Musician Lobby Terms Balanced Copyright "Disgusting" 319
An anonymous reader writes "While most of the attention at Thursday's Canadian copyright town hall was on the recording industry's strategy to pack the room and exclude alternate voices, the most controversial activity took place outside the hall. It has now been revealed that security guards threatened students and a Member of Parliament for distributing leaflets, and the American Federation of Musicians termed the MP's leaflet, which called for balanced copyright, 'disgusting' and demanded a retraction and apology. At this point, such an admission seems unlikely."
Re:Actually (Score:5, Informative)
School bands, the orchestral and marching bands, all did the same thing until Xerography became commonplace. Now I suspect they buy ONE copy and burn as many copies as they need.
That would be a copyright violation, easily.
Some do that. Most of them actually purchase the music because the RIAA and similar groups have enormous fines for not having the originals. There are 800 numbers you can call to report suspected piracy and they will come out unannounced and search the school's music library to make sure they have purchased originals for all of their music.
Since kids tend to damage or lose the originals many directors keep them in their library and only hand out the photocopies -- which is entirely legal.
A side effect of this is why school music programs are always broke. They have to spend a lot of money on the music alone, and whatever is left over goes to instruments, uniforms, and eventually the students. IMO this is good example of everything that is wrong with the industry. Schools should get this stuff for free so they can spend the money on education and not have to worry about copyright.
Re:What was in the Leaflet? (Score:5, Informative)
Pirate Party (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.pirateparty.ca/ [pirateparty.ca] , and we now have a new website
Re:"Shamelessly buy votes?" (Score:5, Informative)
Just thought it was worth pointing out for the non Canadians here that Olivia Chow is married to Jack Layton, the leader of the federal NDP. The MP Mr. Willaert claims is openly departing from party policy is, in fact, married to the party's leader.
In the spirit of disclosure, I am a member of the Ontario NDP.
Re:How can the orginal article be slashdotted? (Score:3, Informative)
Flame-bait? Flame-bait? Maybe a failed attempt at self-deprecating humour, but flame-bait?
*sigh*.
Re:Actually (Score:3, Informative)
You are absolutely correct.Unfortunately in Canada we don't have fair use, only the much more limited fair dealings. which does not cover education uses.
Re:haha (Score:3, Informative)
It's sure meaningful when it becomes law enough to have police permanantly confiscating your computer for 'testing'.
Re:How can the orginal article be slashdotted? (Score:3, Informative)
That was funny, not flame bait. I'm Canadian and found it very funny.
Re:haha (Score:1, Informative)
My brother's wife need a hysterectomy, and a week after she said, "Let's do it and get it done," she was in the hospital surgery room. She had no money (it was covered by her employer), but still it got done very quickly. How long would the same thing take in Canada or the UK? Months?
In the UK they have an organization called N.I.C.E. but the citizenship calls it "Nasty". Why? Because that agency's job is to say "no" when somebody wants a procedure (i.e. rationed care). For example there was a 21-year-old young woman who appeared on CNN that wanted a PAP smear due to her family history of cervical cancer. She was trying to be preventative. The UK "nasty" organization told her no. Three years in a row she was told no. Well at age 24 she developed cancer.
The belief that having government care is "better" is a false one. At least in the U.S. this woman could have just gone to a doctor, handed-over $500, and the PAP would have been performed immediately. Yes it's true we have about 3% of the population without private or government coverage, but that still leave 97% who ARE covered and CAN get healthcare when they need it.
The U.S. also has one other thing in its favor:
-It's not a monopoly like Comcast or Cox cable. People have *choice* and choice means freedom to run your own life as you see fit.
Re:haha (Score:3, Informative)
What would the American taxes be like if they were high enough that they weren't running a deficit for the last decade?
Up until this year Canada has been operating in the black.
Here is a chart for 2004, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deficit#National_budget_deficits_.282004.29 [wikipedia.org] note that the States deficit is about 25% where as Canada's is about -4%
Re:Actually (Score:3, Informative)
Actually. Most of the schools around here have killed their music programs because it's so expensive to buy sheet music now. There's the odd middle school(and a few highschools and I'm in a city with 5 highschools) with a small program that has a freaking waiting list for kids. But yeah, it's too expensive just for the music. 15 years ago when I was in highschool the most expensive thing was instrument maintenance and we bought all the sheet music back than too.
Nah these bastards are fuckin' us over because they know they can and want a large piece of the pie. And as someone who thinks that kids should have access to music programs, it really does piss me off.
Re:Terms? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Forces of Reality (Score:5, Informative)
It remains to be seen. One professor seems to think that the chain of proof that the Copyright was properly registered, etc. for Happy Birthday- and has a lot of proof to back up his claims. However, unless you press for disproving the claims, you'll have to accept that the Copyright Office DOES hold that Time Warner does, in fact, own the rights to that song until 2030 unless there's changes in the Copyright laws subsequent to this time. They got the rights through a complex series of transactions.
Saying that they don't own it doesn't get you off the hook. You'll need to go through over 200 documents worth of research, pay lawyers thousands of dollars, and prove to a Court that this is the case if you're guilty of performing it commercially and get caught at doing it.
That's the reality and absurdity of the current situation with that song and of Copyright in general. I agree we need Copyright. What I don't agree with is the current incarnation thereof.
Five people (Score:4, Informative)
It's certainly not illegal to buy sheet music of one's favorite rock artists, and sing and practice said music in the privacy of one's home
Only if your group or family has less than 6 (or $LOCAL_LEGAL_MAX) people in it. Most countries have a legal limit for audience size above which the performance is defined as public. This limit is usually below the size of an above average family. While I'm not sure that a jury would find you guilty of a public performance and even the recording industry would not likely press charges due to public backlash technically you are breaking the letter of the law.
Re:haha (Score:3, Informative)
Psst... cost of a private cervical smear test in the UK: £140 [spirehealthcare.com] (about US$ 230).
Re:Frankly (Score:3, Informative)
Name me ONE FUCKING ARTIST who started out with 100% original music
W. A. Mozart?
Mozart certainly started composing young, but he learned playing the works of others. Mozart is also an intriguing choice since he is an interesting early case of "music piracy": using he remarkable memory and musical talent he transcribed Miserere [wikipedia.org] from memory after listening to it once (he did go back a second time to correct errors. At the time the piece was notable as having no transcriptions (of the very few floating around) that captured the beauty of of the annual performance at the Sistine chapel. Mozart's excellent transcription eventually made it to London where it was widely published and the piece was available all over Europe.
Re:haha (Score:5, Informative)
Speaking as someone who actually uses the NHS, unlike you and Daniel Hannan, I'm really happy with my evil socialised healthcare and am a much healthier person thanks to it.
Re:haha (Score:3, Informative)
PROSTATE 5-YEAR CANCER SURVIVOR RATE...
That is one possible disease. If you look at the life expectancy you will find that a national health care system is actually better: Canada 81.23, UK 79.01, US 78.11. I really don't care which way the US goes on this (neither being a US citizen or living there) but don't start spreading misleading statistics and, in some cases, outright lies about OUR national healthcare systems.
Re:haha (Score:3, Informative)
There are times when NICE comes out with some insanely stupid policy but usually BBC News or the papers kick up about it and NICE changes policy. The worst idea they had to do with a drug that prevented blindness. Because of its expense you could only get the drug free on the NHS if you had only one eye. Unfortunatly if youy had two eyes you didn't get the drug free. The media storm that occured when one paitent lost an eye was large enough that NICE changed their policy and did a full investigation into all of them to make sure there wern't any other stupid ones like that. Even if the drug you want isn't as clear cut you can take the matter to the High court and make your case (I think 2 expearimental cancer drugs are now free because of this despite their varying sucess and cost).
NICE is made up of a group of expearenced doctors who decide if the benifit a drug gives a paitent is bearable by the state and sets policy on what the NHS will offer. We have several treatments you wouldn't expect like infertility treatment, sex change operations and abortions for free.
For all this american mocking of the NHS our health care is 18th in the world while yours is 34th (according to WHO). We also pay less [who.int] than you for our health care. [who.int] The UK's also [bbc.co.uk] been consistantly better [bbc.co.uk]If you don't want to be treated by the NHS you can pay for private health care. The comany I work for gives me free BUPA coverage.
Lastly the Tory MEP who told America about how our NHS sucks [bbc.co.uk]caused alot of problems for the Tory Party and have damaged their election bid. The Tory party leader has backpeddled. [bbc.co.uk]
Re:Forces of Reality (Score:3, Informative)
By this logic then the optimim level of copyright protection would be that which maximized the value of a piece of work. That would be perpetual copyright, with no fair use exceptions, and a very broad definition of derived work.
You only see it as "devaluation" because of where we are starting from. If we had no copyright at all and were trying to figure out what was the best level of copyright protection you would come up with a very different answer than now when we have to much protection.
If you first ask the question "What is copyright for?" then answer it with something like "to provide incentives for producing creative works" then you would see that your question would not fit in here at all.
Re:haha (Score:5, Informative)
"Balanced" does not mean "fair" or "right".
Here [cfs-fcee.ca] is the PDF of the leaflet in question. Judge for yourself.
I'm pro-copyright (though in favor of reducing copyright term length), and I find it perfectly reasonable.
Re:haha (Score:3, Informative)
Too bad your reference is old
Canada Debt is now less that 500B not 868B http://www.debtclock.ca/ [debtclock.ca]
US debt is now over 11T, not 8T http://www.usdebtclock.org/ [usdebtclock.org]
so your numbers are totally useless.
Re:Actually (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Forces of Reality (Score:3, Informative)
Did you read your own link?
It's not really definitive evidence when the page itself says that it's possible that they don't own it. If you really want to understand the copyright status, you should read Robert Brauneis's article about it [ssrn.com]. He concludes that it isn't entirely clear that the Hill sisters wrote the Happy Birthday lyrics, that the 1935 publication of the song did not credit them as having written the song, and that no one properly renewed the copyright (as was required by the law at the time). As such, his conclusion is that the lyrics are currently in the public domain.
Re:Actually (Score:3, Informative)
Because your music director chose to perform works first published on or after January 1, 1923 (in the United States), or works whose author was still alive or had died less than 70 years ago (in most other countries).
Nice try tepples, but you are confusing fair use [wikipedia.org] with public domain [wikipedia.org].