Termyn8or
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Joined: 11/12/2005
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This issue has so many facets that even I will not be able to cover them all. This has become very complex. I've written a couple, and so has a friend of mine. Now if we went out and played in a bar, what do we get, maybe a humdred bucks ? But now say someone who has paid the cover charge and happened to have an audio recorder used it to record our music. Well in a way they paid, but now they can share that music with those who haven't paid.
Similarly, if I buy a CD and play it at a party, and all the atterndees hear it, that is pretty public. But what if it is a pig roast and keg party and I charge to get in ? Do I then need an accountant ? I would like to speak to BMI about such thibngs, and alot more. First of all I have been downloading music on P2P for about ten years now and have quite a formidable collection. Note however that most of this is music you just can't find in the music stores. I really would've bought it. For example I bought Bob Segar & The Silver Bullet Band - Double Live Bullet three times. I paid a premium price, twice for the vinyl and once for the CD. I legally own it but how do I prove it ?
When the party is on I hook up the 500 gig HD and that PC is like a jukebox, but it doesn't take money. Even if it balances out, that I have paid so much for this media in the past that I got rights to a few more things, now do I have to report it if my guests playing or requesing the songs have brought beer ?
My nextdoor neighbor's fiance' mentioned that Procol Haren - Whiter Shade Of Pale was one of her all time favorite songs, so I played a set at about 500 watts and the whole neighborhood heard it. I can do that here at the right times. Everybody heard it. So now if any of my neighbors ever gave me anything of value I must report it ?
So what I have heard indicates that the industry has now taken a slightly different stance. That the in studio music is more of a promotion for the concerts, and that is where they are going to pull in the money. No more seven buck concert tickets. Peter Frampton is one notable exception. (in the past)
The whole subject throws me into a state, one in which I really don't know where I stand. I have no problem with the fact that composers and musicians should be paid, but how much ? You think Lebron is worth all those millions ? We don't even know if he can read. Then groups like The Police and REO Speedwagon only knew three chords when they first started out. That's worth millions ? I actually think athletes have more of an excuse to rake in the bucks because their careers are short by necessity, with few exceptions. But do you think it's right for someone to get paid a King's ranson for something they did twenty years ago ?
I can build a house, I would outsource the concrete work and roofing, but I can do everything else. If I build you a house and you buy it, do you owe me for every year that it is still standing ?
You think it's complex now ? Read on. My buddy and I have written a few and have played into the microphone streaming on the net via Paltalk, with listeners as far as Austrailia. Is our music worthless despit the praise it has recived, worthless because he is a mason and I am an electronics tech ? Just because we are not professionals we get nothing, nada, zilch ? What's more we have exposed our uncopyrighted "product" to many who could have easily recorded it.
It's possible that all the complexity in this issue has been brought on by how music is performed and distributed. A very long time ago, before BMI, ASCAP and the RIAA ever came along people would play music just because they wanted to, and the listeners would give their praise and that was pay enough. The next morning they got up and plowed a field or shod a horse, whatever. It was not work, it was play. Did we really need society to advance to the point where there are billion dollar lawsuits over it ?
Things have changed so much. Many don't remember when the MPAA or whoever sued Sony for building the first (viable) video cassette recorders. That was just for building them, not using them, as if a VCR was a criminal tool, and they sought to ban the sale of VCRs. But Sony won. Even fewer remember that after a similar battle between the RIAA and Phillips, the inventors of the cassette tape, they get a royalty off of every cassette tape ever sold. Likewise they get a royalty on every blank VCR tape sold. What's more when you later bought a stand alone CD recorder you had to use music CDs in it which cost more. That was royalties. However later PCs were able to record a music CD using a standard CDROM blank.
I doubt that even Ted Nugent is going around to bars to see if they are playing Stranglehold. He is a prick, but I guess he's kinda OK. The thing is that the system now wants to pay these millionaires out of the pockets of people who might not even be thousandaires. I am not saying that they don't deserve the money, but these collection efforts, IMO are out of hand. Why now when everybody in this country is going broke. Well maybe I just answered my own question, they are going broke too.
Somehow people have to get paid, but I think the suits are soaking up alot more of the money than they admit. Let's try another angle real quick shall we ? You go to a concert, I mean with an orchestra. All those musicians are of course paid and you pay at the door to get in. They are pros and definitely know more than three chords, some have devoted their whole life to it. Where do they stand ? What's more who collects the money that is supposed to go to the composer ? You certainly are not going to send a check payable to Johann Sebastian Bach are you ?
Now comes the public domain issue. At least half of what I have is oldies and some is very old. The artists are dead. These pieces were in public domain and all the sudden someone owns them. Where did they buy what you and I own ? Public domain, that means me. Where is my check ?
There is alot, and I mean alot more, but right now I don't want to make this post any longer. People will think I am rude. Well I am but I don't want people to think it :-)
T
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RE: The Music-Copyright Enforcers - 
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