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Dead Musicians Signing Media Rights Petitions
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Dec 09, 2006 06:07 AM
from the curiouser-and-curiouser dept.
from the curiouser-and-curiouser dept.
epeus writes "Following from the Gowers coverage and the Musicians' ad in the FT, Larry Lessig admits he was wrong about term extension: 'If you read the list, you'll see that at least some of these artists are apparently dead (e.g. Lonnie Donegan, died 4th November 2002; Freddie Garrity, died 20th May 2006). I take it the ability of these dead authors to sign a petition asking for their copyright terms to be extended can only mean that even after death, term extension continues to inspire. I'm not yet sure how. But I guess I should be a good sport about it, and just confess I was wrong. For if artists can sign petitions after they've died, then why can't they produce new recordings fifty year ago?'"
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UK Report Suggests Tougher Copyright Laws 229 comments
danpsmith writes "The BBC has an article about a government report which proposes new powers against copyright infringement. Interestingly, however, it also says that 'private users should be allowed to copy music from a CD to their MP3 player' and further 'recommends the 50-year copyright protection for recorded music should not be extended,' saying, 'The ideal IP system creates incentives for innovation, without unduly limiting access for consumers and follow-on innovators.' While satisfied with most of the report, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) says it will 'continue to press for the copyright extension.'"
[+]
UK Copyright Under Fire Again 211 comments
stupid_is writes "Following on from the story on the Gower Report in the UK, a host of musicians (over 4,500 of them, including poor, starving stars such as U2, Paul McCartney and Peter Gabriel) have taken out a big ad in the FT to back the call for an extension to copyright in the UK. Allegedly, that's what the British public wants — although the survey seems to be asking a different, rather biased, question." From the article: "A spokesman for the Open Rights Group, which campaigns for greater digital rights, said: 'The big music firms have done a good job of persuading some artists to sign up to this but anyone who reads the Gowers review will see it demolishes the arguments for extension. An awful lot of content creators are not represented by this and recognise an extension will do nothing for creativity and nothing for the public.'"
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Dead Musicians Signing Media Rights Petitions
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Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.comparecomponents.com/ | Last Journal: Friday September 15 2006, @02:04PM)
Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:5, Funny)
(http://sharpy.xox.pl/ | Last Journal: Wednesday September 14 2005, @02:12PM)
Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:5, Funny)
Hey man, you get bit and you're screwed anyway, whats it matter? Is there a lot of stigma in the zombie community about zombies with AIDs or something?
Re:Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:5, Funny)
(http://electrob.org/ | Last Journal: Thursday September 27, @01:42PM)
What's wrong with that? After all, they got many advantages from the copyright system. I'd call'em the grateful dead.
*ducks*
they should have a whip round (Score:5, Insightful)
then compare it with the net worth of 4500 Wallmart shop employees or 4500 Ford car plant workers who wont be getting paid either for work they did 50 years ago
perhaps the music industry needs a close audit to see where those 4500 poor, poor starving musicians are going wrong
if you have nothing to hide as they say...
Re:they should have a whip round (Score:5, Insightful)
More precisely, that is collecting on deferred benefits they contracted for in return for their work long ago. It is a straight forward exchange of benefits for work.
In the case of extending copyrights, the beneficiaries are trying to get something for nothing.
Re:they should have a whip round (Score:5, Insightful)
If they want to make more money, they can get their asses back into the recording studio. That's what copyright is for.
Re:they should have a whip round (Score:5, Insightful)
These entities are free to sell and make money from these recordings in perpetuity without copyright extensions. They just won't be able to demand as much after the government enforced monopoly expires.
Re:they should have a whip round (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.borkbork.org/~bigjoe | Last Journal: Tuesday December 30 2003, @03:11PM)
The reason it works with copyright is because those who sell the recordings stand to gain an enormous amount while those they're bargaining with (i.e., all the citizens) each loses a comparatively small amount. The net effect is still bad for society overall (imo) but it's harder to get someone excited about defending society as a whole.
Re:they should have a whip round (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you don't understand. In the case of the factory workers, they deserve their pensions because it was part of the agreed-upon compensation at the time of hire. It's just a matter of enforcing a preexisting agreement.
In contrast, these musicians want to retroactively change the agreement, even though they were aware of the terms and willingly agreed to them (by publishing the music) before.
In other words, the first group wants what is owed to them while the second group wants what is not owed to them. It is entirely a matter of petty greed!
not just that... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.google.com/)
I don't see why Lessig is so surprised. Not only can the dead sign petitions, but they can vote, too. America has lead the way in the legal frontier of corpse-rights and suffrage, at least as far back as the 1800s.
Remember, this is not just about the Royalties... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://nzruss.blogspot.com/)
Content in the public domain waters down the argument for requiring ALL content to be 'protected'. If half of the worlds music was public domain, lobbyists would have a hard time persuading lawmakers to put restrictions on ALL devices. This has been evident with the RIAA continuously argue why DRM is required for ALL music to prevent copyright infringement. These arguments usually fail to recognize the existence of non-copyrighted music (Creative Commons, Public Domain etc), and certainly make no provision for it in their argument or 'industry drafted bills' (e.g DMCA). This results in systems like the Zune wi-fi sharing system which applies DRM when transferring songs, whether the media requires protection or not, and with total disregard for other licences such as 'copyleft' which may expressly forbid it.
We've seen from the Napster and Gokster cases in the 'war on file sharing' argued that "file sharing is always infringement of somebody's copyright", and fails to recognize the legal uses of file sharing systems. Again, if half of the worlds music was public domain, the argument agaisnt services like Bit-torrent is significantly watered down. Services like Youtube and Google Video have already been targeted, and we've seen media companies desire to shutdown the service altogether. Although Youtube and Google video are exceptional in that they've been careful to prevent copyright infringement from the start, and the result has been for the media companies attempts to re-define infringement. (i.e teenagers lip-sinking etc). Again their aim is to prove the majority of content that is free is infringing copyright and the services providing it should be shut-down.
We are seeing the music industry / BPI "pulling out all the stops" to prevent an extension of copyright. They're using artists that have done very very well out of record company who may 'win the hearts and minds of the people' (Cliff Richard), and now their padding their 'stats' with dead people. It is certain they are lobbying politicians as fast as they can.
The BPI (and RIAA) have responsibilities "in the collection, administration and distribution of music licenses and royalties" which relies on a vast library of content being under their control. Music that is currently in their control placed in the public domain erodes their breadth of responsibility and will ultimately affect their cut of the royalties.
This argument is not about the artists getting more money, it is about the BPI and RIAA retaining their value and ability to "fight the crime of music theft".
They cannot fight the "crime" if half the time it is perfectly legal to copy and share.
Re:Remember, this is not just about the Royalties. (Score:4, Insightful)
Boycott Cliff this Christmas (Score:5, Funny)
(http://commandline.org.uk/ | Last Journal: Wednesday May 30, @05:49AM)
Re:Boycott Cliff this Christmas (Score:5, Funny)
(http://joe-baldwin.net/ | Last Journal: Saturday September 02 2006, @11:58AM)
I don't see what the big deal is here. (Score:5, Funny)
(http://www.evilnet.net/ | Last Journal: Wednesday August 30 2006, @12:30PM)
makes me wonder.. (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.mynameisneil.com/)
Reminds me of a Monty Python song (Score:5, Funny)
Although in this case I think they're recomposing composers.
2Pac doesn't need to do this (Score:5, Funny)
Whenever you hear "corporation" or "association" (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://ejksdesktop.homelinux.com/)
Pathological lying, conning/manipulative, shameless, parasitic lifestyle, irresponsibility? I consider it extremely unlikely that they wouldn't know that a member was dead (seeing as he wouldn't be showing up for recording and all), and even then, so what? If the signatures were genuine, no dead person's name could possibly be on the list. Yet another in the media industry's endless stream of manipulative lies. Naturally, when called out, they will shamelessly deny any previous knowledge. Parasitic lifestyle? We hear every day how the Internet makes the recording industry obsolete. Irresponsible? Like forging dead people's signatures?
Corporations are psychopaths. But they aren't psychopathic because they enjoy being evil - If they don't act like this, the shareholders can sue (If you don't [obviously wrong action], it's bad for profit = lawsuit). If this nonsense is to stop while it's still possible to get corporations back under control, the law needs to change. Seeing as it's 4am, I leave it to the rest of you to propose the changes.
anger (Score:1)
(http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com/)
Advertising Standard Authority (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://geeklondon.com/)
Re:Advertising Standard Authority (Score:5, Informative)
(http://commandline.org.uk/ | Last Journal: Wednesday May 30, @05:49AM)
http://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complai
If anyone knows the page number, or better, even has a copy of the ad then that would be really god.
Welcome to the new world of ..... (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://threeseas.net/ | Last Journal: Friday January 18 2002, @01:44PM)
Intellectual property rights are man created and man enforced where they can reasonably be enforced.
However, the value of the intellectual property only goes as far as the ability to share it, via licensing or some other method of "regulation" of the value exchange flow.
You can have all the intellectual property in the world but to yourself it is value less, it is only upon sharing it that it becomes valuable or has value.
With this in mind the apex of debate is regarding at what time does the IP rights constraints become to constraining to others on the path to human advancement that it falsely limits human advancement even effecting the author/inventor life and living environment?
Maybe some see creative works of non-invention as something that doesn't apply to this but the fact is that such creative works being constrained of the past would have, for example, nearly eliminated all science fiction of today. Today all science fiction contains enough elements of works previously done that it would be virtuallyt impossible to write a decent story. The same applies to alot of music.
Intellectual property right are intended to benefit the creator of it, but not to give them a permanet monopoly on it.
As a human character, right and duty, we build upon and with the works of those before us. If we did not then we could not evolved our environment, society, technology, medicine, shelter, transportation etc.. We'd still be living in caves and hunting for food.
Now what if technology could reach the rate of advancement that itself would provide solutions fast enough that we could live much longer, healthier, etc. And this would certainly effect any living "creator"
This cannot happen with IP rights constraining such forward movement!
They just signed on the wrong line (Score:3, Funny)
(http://www.crowdersoftware.com/)
Reg Shoe would be proud. (Score:4, Funny)
(http://sharpy.xox.pl/ | Last Journal: Wednesday September 14 2005, @02:12PM)
I wonder... (Score:1)
(http://noam.chigh.org/)
I like Lebanon's hezbollah petitions better (Score:3, Funny)
(http://eth1.org/)
Copyrights should not be permanently transferrable (Score:5, Insightful)
The lease should end when the contract does. The artist or artists would then have the option to renew their contract and lease, sign a new contract / release indie, or release it into the public domain.
With a lease, you can be assured that there isn't an abuse of the power that record labels have now. A simple law could make these current types of contracts obsolete and illegal. Artists should also be able to reference this law and get their copyrights returned to the rightful owner.
This kind of thing is being done with the LOTR Trilogy and The Hobbit. The movie rights were leased to Miramax for a short period. If they do not finish the movies within that timeframe, they cannot release them.
Lets face it, record labels themselves are an obsolete business model. There are many ways to do self promotion now and you don't need to include a 3rd party publisher. A simple website, some iTunes tracks and a live tour are you really need to promote yourself. All labels really do is publish little plastic discs. They don't need exclusive rights to your material to do that.
Are we sure it's a problem? (Score:2)
Larry Lessig doesn't get it... (Score:1)
It may be possible in the future that it will be necessary to extend copyright. If you sign now we will take care to pass over your signature when this condition arises.
Indeed this petition was originally written in ancient egypt about threethousand years ago. And I am the only beneficiary. Take my word for it.
Anonymous Coward
I see dead people (Score:1)
(http://elmuerte.com/)
Who benefits? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.craphound.com/)
The risk that a musician is so dispirited by only getting 50 years of copyright on the recordings of her work is wholly theoretical. No one can point to such a musician. That musician, btw, isn't tomorrow's artist -- it's all recording artists since the term of phonogram monopoly was set at 50 years. Every song recorded for for the 20th century was produced with that incentive (or less).
However, there are two very real, non-theoretical groups of musicians for whom the existing term of 50 years is too long:
* Samplers and remixers. This is a non-theoretical, concrete and visible group of working musicians. They are unable to incorporate other works from culture into theirs without paying -- and not just paying, either. It's nearly impossible for an artist outside of the label system to clear samples from the labels' catalogues. That's because the labels give preferential treatement to one another in a mutually assured destruction dynamic (if EMI doesn't license its samples to Sony, then Sony can refuse to license to EMI). The effect of this for samplers and remixers in the UK is that they have to either:
1. Be criminals
2. Not make art
3. Sign up for the deal the labels offer, assign copyright in their works to the labels, and take the crummy "recoup"-based payment scheme the labels offer.
Talk about creating a buyer's market for what musicians have to sell!
* The other group of musicians harmed by the overlong term is those whose work is forgotten -- orphaned by society. In these cases, either the label still holds the copyright but won't reissue the musician's work (Universal's Decca warehouse in London holds the entire, unreleased catalogue of roots music, back to steel cylinders, and Universal hasn't even catalogued that collection, let alone made plans to re-release it); or no one knows who hold the copyright, because the deal was done so long ago.
At a recent Future of Music conference, Alanis Morrisette's attorney said that in his research, over 80% of all music recorded is not in the stream of commerce. In Eldred v Ashcroft, the US Supreme Court fount that *ninety eight percent* of all copyrighted works are "orphans".
For these musicians, alive or dead, there is a fate worse than penury: obscurity. Their works -- the art they cherished and midwifed -- have been eliminated from the historical record. We have piled their recordings up in a huge bonfire and burned them in slow motion.
Finally, there's another non-hypothetical, real, visible group of artists for whom term extension is directly harmful: composers.
People who write songs get a much longer term of copyright than those who perform them. When Elvis goes into the public domain and his records are re-issued, the black songwriters whose work he performed *still* get paid by the reissuers. Right now, these composers are hostage to Elvis's label: if they don't re-release, the composers don't get a cheque. But the elimination of the majors from the equation makes it possible for a much more diverse population of entrepreneurs to arrange for such a re-release.
It's pure sophistry to wring your hands about some theoretical economic situation that will arise for musicians in 2056 when their present-day copyrights expire; that would be fine if there weren't great groups of concrete, present-day musicians crying out to have this happen.
The holders of today's 50 year copyrights fall into three groups:
* Holders of commercially non-viable copyrights (almost all of them fall into this category) -- this group receives direct harm from term extension
* Giant corporations that non-negotiably forced their artists to assign all copyright t
What about the songwriters' children? (Score:2)
(http://wheatwilliams.com/)
What's wrong with that?
One problem with the current reality of Internet file sharing is that successful songwriters have far less certainty of being able to provide for their loved ones in the future. I think that's very unfortunate.
Re:What about the songwriters' children? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.howtobeinvisible.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday October 04, @07:42AM)
The problem isn't with you making money on a creation after you stopped, it is sitting on your ass and making money for almost a CENTURY after you stopped. Or making money after you're dead.
Copyright has ONE purpose, to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. If you are dead, you aren't promoting the progress of science or useful arts -- you're dead.
LIMITED time was meant as a prod, meaning that after a SHORT period whatever you created would belong to everyone and you could then create something new. If you live off your past successes for you entire life, you are not promoting the progress of science and useful arts, thus not deserving of a government enforced monopoly.
Don't like it? Create something new.
As far as passing more than liquid cash assets to your kids, that is a great idea. May I suggest real estate, vehicles, stocks, bonds, investments, boats, airplanes and most importantly, a solid work ethic that doesn't involve the idea of living off the imagination of a long dead relative.
Dead Beneficiaries (Score:2)
(http://libreria.sourceforge.net/)
I thought they could. Hasn't 2Pac been producing new songs in the past consistently since his death (or am I wrong about the meaning of "newly discovered archival recordings")? How long has he been dead now? The last time I checked (a few years ago) he had put out and album or double album about every two years since his death. Pretty prolific, huh?
It kind of makes one wonder who copyrights are making money for. Certainly dead artists are not enjoying their profits. Or do spirits really need bribe money like in Chinese ancestral religion [wikipedia.org]?
The undead like to eat brains... (Score:1)
(http://www.openedsource.net/blog)
Died for tax purposes (Score:3, Interesting)
Sign ORG's petition in response (Score:3, Informative)
(http://epeus.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday November 09 2001, @05:10AM)
The Open Rights Group [openrightsgroup.org] is running a Release The Music [releasethemusic.org] campaign, with a petition against term extension that you can sign [releasethemusic.org]. There's also one asking for the right to privately copy CDs to iPods. [pm.gov.uk]
Are Slashdot readers as good at signing petitions as dead musicians?
I'm not sure why the Slashdot editors trimmed the ORG petition off my original submission - do they prefer whinging to doing something politically influential?
Ask The Live Ones (Score:4, Interesting)
IP doesn't exist (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.hardcorehackers.com/~npsimons/ | Last Journal: Friday November 09, @03:00PM)
I've seen a lot of comments arguing about "intellectual property" and I just want to straighten something out right now: there is no such thing as "intellectual property". Ideas and property are nothing alike; ideas can be copied infinitely at no cost. Property cannot be copied infinitely at no cost. No one can own an idea.
The state (of the people, by the people and for the people) may temporarily grant someone exclusive _rights_ to the copying or use of an idea, but this is nothing like property rights. Property rights are in place because multiple people can't use a piece of property at the same time. Copyrights (and patents) are in place to encourage the advancement of new and useful ideas and art (go ahead, look it up, it's in the constitution).
Don't believe me? Go ask a lawyer about so-called "intellectual property". The first thing she will do is ask you "are you talking about copyrights, patents or trademarks?". You'll notice that none of those has anything to do with property. Don't use the phrase "intellectual property"; it's deceitful language used by manipulative people to try to get you into the frame of mind of treating ideas as property.
Re:First post (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Monday May 28, @06:35AM)
Re:Copyright should permanently belong to the auth (Score:2, Insightful)
Things should pass into the public domain. Everything should which is not based on tangable property. Tangable property should be taxed on death (possibly up to 100%).
If you think about how the world would look if we all had eternal rights to our property there would be about 100 people who would own everything and the rest of humanity would die, although a revolution would probably be inevitable anyway and then maybe some more sensible rules could come in.
It is also not judical theft, it is the state acting in the best interests of the population, in exactly the same way it does with people's other rights from the state of nature. They have a legitimate right to do this.
Re:Copyright should permanently belong to the auth (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.glasshead.net/)
Re:Copyright should permanently belong to the auth (Score:2)
Re:Copyright should permanently belong to the auth (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Copyright should permanently belong to the auth (Score:4, Insightful)