Vietnam Airlines loses music
p2p news / p2pnet: Music lovers using Vietnam Airlines will have to hum to themselves.
The Centre for Protection of Music Copyright demanded a fee from the MCI but, "The airline disagreed with the requirement, reasoning that it has already paid for a licence to use the material via VCD and CD purchase," says VietNamNet Bridge.
"The Ministry of Culture and Information (MCI) and Ministry of Finance have issued no documents regarding payment of copyright yet, but in the near future VNA will stop buying and using Vietnamese music, despite being the national airline company and contributing greatly to promoting and introducing Vietnamese culture internationally", VNA general director Nguyen Xuan is quoted as saying.
By the end of the year, "karaoke shops will have to pay copyright for foreign music following a deal made between the copyright centre and International Music Composer’s Copyright Association," adds VietNamNet Bridge.
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VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnam Airlines stops music after copyright row, November 8, 2005
November 8th, 2005 at 7:26 pm
This story highlights the senseless way that the music industries work.
According to the performance rights organizations, to use music publicly, you get a license from them. Them being ASCAP,BMI, etc. in the USA and their cunterparts in other countries, which have also entered the music licensing business.
But there is a little catch. Waht these organizations license is a catalogue of music. In other words, you pay the license and you can use any song in the 100 or so catalogs of as many countries covered by a single license.
Ah, the little catch: No one gets a copy of any of the 100 or so catalogs of songs that were paid for.
The American Justice Department has investigated these “performance rights” collectives in the past for alleged monopoly pratices but strangely, the investigators did not detect the fact that the licensing system has no possibility of working at all because the the licensee have no catalog to check against when they want to play a song.
Sure, the airline in this story is right in refusing to pay for a worthless license. They simply did not succumb.
Any explanation for this huge anomality? Yes, few THINK.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
November 8th, 2005 at 8:25 pm
They should download free, independent music. There is plenty of good quality, free music available for the taking. I know because hat is all I listen to. I no longer even turn on the radio.
November 9th, 2005 at 4:37 am
Viet Nam is an interesting country with a VASTLY RICH culture, and that especially includes music.
Vietnamese music is VERY RICH and VARIED (I would know), and as with Asian countries the whole hoopla of IP is bogus. Songwriters and musicians write poems, songs, and lyrics — Yet they DO NOT prevent other people from using them. The songs are POETIC (unlike North American music which is mostly noise and ‘plain’ words).
ALL of the famous Vietnamese musicians made their MONEY FROM THESE “PUBLIC DOMAIN” songs.
The MCI, and MPAA HOLD ABSOLUTELY NO CLOUT! They do NOT own ANY of these music or songs or lyrics or poems.
Again, they are attempting to HIJACK something that is NOT theirs —- In other words plain out THEFT in the highest degree!
The CABAL are full of SHIT!
Good day to you kind sir!
November 9th, 2005 at 4:05 pm
True, there is a lt of public domain music, but this is just in theory. In practise everything has been grabbed by the cartels.
I have pointed out here that the American national hymn appears registered about 277 times at ASCAP (American Society of Cxxxx and Publishers). This means that the song is claimed by many publishers and/or songwriters.
Then there are many songs in the public domain in one country and not in another. Then there are recordings owned by someone who prfesses that their music can be publicly performed but the same someone may sell the rights later on to someone who has another outlook on how exploit the music and could witdraw the permissions of the previous owner. This has to do with the fact that there is no mechanism to place a recording in the public domain.
If Vietnam Airlines went to a lawyer for advice, they probably either not get any or they would be told that nothing is sure since they can get a lawsuit from a new recording owner, an owner who changed his/her mind, or one of the possibly many owners of the copyrights, For example a recording by a 10 member band may have 12 copyright holders, the 10 members, the composer and the lyricist.
As the music industry operates, there is really no viable way to play music legally on airplanes, radio, restaurants, television, etc.
I have yet to figure out why no one has noticed the obvious fact that the licensing of music performances is a huge scam.
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com