Artist Not Allowed To Stream His Own Music 423
the_arrow writes "Scottish artist Edwyn Collins wanted to stream one of his own songs on MySpace, but it seems that copyright misunderstandings make him unable to do so. According to the article, 'Management for the former Orange Juice frontman have been unable to convince the website that they own the rights to A Girl Like You, despite the fact that they, er, do.' Collins said, 'I found a nice lawyer guy at Warners, very apologetic, promised to get it sorted, but all these months later it isn't.' His wife added, 'MySpace are not equipped to deal with the notion that anyone other than a major [label] can claim a copyright.'"
Not always a problem (Score:3, Interesting)
great (Score:1, Interesting)
Might as well mention that I just lost the game.
Good day.
Time for an indie-myspace (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, it started out as a good thing, and even promised to help people track bands and discover new music.
But it's a mess now, and it's owned by the same company that runs FoxNews, so don't expect it to get any better.
Time for a young, fresh upstart to pull something better together.
Or are there already better alternatives?
Sue Warner Brothers. (Score:4, Interesting)
If people had been able to stream this over the internet, he could easily have lined up dozens of concerts paying tens of thousands of dollars each, all because Warner Brothers fradulently claimed copyright to his work.
Throw in some pointless punitive damages, and that ought to net him a good 6 million dollars, right? I mean if it works for the RIAA...
Re:Time for an indie-myspace (Score:3, Interesting)
Google Wave?
Amazon sells the track (Score:4, Interesting)
It's from a "Greatest hits" album, so I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that the label has rights to it.
Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright (Score:3, Interesting)
unless the label admitted it in private correspondence with the author, but "neglected" to inform MySpace.
We don't know if the case is stalled due to MySpace ignoring Warner's disclaimer, or whether Warner failed to send such disclaimer despite claiming to do so.
Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright (Score:2, Interesting)
Slander of title, perhaps.
Fraud implies intent.. I think this is just a case of horrendous negligence.
Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
Re:Think (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, if MySpace decides to remove content every time a party comes and claim copyright to the content, it's a MySpace problem, nothing more.
We all know the Majors care about their artists, not THE artists, and only because it makes money. They don't give a rat's *ss about art, music or any concept like this. They care about their wallet, art and artists be damned.
It takes about 10 minutes to fix this... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright (Score:3, Interesting)
Why Warner Brothers and not EMI (Score:3, Interesting)
Well aren't the Smithereens signed with Warner, they have a song from 1989 called "A Girl Like You". Is it possible that due to identically named songs this is actually a misunderstanding?
Re:Simple Solution (Score:4, Interesting)
That's really a pissy attitude. IANAM, but my Pa was. He could make music with anything, if he could pull a string tight across it. He and his friends actually recorded some decent music, over the years. They all had haircuts and jobs - they all raised families - they were all respectable people.
None of them ever expected to "make money" - they played music together because they loved music, they loved performing for people, and they just loved being together. They did sell a little music - a dozen tapes at a nursing home, a couple dozen at a church, another dozen at a corner store somewhere. Enough to pay for gasoline sometimes, to offset costs.
Something like Myspace would have been cool, back in the '60's up through the early '80's. They might have sold a little more music, and they certainly would have been better known outside their home counties. You may have even heard of them, if there had been a means to distribute their music for free!
Indies. Those are the REAL musicians. The labels? They know how to pry money out of fool's pockets, but they don't know music.
facepalm (Score:2, Interesting)
Yeah. Stop using the most popular and widespread social platform for promoting music; use niche services that no one knows about instead. Just look at how MySpace screwed over that one guy who has a recording contract. *facepalm*
If you make music, you'd be a fool to not take advantage of MySpace. The only reasons I can see for not doing so are 1) your music sucks, you know it, and you don't want people to hear it; or 2) you're a pretentious prick who thinks his music is too good for MySpace. I agree your business shouldn't depend on MySpace, but it's still a great way to promote your band. And if MySpace refuses to let you stream your music, why pay attorney fees when you can just cancel your account?
He can already claim (Score:1, Interesting)
See this post:
http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1395955&cid=29671207 [slashdot.org]
They are still selling illegal copies of his work.
Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright (Score:3, Interesting)
"Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence."
That should be amended to: "Tend to assume incompetence and not malice, unless it involves money."
Re:Think (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, one would think the DMCA gave the site owner the right to get proof thet the plaintiff is the actual copyright holder before doing anything. I don't think the DMCA is the problem here.
That said, you get a point in that any other website would do the same. And it's a problem between these sites and the contents publishers.
I remember a story in europe where a magazine did get free blog hosting from ~40 providers. They published a novel by Victor Hugo - ie: In the public domain for centuries. There was a note at the bottom of the page stating this.
Then they contacted formally all of the hosting companies demanding that the BLOG be shut off because it infringed their copyright. The results: 1 hosting company did its job, read the copyright notice, double checked the fact and sent an email back saying it was bullsh*t. 7 did ask for more proof, the rest did just shut the blog down, no questions asked.
Customer service is a thing of the past....
Re:Warner Music Group claims copyright (Score:5, Interesting)
And the corollary is:
"Sufficiently advanced forms of incompetence are indistinguishable from malice."
Re:Why Warner Brothers and not EMI (Score:1, Interesting)
How does Warner (and Myspace) distinguish theirs from the other three "A Girl Like You", which include Atlantic and EMI?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Girl_Like_You [wikipedia.org]
I mean yeah, sure, it /could/ be a misunderstanding over same title, but the same title problem isn't new in the music business. Precedent exists.
Corporations provide abrogation of responsibility (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe I'm dense here, but how does what you said relate to what I said? Having chairs and desks are necessary to make money. Paying artists, and otherwise acting in a moral fashion is obviously not. I never said that corporations have to make the most money they can, this week, at the expense of long term profitability.
But corporations have been sued for not taking advantage when they could. Corporations are a tool for abrogation of responsibility. They let otherwise moral individuals use proxies to engage in immoral activities those individuals would never, themselves, engage in. If one man murders another, it is clear who is to blame. If a corporation does it, the corporation will not face the de3ath penalty. More than likely, it will just face a fine. Was any human even jailed for the disaster at Bhopal? No. If I poisoned thousands of people, though, I would likely be put to death. The corporate form creates immortal, immensely powerful psychopathic entities.
What about SoundExchange fees? (Score:3, Interesting)
How does this fit in with the SoundExchange Rules of Extortion [slashdot.org]? Doesn't that "agreement" mean that the media cartels claim default ownership of all music? Therefore, this guys claim is moot because he needs to pay a fee to stream any music on the internet anyway.
Re:Required by Law (Score:3, Interesting)
Not much in the way of joint stock limited liability corporations before the the East India Company, was there? Maybe a few Dutch corporations. But I'd say, back to the early days of the US, when corporations like the EIC were seen as despotic enemies, and all corporations were limited to only perform the business for which they were chartered, could not own stock in other corporations, were limited in duration, were limited in geographic scope of business, and had no human rights as a legal person.
Re:Think (Score:2, Interesting)
So publish the song. If WB sues you, enjoy the triple damages when you point out to a judge that they were given notice of this error long before they filed suit. If WB doesn't sue you (which they won't), then there's not a copyright case here.
MySpace is irrelevant. They are just refusing service for their own reasons. You can't force them to give you service unless you can prove they are in breach of a contract.
Re:iFail (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Think (Score:2, Interesting)
>The real question is why WB doesn't owe him several billion dollars for piracy.
They haven't distributed his work.
What they have done is to persuade MySpace to refuse to stream his work. Unless someone can show otherwise, MySpace doesn't violate any law or abridge any rights by not streaming his work. They don't need a reason, but they have one (WB is inconvenient).
It would be completely different if he had a contract with MySpace (or with WB) but he doesn't.