can often buy back the rights to old unrecorded songs by paying back the advances, but this varies with each publisher. I don’t know Peer Music’s policy about this, but they are within their rights to hold the song for as long as the assignments are in force.
Your father’s struggle to help set up a composer’s society mirrors what happened in the US the first two times the songwriters tried to organize, only during the Depression in 1931 did they finally succeed… Songwriters are so often their own worst enemies… never organizing and signing bad contracts!
you said.” Do you know any composer or beneficial song owner (like me) who has ever seen an audit with the figure “percent of royalties paid to royaltiy incomes” ? I beleive that there is no such a figure published for any publisher and if they were they would not show anything like the 50 percent royalties songwrites are told they will get.
Actually I do know of audits that looked directly at source documentation of the royalties… but these audits were conducted on Songwriters Guild contracts which have excellent auditing provisions. These contracts are usually on songs that are Standards and were signed with publishers in their Second term once they were already hits… (the compsers then had the leverage to get the best contract available)
“There is no single organization that has an oversight function over royalty payments. ”
This is because Songwriters are considered ’self employed’ and their is no Governmental regulatory agency that oversees royalty payments… we are supposed to negotiate contracts that allow us to audit on our own. That requires good lawyers and some leverage in the market place. (a few hits under your belt)
Discussion about a ‘best practices’ standard for reporting royalties to songwriters from music publishers are currently under way and things may change in the near future (hopefully)
“As to the music we own that is included in about 75 records, 15 or more by Sony (millios of copies sold, without a license, we sued them in 2001, no judicial action yet), no one has paid a single cents, which only shows that American copyright laws protects the record companies but is ignored by the same record companies.”
If you have sufficient documentation of your ownership of these copyrights and Sony (or anyone else) has released recordings without a license then you should and will prevail in court.
If the songs are still owned by Peer Muisc they will probably enter the lawsuit with you since they stand to make half of the money…
I hope you are able to prevail in your struggles to secure the earnings from your father’s songs… but supporting P2P services that contribute to massive copyright theft seems an odd way to go about it! How will encouraging people to TAKE the music help you get what is due to you?
June 1st, 2005 at 3:15 pm
“as popular as your Dad’s song… (according to your figures)”
The song I was talking about, “El Cumbanchero” was not composed by my father. The composer was Rafael Hernandez, a black composer from Puerto Rico who is today considered, along with Mexico’s Agustin Lara (of “Granada” fame) the most successful Latin American composer of popular music. A very good friend of my father.
“Moving to Canada isn’t nearly as easy as you might think… (sadly, or I would be there tomorrow! I tried and was rejected during the seventies because I was too poor)”
You see, you are an American composer and because of that you are too poor to leave the US. I have the same problem. Since no one pays us royalties after using my father’s songs I am too poor too!
“Songs after 1976 revert to the composer after 35 years no matter WHAT the song assignments say. ”
The problem is that my father never assigned any songs to Peermusic after 1976. He MAY have legally assigned two songs to Peermusic, but the assignments contracts had a clause that stated that Peermusic retained the renewal rights (for no compensation). While I think that this was illegal, the judge said otherwise (we have appealed this point). Neither of the two songs have ever generated any royalties and no licenses have ever been issued by Peermusic for a recording new recording. For one of the songs Peermusic has no score or recording and no one, including us, know how it sounds. All Peermusic has is a song name and an 1947 assignment contract. The song has never been copyrighted by anyone, or registered with any performance society or Harry Fox. This all goes to show how some publishers operate. Because the song has never been copyright registered the song now has an automatic copyright to 70 years after the death of my father, that is until 2063 which means that Peer has the ownership and copyright for 116 years and in that time the song could not have earned a cent because Peermusic threw away the music.
Just as the one song described above, each of the other 20 other songs claimed by Peermusic has problems: Royalties never paid, no recording ever made, many have no scores and no one knows how the song sounds, one was stolen from another composer, and 14 are named in the “without the author suspecting letter”. The judge said that all of these belong to Peermusic. That is being appealed.
“Songs before 1976 had to be terminated after the first 28 years but often the composers sold the right to termination to the publisher (as I am sure you know) Or lost their paperwork and let the termination date slip by.”
According to the contracts of Peermusic, the renewal rights which accrued at 28 years were given, not sold to Peermusic.
“Once you sign the song to a publisher they will never let it go until they have to, no matter whether they are pitching the song or not. This is usually because they advanced money to the composer and it is often the only guarantee they will recoup their investment…”
I would not call the advance payment that publishers maker as an investment. It is more akin to a loan, a trap, using monet made by the songwriters themselves.
“You can often buy back the rights to old unrecorded songs by paying back the advances, but this varies with each publisher. I don’t know Peer Music’s policy about this, but they are within their rights to hold the song for as long as the assignments are in force.”
I would not say that they are within their rights if the assignment contract is misleading, gives only rights to the publisher and guarantees nothing to the songwriter, as is always the case, at least in the many actually signed songwriter contracts I have seen, all f which were preceded with a “we will make your song a hit” sales pitch.
BTW, my father returned the advance payments to Peermusic in 1964 by Peermusic claimed the songs after that, until today.
Your father’s struggle to help set up a composer’s society mirrors what happened in the US the first two times the songwriters tried to organize, only during the Depression in 1931 did they finally succeed… Songwriters are so often their own worst enemies… never organizing and signing bad contracts!
Yes, the worst enemies of the slaves were the slaves themselves and the worst enemies of the exterminated Jewish people were themselves, because they never revolted. I do not agree with your logic of blaming the victims. For eaxmple, for slavery it may be better to blame Washington (wo had many slaves) and the jusrists of the sacred Supreme Court (who said that the constitutional rights wer not available to blacks because they were no humans), rather than blaming the slaves themselves.
“Actually I do know of audits that looked directly at source documentation of the royalties… but these audits were conducted on Songwriters Guild contracts which have excellent auditing provisions.”
Yes, but that is not what is needed, What is needed is a published audit made by a law mandated organization that will look after the interests of all the creators. Until then, the Copyright Act is only for the benefit of the copyright hogging cartels that have organized themselves to lobby for their interests. Again, there is no single organization that has an oversight function over royalty payments.
“This is because Songwriters are considered ’self employed’ and their is no Governmental regulatory agency that oversees royalty payments… we are supposed to negotiate contracts that allow us to audit on our own. That requires good lawyers and some leverage in the market place. (a few hits under your belt)”
Songwriters are not independently and de-facto self employed because they depend almost totally on the collaboration of others, be it publishers, record companies, performers, ASCAP, etc. Self employed is a programmer that only depends on his customers. If the programmer is a “self employed programmer” employed by a software company under contract, he is really an employee regardless of the legalities and denials. He just does not get the fringe benefits and is easier to let go. Anyway how can a songwriter be self employ if his earning are less than his songwriting related expenditures and must therefore need a regular job as a musician or postal clerk.
BTW, our most successful songwriter (Tite Curet Alonso, the called “the father of salsa”) in the past 20 years, who assigned his songs to Peermusic died broke last year, even though over 1,000 of his songs have been recorded. He was a career and retired postal worker. That is how he made a living. From his music he got little or nothing.
“Discussion about a ‘best practices’ standard for reporting royalties to songwriters from music publishers are currently under way and things may change in the near future (hopefully)”
Good news. Would like to know who is working on this. I hope it is no the publishers or the publisher association. You cannot have rabbits guarding the carrot patch.
If you have sufficient documentation of your ownership of these copyrights and Sony (or anyone else) has released recordings without a license then you should and will prevail in court.
We have all the proof, the copyright registrations. Sony has admitted the infringement and is depositing royalties in the court, but their lawyers have a magic spell over the case and the case is stuck in court since 2001 with no action being taken. We have a saying: Slow justice is no justice.
“If the songs are still owned by Peer Muisc they will probably enter the lawsuit with you since they stand to make half of the money…”
Peer has nothing to do with the songs infringed by Sony.
“but supporting P2P services that contribute to massive copyright theft seems an odd way to go about it!”
There are several reasons for this:
a. Technically there is no way to stop the copying of digital files. If you shut down all p2p activities the activity of copying files will simply switch to another method.
b. Copying music files is nothing new. As soon as magnetic tape recorder became popular in the 1950s, their main use was copying vinyl records and copying music from radio. Everyone who could afford a tape deck did it.
c. We must learn from the prohibition laws. Alcohol was made illegal and it went underground, to be controlled by the criminals (like marijuana now). Do we want that for with music? Strangely when alcohol was made legal again, publicity and promotion was not prohibited. The obvious was overlooked. The advertising and alcohol lobby made sure of that.
d. The solution for the creators is to get their rights back and the elimination as much as possible of the middleman that distributes the music and that is no longer required.
e. Only the sale of unlicensed copies of digital copies should be prohibited. That will leave the sale market for the creators.
f. Criminilizing youth is simply bad social policy and suing the potential customer is bad business policy and publicity. Why, it could even provoke a revolution whereby the electoral system or lobbying is eliminated and all copyrights are eliminated. While I think the Copyright Act is worthless, it must be replaced by a new one that works to protect the creators and the people. Forget about publishers.
BTW, does anyone know of a case where a kid that stole a llolypop from the candy store was sued for damages “up to 150,000 dollars?
g. And yes, the legal system. In our web page I show how a judge made over 200 errors in just one single case, so as to favor two music publishers. I hate to see anyone, a kid or a kids parent, get sued for downloading and then be thrown to a court system to get an undeserved trashing from a politically appointed federal judge who is a fried of many, if not most lawyers that practices in his/her court. Not everyone can afford the more friendly lawyers.
I once, while on jury duty, was a witness to a court case where a kid, a second year college student was accused of possessing marijuana. The marijuana was found in the pocket of his jacket, that was hanging in the wall of an apartment that he was visiting for a party. Apparently the party was too noisy, the neigbors called the Police (famous for its corruption) who raided the party. The kid was found guilty and sentenced to five years in jail by a people of heavy drinkers of alcohol (we are the rum capital of the world). When I think of p2p I always recall this case how the legal system works to criminilize youth.
f. Sales of recordings and live performances may actually increase as more p2p downloading is done. Those songwriters that permit their music to be downloaded will benefit the most. Admittedly this is my theory and I could be wrong, but I doubt it. I am playing the card on the side of p2p. As a habit, I do not gamble.
The massive copyright theft is really done by the law, the legal system and the cartels, not the kids who download or copy digital files.
I cannot undesrand how you as a composer be so friedly to, and pro, copyright cartels. The cartel is probably shafting you or your friend too.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
.
How will encouraging people to TAKE the music help you get what is due to you?
June 1st, 2005 at 5:04 pm
well put Rafael.
June 2nd, 2005 at 1:26 am
On thing I still don’t understand Raphael is why you are suing your father’s widow to take away her part of his copyrights if you think that copyright is worthless?
As to your comments on P2P let me address a few of them quickly…
“d. The solution for the creators is to get their rights back and the elimination as much as possible of the middleman that distributes the music and that is no longer required.”
Why bother getting rights back, if as you say, you can’t stop people from stealing the songs wholesale and distribtuing them on P2P networks for free global distribution?
“e. Only the sale of unlicensed copies of digital copies should be prohibited. That will leave the sale market for the creators.”
What about setting up a P2P network that sells advertising by drawing traffic to their site with the lure of free unlicensed digital copies of Copyrighted material… exactly like Grokster is doing? Leaving creators with NO market for their songs because they can’t compete with stolen merchandise.
“f. Criminilizing youth is simply bad social policy and suing the potential customer is bad business policy and publicity. ”
Using Youth as Human Shields against lawsuits is EXACTLY what Grokster is doing! They argued in front of the 9th Circuit that the Record labels can’t sue THEM and must sue their users instead!
Because of the decision in that case the RIAA had no choice but to sue the ‘Youth’ instead of the business that was cashing in on them…
“f. Sales of recordings and live performances may actually increase as more p2p downloading is done.”
Tell that to the all the major record chains that have gone out of business or are in the process of going bankrupt. The numbers don’t lie, sales have plummeted as illegal downloading has surged…
Concert ticket sales are also down…
“The massive copyright theft is really done by the law, the legal system and the cartels, not the kids who download or copy digital files.”
Just because some publishers may be stealing pennies but your soultion is to have people steal the whole damned song! That’s just ridiculous. Copyright law is the foundation of creativity. Without remuneration there is no creation. We had a thousand of years without protection for creators, It was called “The Dark Ages”
“I cannot undesrand how you as a composer be so friendly to, and pro, copyright cartels. The cartel is probably shafting you or your friend too”
I simply understand the fact that illegal file sharing on P2P networks is no friend to creators. How can stealing the music outright be better than the system we have now (with all its flaws)
which compensates the creators. I can tell you that after twenty seven years as a professional songwriter I have been paid basically what was owed me by my many publishers… But I have carefully and personally negotiated my contracts, and turned down offers that weren’t fair. I have fought for my rights (and all songwriters rights) on all occasions and in all ways. I’ve kept very good records and charted all sales and compared my statements to the sales figures, I have refused to sign contracts without strong auditing provisions. This is the basis of doing good business and the same thing you must do in ANY business or you will get SHAFTED.. No matter what work you do. That’s just life.
Two wrongs don’t make a right and stealing the music doesn’t right any wrongs done to songwriters and artists and musicians and eventually everybody will suffer as the music gets worse and worse and worse because it is being written and recorded by amateurs instead of professionals.
June 2nd, 2005 at 6:42 am
The real reason for the copyright term extension in Sonny Bono’s bill is: (you may wish to sit down for this…) None other than:
M I C K E Y
M O U S E!!!
That’s right. The copyright was about to expire on Mickey Mouse and Michael Eisner was having just the most hysterical hissy fit about it. Having Mickey go ‘public domain’ would mean that Disney would no long be able absolutely control the use of Mickey’s name, image, etc and we know how those corporate types just can’t stand not having all of that control.
But perhaps this is not a bad thing. Perhaps by the next day of reckoning for Mickey’s copyright, medical science will have advanced far enough where they can go ahead and thaw Walt outl, treat his cancer, and he can start another empire.
June 2nd, 2005 at 8:34 am
Geeezzz everybody in the whole world knows that….
What you DON’T know was that buried in that same bill was an evil piece of business that deprived US songwriters of earning money when their songs are played in most restaurants (formerly a good source of revenue)
Then the Irish writers sued the US in the Wolrd Court for NOT paying their writers when their songs are played in restaurants (which violate international treaties) and the Irish WON and the court levied fines on the US that ALL taxpayers are having to pay… that’s right YOU are having to pay taxes for restaurants to play music in the US and US songwriters aren’t getting a dime because of the copyright extention bill…
So don’t think that Copyright extention was a windfall for creators… it was a kick in the teeth for songwriters.
Then we had to go to the Supreme court to fight to keep the damned 20 year extention since it was supposed to ‘balance’ the money we had taken from us by the restaurant association…
Now we have to listen to the Anti-Copyright crusaders get up on their high-horse about how the creators are trying to extend copyright indefinitely!!! Hell, we didn’t want the extention in the first place, we would have rather had the restaurant money that was taken from us in the same bill…. but once Disney waded in it was a done deal…
So don’t start raggin’ on me about ‘limiting’ the term of copyright… instead, start writing your congressman to overturn that wretched restaurant bill and then we can all stop paying the fines and US songwriters can get paid again.
June 2nd, 2005 at 1:40 pm
Are you talking about ‘performed live’ or some form of recorded music such as a jukebox, CD player, or radio? If it’s on a jukebox, the royalties are being paid. If it’s on the radio, they are covered by the radio rights/licensing, etc.
Exactly what kind of Irish Songs are at issue here? I live in Boston, which has to be the capital of Irish folk music in the US, from the Gin Mills on the waterfront in Southie to the pub, taverns, taprooms, bars, dives, holes, etc strung from one end of Dot Ave to the other. Most of the live acts in these places have in their repetoire a collection of Folk Standards (Danny Boy, When Irish eyes are smiling, Tura-loora-loora, and Hey! That’s my beer!) Sorry, that last one is just something said quite often. And of course, since it’s Boston “Charlie and the MTA.” In addition they have some more contemporary pieces, and with some performers, some of it rather political. Or are we talking U2, Sinead O’Connor, etc?
There comes a point in time when it is just almost absurd when copyright is still a lingering issue in regards to songs that are ‘performed’ so often as to have become a ritual.
Has anyone ever noticed how rarely you ever hear the song “Happy Birthday” appear on TV or in the movies, even when a scene centers around a child’s birthday party? Or in a ‘family’ restaurant where there is a specific ‘procedure’ for birthdays whereby the staff gathers round the table of the birthday person to subject them to the traditional public embarrassment of birthdaydom. They NEVER sing Happy Birthday. It’s always something else. That’s because, even some 130 years after the song was first performed, it’s still under copyright, and I believe that Warner owns the copyright. It was not actually copyrighted until 40 years after it was created though. In patent law that would be laughably absurb. So if someone wants to use it, they have to get cleanance and pay royalties.
There needs to be a balance struck between the two ends of these whereby something SO commonplace enters the public domain simply because it no longer has commercial value because it’s hardly a novelty and others who might pay to use it shun it simply because of the hassle and those who perform transborder freeloading of contemporary works.
June 2nd, 2005 at 2:06 pm
Okay, Foghorn Leghorn, let’s stop spewing the RIAA spin and engaging in redefining the vocabulary. The word is “infringement.” The words “theft, “larceny”, “stealing”, “pilfering”, “swiping”, etc appear nowhere in Title 17 of the USC or in the DCMA. These words are indicative of the high temperature rhetoric and hysterical hyperbole that have been injected into the discussion by the highly paid lobbyists for the intellectual property industries called the RIAA, the MPAA, and the BSA.
Behaving contrary to what a law states is not always a ‘crime’. Copyright infringement is principally a matter handled in civil, not criminal courts, unless it crosses the line by virtue of being an organized enterprise and then it’s usually prosecuted under RICO and conspiracy to commit fraud statutes.
Depriving someone of some potential future income that it’s not at all certain they would even receive is not ’stealing’ from them like mugging them as they leave the ATM.
The RIAA, MPAA, and BSA all seem to think: One infringed work equals one lost sale at full retail price equals a ‘loss’ for the industry. You can not ‘lose’ something you don’t have in the first place.
Copying a song is not a ‘crime’. It may be infringement if how that copy is put to use does not constitute fair use. Mere copying alone does not infringement make.
June 2nd, 2005 at 4:53 pm
“Okay, Foghorn Leghorn, let’s stop spewing the RIAA spin ”
HAHAHAHA…. such a clever Ad Hominem attack! Too bad you can’t use logic instead…. Your personal insults don’t strenghten you position, they simply bespeak the bankruptcy of your thought process and your lack of education and culture.(except for cartoon culture… Foghorn Leghorn is a hero of mine)
“The word is “infringement.”
Yes it is, and it is a Federal crime… punishable by jail time… you can dance around it all you like but break that law and you can go to jail…
“These words are indicative of the high temperature rhetoric and hysterical hyperbole that have been injected into the discussion by the highly paid lobbyists for the intellectual property industries called the RIAA, the MPAA, and the BSA.”
If you want to see a perfcect example of hysterical hyperbole look no farther than the above article where this infinitely hyperbolic statement was made… “What the RIAA would really like is for the Government to make any kind of software development illegal with obtaining some kind of Government issued permit, like a ham radio license.” And when I aasked for an original source for that statement none was offered so I asked for a retraction and once again, none was offered! So much for who is hysterical here.
“Mere copying alone does not infringement make.”
Of course not and I never claimed it was… (what ARE you reading!?!?!) I said that downloading a copy of a copyrighted song without permission of the composer is a crime and distributing a copy worldwide on a P2P network without a license is a crime…
That’s not me talking that is the LAW….
“the highly paid lobbyists for the intellectual property industries called the RIAA, the MPAA, and the BSA.”
Dude… have you ever looked at the salaries of the P2P United people? Have you ever seen the lobbying efforts of the tech community in Washington? Have you ever seen the MASSIVE press campaigns waged by multi-billionaires like Mark Cuban against copyright? Dollar for Dollar the RIAA and their ilk are massivley out-gunned on capitol hill. The fact that you think they aren’t merely indicates that you have been swayed by their press releases and Web Blogs… even MORE proof of my point… Just stop for a moment and consider ALL of the enemies of copyright… you have all the equpitment manufactures represented by the Consumer electronics Association. You have the ISP represented by the telecoms, YOu have the broadcasters who want the content for free, you even have the library association! I mena Geeeeeezzzz you think the Record labels have more influence than these guys!!! Wow… would that it were so! Remember that every congressional district in the country has broadcasters and usually some tech industry, but the record labels really only have three congressional districts they could conceiveably depend on (and even those are contested….)
In fact, your entire lack of REAL understanding of copyright issues is proof that the tech people are better funded and better organized than the music community. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so wrong on all the issues… UNLESS you were simply dissembling for your OWN greedy purposes… But I would NEVER assume that about you. (As you have about me) I just think you have been swayed by propaganda, and once you hear the truth it will set you free!
After all, you have enjoyed the fruits of creative labor, you have watched the wonderful Warner Brothers cartoons and even learned the name of one of the BEST characters!
June 2nd, 2005 at 5:17 pm
“Are you talking about ‘performed live’ or some form of recorded music such as a jukebox, CD player, or radio? If it’s on a jukebox, the royalties are being paid. If it’s on the radio, they are covered by the radio rights/licensing, etc.”
So glad you asked! At least somebody on this board wants to engage in a REAL discussion of the issues! (instead of attack me personally *LOL*)
The truth is that we USED to get paid when music was played over the radio in restaurants but that right was taken away from us by the Copyright Extension bill… (at least for the vast majority of restaurants)
In regards to what Irish songs it covers EVERY Irsih song still under copyright and being played in US restaurants… Including the famous “Hey! That’s my beer” which alone generates Billions every year…*grin*
The issue with Happy Birthday is just that, an issue. And yes it does seem crazy that it is STILL under copyright, but it is simply an exceptional case and nobody is forced to use it in a film (as you notice) so it’s hardly a cause to overturn copyright protection!
The original intent of the framers of the copyright law in the 2oth century (1909) was to grant copyright to the composers and their heirs up to the age of majority of their grandchildren… But at that time average life expectancy was 50 years so Irving Berlin’s songs were falling into public domain while he was still alive! (becasue he lived past 100) That’s originally how the copyright got extented. This latest time it was more about Disney and the restaurant association wanting the music for nothing.
So now if they take back the twenty year extention the writers will get screwed again! Because we got nothing else in return for losing our restaurant money….
You are absolutely correct that a ‘balance’ needs to be struck but that balance is a political process in this country and the political process is much like making sausage… you don’t REALLY want to know what went into the making of the thing!
June 2nd, 2005 at 7:05 pm
“On thing I still don’t understand Raphael is why you are suing your father’s widow to take away her part of his copyrights if you think that copyright is worthless?”
The question is based on a false premise and characterization. I do not claim that copyrights are worthless. I do think that they should benefit the creators, not the copyright hogs (the cartel) that hijack the copyrights.
The widow was the estate executor and as such assigned all the music rights to us children of the composer. Shortly thereafter she was “convinced” by publisher ACEMLA that she was, as widow, the owner of the rights. She then agreed to assign the rights to all the songs to ACEMLA and married an ACEMLA executive. ACEMLA then went into action to do business with our songs. We complained about to ACEMLA it and were immediately sued by the widow so as to protect ACEMLA’s non existent rights, alleging tortuous interference and that she owned all the music because it was community property.
We suspect that that lawsuit from the widow really came from ACEMLA and not the widow. Of course on a paper you can write any name you want.
The widow was my father’s 5th, wife but strangely she claimed ownership of all the the songs, including the many (majority) he composed before he married her. She based her claim to ownership in community property law. She lost the lawsuit. The court stated that the music was not community property and that anyway she had assigned already the rights to the Venegas siblings.
ACEMLA decided to ignore the decision of the court and continued to claim ownership and continued to license the songs. In the process they received royalty payments from their licensees or 100,000 dollars (confirmed through discovery documents). I suspect the actual amount is over 400,000 dollars since royalties from a confirmed 5 million copy seller CD produced by Sony was paid to ACEMLA.
We then sued ACEMLA and the widow for copyright infringement, since ACEMLA, under authority of the widow was illegally exploiting the songs of my father.
The story about our trying to take the widows rights is propagated by ACEMLA and is pure nonsense. The ownership is ours as decided by the courts (state and federal). The federal court here decided that the widow has a 20 percent ownership on 8 renewal period songs. We believe that that ownership was decided in our favor in local courts and that the federal judge is wrong and we have appealed. If the appeals fails she will own and estimated 1/5 of one percent of all the rights, but anyway, she and ACEMLA will have to compensate us for the songs that may have been lost because she gave the song (unknown to us at this time) material to ACEMLA.
“Why bother getting rights back, if as you say, you can’t stop people from stealing the songs wholesale and distributing them on P2P networks for free global distribution?”
We are not bothering to get our rights back because they have always been ours, after our father passed away. There are a few songs (about 20) where Peermusic claims they own the rights. If that were so we would then be the beneficial owners. Were claim (not want) 100 percent of those rights because they are ours. Additionally we do not want the name Peermusic associated with our music. Peermusic is publisher that does not publish and does not promote the songs and does not pay any royalties. In 1997 Peermusic recognized us as owners of those songs and asked new assignments from us, when they could not or want to show how the songs were acquired. Now we know that the songs were acquired in a less than honest way (remember the “without the author” suspecting letter?).
Maybe the question should be: Why if Peermusic never earned any money with 20 or so Venegas songs they want to own them? Why have they spent a million dollars in legal fees if as they says the songs they now claim to own were no liked and that is why they only earned less than 1,000 dollars in royalties (not necessarily any of that was ever paid to anyone, to my knowledge)?. Why do they want songs that they have never gotten anyone to recorded it in the 50 or so years they say they owned the songs?
The answer is simple: Peermusic badly want to win the case to save their reputation, since, if we prevail they may be ruined as a publisher. They now have to worry that they have become an intrinsic part of the history of Guillermo Venegas. Peermusic, i think, wants to rewrite the history or that history not be written. But the problem now is that that history will say everything about the music publishing business. Remember, Peermusic is the biggest publisher, they claim. A big blemish will ruin their reputation and that is not my concern as is not our purpose. We are just defending our rights.
If you have visited our site you should know that Peermusic claimed that we had no right to information so as to explain away why they never showed us the proof as to how they obtained the songs of my father before 1997 (when they asked that we assign them the rights to the songs). To me a publisher that says that the beneficial owners of the songs that they are supposed to manage for the benefit of the beneficial owner, have no right to information should not be allowed to be in the business, let alone be the legal owners of the songs we own as beneficial owners.
BTW, one thing I have found is that publishers never tell a songwriter that they are beneficial owners, as recognized by the Copyright Act or that beneficial owners can sue infringers as is also authorized by the Copyright Act. Why, the prestigious Peermusic lawyer said he never hear of the concept of beneficial owners.
I have mentioned the term “beneficial owner” and it’s concept to many composers. None had ever heard of the term.
I hope you get the picture.
“What about setting up a P2P network that sells advertising by drawing traffic to their site with the lure of free unlicensed digital copies of Copyrighted material… exactly like Grokster is doing? Leaving creators with NO market for their songs because they can’t compete with stolen merchandise.”
The p2p networks with advertising were set up because the lawmakers, as always, are behind the times and did not legislate for the new technology. As a solution I proposer that p2p sites be financed with either subscription or with public funds and that the money then be distributed among performers, orchestra directors, arrangers, songwriters and record producers (but not through record producers or publishers). Some of the money may be set aside for an artist retirement fund. This way the middlemen are eliminated, music will be less expensive and the money saves in distribution costs can be spent spent on other things, such as concerts, education, etc. and that will create new jobs and opportunities, including for musicians.
Maybe there are other alternate methods to use p2p to help the creators, but covering our eyes will not make p2p go away.
“Using Youth as Human Shields against lawsuits is EXACTLY what Grokster is doing! They argued in front of the 9th Circuit that the Record labels can’t sue THEM and must sue their users instead! Because of the decision in that case the RIAA had no choice but to sue the ‘Youth’ instead of the business that was cashing in on them…”
If Grokster said “must sue users” and the RIAA took their advise, they should both burn in hell.
“Tell that to the all the major record chains that have gone out of business or are in the process of going bankrupt. The numbers don’t lie, sales have plummeted as illegal downloading has surged…
Concert ticket sales are also down…”
Many industries have disappeared as new technologies emerged. If that happens to the record manufacturing industry so it be. Pretty soon we will be seeing DVDs with a capacity to store 15,000 mp3 songs. Potentially this new product could create havoc to record makers. Is the solution the prohibition of this new technology and of mp3 to protect some.
That sales have plummeted, I say again “show the numbers”. If they do drop as they may in the obsolete future of physical distribution at high prices, then let it be so.
“Just because some publishers may be stealing pennies but your solution is to have people steal the whole damned song! That’s just ridiculous. Copyright law is the foundation of creativity. Without remuneration there is no creation. We had a thousand of years without protection for creators, It was called “The Dark Ages”"
First let us get our history straight. Before and after “The Dark Ages”, a phenomena in a few European countries, there were periods of great European artistic achievement in the Mediterranean basin. Take for example, the Renaissance. Nothing of this had to do with laws that protected the rights of creators. It had mostly to do with the infighting and support or lack of support for art of the oligarchies that “owned” the various countries and duchy.
“I simply understand the fact that illegal file sharing on P2P networks is no friend to creators. How can stealing the music outright be better than the system we have now (with all its flaws)
which compensates the creators. I can tell you that after twenty seven years as a professional songwriter I have been paid basically what was owed me by my many publishers… But I have carefully and personally negotiated my contracts, and turned down offers that weren’t fair. I have fought for my rights (and all songwriters rights) on all occasions and in all ways. I’ve kept very good records and charted all sales and compared my statements to the sales figures, I have refused to sign contracts without strong auditing provisions. This is the basis of doing good business and the same thing you must do in ANY business or you will get SHAFTED.. No matter what work you do. That’s just life.”
Good for you. I only wish I could say the same for any of the many composers I have met, including some internationally famous ones. The concept that creativity, the good kind, is somehow a product of what the creator earns in a foolish concept. The desire to create comes from within and is the result of instinct. Einstein did not work for money. Neither Mozart nor Beethoven. Neither did my father.
Bill Gates became wealthy because he purchase an operating system from its creator for peanuts. The creator of that operating system never made any other successful program or enterprise, at leas one that has survived to this day. A good example of how the multi billion dollar industry that arose out of his labor did not help its creator to make new successful creations at all.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right and stealing the music doesn’t right any wrongs done to songwriters and artists and musicians and eventually everybody will suffer as the music gets worse and worse and worse…”
The problem with the word “stealing” is that if everybody that copies a digital files and photocopies a magazine article or saves a news story to his hard disk is stealing, then everyone steals and stealing is like cholesterol, there is a good kind and there is a bad kind. Then i am a thief too, the good kind. So we have two choices, have two kinds of stealing or change the laws so that copying digital files and making photocopies are legal (if the copies are not sold).
“because it is being written and recorded by amateurs instead of professionals.”
At a music industry convention of about 5 years ago, on the subject of the lack of growth, a music industry consultant (I forget his name) told the audience that the problem with their industry was that industry was pushing mostly terrible music. He said that 95 percent of the music on radio was bad. I agree with, although it has gotten worse in the last five years. I for example have stopped listening popular music on radio stations. I also know that good music is also being composed and recorded. But the pipeline is controlled by the copyright cartel and is closed to the best records and music.
I disagree with you concept that there are “amateur” or “professional” creators. Just like there is good and bad music, there are bad and good creators. Money has nothing to do with the creation process. As said before, creation comes from within and from instinct. I think music creators should be paid for their work but I do not think that that will make the creator produce more good work than he/she will produce from an inner drive anyway. Of course with money, he/she may afford to publish more works, but while that is not a creation process, it is a good thing. Of course though digital file copying or p2p you can publish without money. That is why publishers are scared. That is why p2p is good for culture and artist recognition and for many artists, recognition is the driving force.
Don’t get me wrong. You have some valid personal concerns but the solution is for creators like you, artists, and the people to take over and discard the polluters, the cartel. You should read the ‘Wake up America !’ article on p2p.
BTW, one thing I have found is that publishers never tell a songwriter that they are beneficial owners, as recognized by the Copyright Act or that beneficial owners can sue infringers as is also authorized by the Copyright Act. Why, the prestigious Peermusic lawyer said he never hear of the concept of beneficial owners.
I have mentioned the term “beneficial owner” and it’s concept to many composers. Nne had ever heard of the term.
I hope you get the picture.
“What about setting up a P2P network that sells advertising by drawing traffic to their site with the lure of free unlicensed digital copies of Copyrighted material… exactly like Grokster is doing? Leaving creators with NO market for their songs because they can’t compete with stolen merchandise.”
The p2p networks with advertising were set up because the lawmakers, as always, are beind the times and did not legislate for the new technology. As a solution I ropose that p2p sites be financed with either subscription or with public funds and that the money then be distributed among performers, orchestra directors, arrangers, songwriters and reord producers (but not through record producers or publishers). Some of the money may be set aside for an artist retiremeent fund. This way the middlemen are eliminated, music will be less expensive and the money saves in distribution costs can be spent spent on other things, such as concerts, education, etc. and that will create new jobs and oppotunities, including for musicians.
Maybe there are other alternate methos to use p2p to help the creators, but covering our eyes will not make p2p go away.
“Using Youth as Human Shields against lawsuits is EXACTLY what Grokster is doing! They argued in front of the 9th Circuit that the Record labels can’t sue THEM and must sue their users instead!
Because of the decision in that case the RIAA had no choice but to sue the ‘Youth’ instead of the business that was cashing in on them…”
If Grokster said “must sue users” and the RIIA took their advise, they should both burn in hell.
“Tell that to the all the major record chains that have gone out of business or are in the process of going bankrupt. The numbers don’t lie, sales have plummeted as illegal downloading has surged…
Concert ticket sales are also down…”
Many industries have dissapeared as new technologies emerged. If that happens to the record manufacturing industry so it be. Pretty soon we will be seeing DVDs with a capacity to store 15,000 mp3 songs. Potentially this new product could create havoc to record makers. Is the solution the prohibition of this new technology and of mp3 to protect some.
That sales have plummetted, I say again “show the numbers”. If they do drop as they may in the obsolete future of physical distribution at high prices, then let it be so.
“Just because some publishers may be stealing pennies but your soultion is to have people steal the whole damned song! That’s just ridiculous. Copyright law is the foundation of creativity. Without remuneration there is no creation. We had a thousand of years without protection for creators, It was called “The Dark Ages”"
First let us get our history staigh. Before and after “The Dark Ages”, a phenomena in a few Europena countries, there were periods of great European artistic achivement in the Mediterranean basin. Take for example, the reinessance. Nothing of this had to do with laws that protected the rights of creators. It had mostly to do with the infigting and support or lack of support for art of the oligarchies that “owned” the various countries and duchys.
“I simply understand the fact that illegal file sharing on P2P networks is no friend to creators. How can stealing the music outright be better than the system we have now (with all its flaws)
which compensates the creators. I can tell you that after twenty seven years as a professional songwriter I have been paid basically what was owed me by my many publishers… But I have carefully and personally negotiated my contracts, and turned down offers that weren’t fair. I have fought for my rights (and all songwriters rights) on all occasions and in all ways. I’ve kept very good records and charted all sales and compared my statements to the sales figures, I have refused to sign contracts without strong auditing provisions. This is the basis of doing good business and the same thing you must do in ANY business or you will get SHAFTED.. No matter what work you do. That’s just life.”
Good for you. I only wish I could say the same for any of the many composers I have met, including some internationally famous ones. The concept that creativity, the good kind, is somehow a product of what the creator earns in a foolish concept. The desire to create comes from within and is the result of instinct. Eisntein did not work for money. Neither Mozard nor Beethoven. Neither did my father.
Bill Gates became weathy because he purchase an operating system from its creator for peanuts. The creator of that operating system never made any other sucessful program or enterprise, at leas one that has survived to this day. A good example of how the multi billion dollar industry that arose out of his labor did not help its creator to make new sucessful creations at all.
“Two wrongs don’t make a right and stealing the music doesn’t right any wrongs done to songwriters and artists and musicians and eventually everybody will suffer as the music gets worse and worse and worse…”
The problem with the word “stealing” is that if everybody that copies a digital files and photocopies a magazine article or saves a news story to his hard disk is stealing, then everyone steals and stealing is like cloresterol, there is a good kind and there is a bad kind. Then i am a thief too, the good kind. So we have two choices, have two kinds of stealing or change the laws so that copying digital files and making photocopies are legal (if the copies are not sold).
“because it is being written and recorded by amateurs instead of professionals.”
At a music industry convention of about 5 years ago, on the subject of the lack of growth, a music industry consultant (I forget his name) told the audience that the problem with thei ndustry was that industry was pushing mostly terrible music. He said that 95 percent of the music on radio was bad. I agree with, although it has gotten worse in the last five years. I for example have stopped listening popular music on radio stations. I also know that good music is also being composed and recorded. But the pipeline is controlled by the copyright cartel and is closed to the best records and music.
I disagree with you concept that there are “amateur” or “professional” creators. Just like there is good and bad music, there are bad and good creators. Money has nothing to do with the creation process. As said before, creation comes from within and from instinct. I think music creators should be paid for their work but I do not think that that will make the creator produce more good work than he/she will produce from an inner drive anyway. Of course with money, he/she may afford to publish more works, but while that is not a creation process, it is a good thing. Of course though digital file copying or p2p you can publish without money. That is why publishers are scared. That is why p2p is good for culture and artist recognition and for many artists, recognition is the driving force.
Don’t get me wrong. You have some valid persobnal concerns but the solution is for creators like you, artists, and the people to take over and discard the poluters, the cartel. You should read the ‘Wake up America !’ article on p2p.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas
June 2nd, 2005 at 9:27 pm
“If Grokster said “must sue users” and the RIAA took their advise, they should both burn in hell.”
Glad to see that we can agree that Grokster should burn in hell!
As to your many legal difficulties, I wish you well, but your Step mother (the 5th) will own much more than 1/5 of one percent at the end of your appeal… the American precedent is 50% of the TOTAL (set in the Roger Miller case.) So you might have thought twice before appealing and let her keep her original 20%
“Many industries have dissapeared as new technologies emerged. ”
Somgwriters aren’t neing put out of business by some new technology… just some ‘old fashined’ theft…
“As a solution I propose that p2p sites be financed with either subscription or with public funds and that the money then be distributed among performers, orchestra directors, arrangers, songwriters and reord producers (but not through record producers or publishers). Some of the money may be set aside for an artist retiremeent fund. This way the middlemen are eliminated, music will be less expensive and the money saves in distribution costs can be spent spent on other things, such as concerts, education, etc. and that will create new jobs and oppotunities, including for musicians.”
I couldn’t agree more with your suggestion but there is a problem with implementing it… P2P sites like Gorkster REFUSE to adopt subscription fee business model becasue they will lose their traffic and thus their advertising revenues… Plus they will have to licens the music and pay the creators. Using public funds would require a tax and no one will vote for it. Especially while they can steal all the music they want for free.
“That sales have plummeted, I say again “show the numbers”. If they do drop as they may in the obsolete future of physical distribution at high prices, then let it be so. ”
The most independent source of figures (I know you won’t accept ANY music biz generated numbers as credible) is the US bureau of labor statistics which shows Songwriter/musician as the NUMBER ONE loser in income in the year 2002-3 (the middle of the Napster illegal downloading rage) ‘nuf said…
Many songwriters now own their own publishing and THEY are the best source of how revenues have dropped and believe me, THEY HAVE DROPPED!
You can play semantics and dance around the word ‘Stealing’ all day but downloading a copyrighted music file on a P2P service without the premission of the composer is Theft… plain and simple and if you refuse to admit this then we have no basis for further discussion because you are merely an apologist for theives…
BTW the guy who sold Bill Gates DOS got 50 grand as I understand and he thought he was making the ‘Deal of a lifetime” As it turned out he was… Once again you can’t protect people from their own bad decisions.
Also… the distinction between professional and amateur is not a hard line on a case by case basis but in the macro-view there is a MASSIVE difference… between say, the Eagles or U2 and the garage band down the street. You know it and so does everyone else…. that’s why when faced with the choice of downloading free amatuer music that is all over the web and stealing copyrighted PROFESSIONAL music on P2P services like Grokster people overwhelmingly choose to steal the professional stuff…
June 2nd, 2005 at 11:58 pm
As to your many legal difficulties, I wish you well, but your Step mother (the 5th) will own much more than 1/5 of one percent at the end of your appeal… the American precedent is 50% of the TOTAL (set in the Roger Miller case.) So you might have thought twice before appealing and let her keep her original 20%”.
The Roger Miller case is different. In that case there was no previous court decision. In our case we had already been sued in local courts, where after the community property issue was resolved against the widow, she claimed, on appeal, to have renewal rights. The Supreme Court of Purto Rico confirmed that all the rights were ours. She did not appeal to the US Supreme Court as to overturn the local court decision. The rule is that only the US Supreme Court is able to overturn a Puerto Rico lawsuit court decision. Also the legal doctrine of res judicata means that no one has to defend the same issue twice as we had to. In spite if this the district judge, the same one that made the over 200 errors did not apply res judicata, and overturned a local cut decision. Our appeal has already been made and heard at Boston.
Songwriters aren’t neing put out of business by some new technology… just some ‘old fashined’ theft…
Yes, my father and we have been put out of business through plain theft by the cartel, publishers and record companies.
“I couldn’t agree more with your suggestion but there is a problem with implementing it… P2P sites like Gorkster REFUSE to adopt subscription fee business model becasue they will lose their traffic and thus their advertising revenues… ”
Who cares what Gorkster may refuse to do. Laws are not made on the basis of what someone thinks. Laws should be for the benefit of the people, not for a small group.
“Plus they will have to license the music and pay the creators.”
That would be for music downloaded from a server. But that is not p2p, where you download (copy) from anyone in the world. For p2p no licensing scheme will work.
“Using public funds would require a tax and no one will vote for it.”
Are you saying that Americans are so dumb that they will not pay one dollar of taxes to save 2 dollars in buying music? I think that Americans are smart enough to know that to save you sometimes have to spend first.
Also, if people are told that if they want to have art, artists must be paid, they have to pay and that the best the best and most cost effective way is using X method then X method will be adopted by the people through their representative lawmakers. This is why there are so many “free” museums that are financed by taxes. Almost always there no voting by the taxpayers. Lawmakers decide for them.
“Especially while they can steal all the music they want for free.”
You know, anyone get all free meals by visiting relatives and friends frequently at meal time. I personably have never met a person that does that. They may exist, but they are not many. People copy music because it is so easy to do. They do it because the records they purchased are boring. They do it because they dislike the music industry because they sue kids, They do it because records are too expensive. They do it because they do not think they are stealing. And so on. We cannot change any of this.
“The most independent source of figures (I know you won’t accept ANY music biz generated numbers as credible) is the US bureau of labor statistics which shows Songwriter/musician as the NUMBER ONE loser in income in the year 2002-3 (the middle of the Napster illegal downloading rage) ‘nuf said…”
Assuming that songwriters and musicians deserve more money, then a new model is needed to improve the situation. Counting on the cartel to represent the interest of composers and musicians is like counting on the rabbit to watch the carrot patch. If on the other hand musicians are being replaced by synthesizers and recording, that is technology, that cannot be stopped any more that movies could not be stopped because it resulted in a drop for the demand of live entertainers and actors. I wonder what the labor statistics said at the beginning of the 20th century when all the new technology (cars, movies, radio, telephone) began to boom and the telegraph operators started to disappear and suffer economically.
“Many songwriters now own their own publishing and THEY are the best source of how revenues have dropped and believe me, THEY HAVE DROPPED!”
I run a publishing company and have had no revenue at all and we have a great product… a publishers dream. And who shafted us? The publishers. The record companies. The bastards you, defend, perhaps without realizing it.
“You can play semantics and dance around the word ‘Stealing’ all day but downloading a copyrighted music file on a P2P service without the permission of the composer is Theft… plain and simple and if you refuse to admit this then we have no basis for further discussion because you are merely an apologist for theives…”
But the thieves are the publishers that steal song rights and the record companies that are pirates because they either record without licenses, do not pay royalties, or cook the boos to pay less. And then they fight kid “piracy”, like Sony does.
On our site you can download many mp3 files. You have no way of knowing if your downloading is legal or no. You can download the song Genesis. Genesis (and other songs) is registered to this day at ASCAP, illegally, by Peermusic, an infringement that they have refused to stop, even after being told by the court that they infringed that song by licensing the song. I have told your friend at ASCAP, your organization that they are infringing our rights and must remove the song from the repertoire. ASCAP has refused to remove the song. I assume that you as a member of ASCAP are responsible of what your association does. Your association is also a thief, and you are concerned about the theft of kids? You, without realizing it are an an apologist for ASCAP, the publishers and the record companies that have shafted us. Please…
What I defend is the non criminalization of the copying of digital files becaus that cannot be technically stopped. Industry is fighting the windmills, but not out moral conviction but because they want to continue selling overpriced, lousy products.
“BTW the guy who sold Bill Gates DOS got 50 grand as I understand and he thought he was making the ‘Deal of a lifetime” As it turned out he was… Once again you can’t protect people from their own bad decisions.”
Yes but the law/constitution does not say that author rights be created for authors that are not suckers. There are no exception in the copyright law for people that make bad decisions. I think you missed my point and I apologize if I was not clear.
Also… the distinction between professional and amateur is not a hard line on a case by case basis but in the macro-view there is a MASSIVE difference… between say, the Eagles or U2 and the garage band down the street. You know it and so does everyone else…. that’s why when faced with the choice of downloading free amateur music that is all over the web and stealing copyrighted PROFESSIONAL music on P2P services like Grokster people overwhelmingly choose to steal the professional stuff…
You make distinctions between “professional” and “amateur” that does not exists. What happens is this: Many great artists know how difficult, sacrificed and uncertain is the profession. Being musician may even be dangerous (like in Some Like it Hot). So they remain “amateurs”. Some of the better singers and musicians I know are a school teacher, and engineer, a jeweler, and a music teacher. The music teacher, an occasional concert, is the best classical guitarist I know of. I think that he has never recorded. These artists I am talking about are the ones that prefer a steady salary to the glory in being “professional. I am sure in your neighborhood it is the same.
Because of new technology these amateur artists are coming out of the closet, With almost nothing and a synthesizer anyone can make a fairly good recording. Should synthesizers and pc based recording studios be prohibited so as to protect the professionals or the cartels? Of couese not.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com