Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday August 05 2016, @09:56AM   Printer-friendly
from the didn't-see-THAT-one-coming dept.

NBCNews reports that changes are coming for the music industry, and Big Music is not happy about it.

For years, in cases where ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers) or BMI (Broadcast Music Inc) did not represent all of the authors of a song, they would issue fractional licenses and presume that the licensee would ensure others were paid. Instead, the Justice Department's new rules would require "full-work" licenses.

We've all heard stories about some song-writers or lyricists being cut out out of the proceeds of music sales because they were not members of these big licensing agencies, never signed a release of rights, or a variety of other issues. Big Music (ASCAP and BMI) more or less ignored these artists, assuming they would get their share via some other means. Of course, in the end, that usually meant somebody pocketed all the money and somebody else didn't get paid. That's not how it is supposed to work.

BMI said in a statement that it would fight the change in court, while ASCAP said it would press for legislative reform. The groups said in a press release that the decision "will cause unnecessary chaos in the marketplace and place unfair financial burdens and creative constraints on songwriters and composers."

This all arose after Big Music claimed that the internet music streaming services were under-paying for song streamed, and cheating artists. They complained to the DOJ and wanted to renegotiate a 1941 era consent decree. It appears the DOJ agrees that some artists were indeed being cheated, but not necessarily by streaming services.

Some artists refuse to let their music be streamed simply because they believe it is being pirated at alarming rates. Other artists are waking up to the music industry's games.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday August 05 2016, @04:16PM

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday August 05 2016, @04:16PM (#384515) Journal

    Artists have to move past copyright, to sustainable business models, of which there are several possibilities. Copying and production have come to the masses, no longer takes lots of infrastructure such as a printing press and a place to operate it, supplies of paper to feed it, and a delivery system to disseminate it. Only thing writing still needs are the writers and maybe the editors. Copying is only going to get even easier. I expect the day will come that our computers are integrated into our bodies. Everyone will have an internal camcorder that uses human eyes, won't need to carry a smart phone as we do now, and then how will it be possible for theaters to ban recording devices?

    Copyright has done nothing good for me, it has only harmed me. If you think being a starving artist is bad, try being a starving researcher, with no faculty position. 99 cents for a song is cheap compared to the $10 price these parasitic, evil academic publishers typically ask of researchers for a pig in a poke, 10 page research paper that has all too high a chance of being irrelevant or garbage. The system is supposed to be one of public patronage. Researchers' pay is the salary they receive for working at a university, and in exchange they are expected to do and publish research. However, that system has been under sustained assault that peaked most recently during the 2nd Bush presidency, thanks in no small part to Republicans in particular taking a turn towards anti-intellectualism, attacking science when scientists have messages they don't want to believe or hear. Budget cuts, narrow minded thinking that demands research only into that which can have immediate practical uses, hostility, harassment, increased pressure to publish more, and the sheer greed of various parties trying to extract big money in exchange for unlocking access and exclusive usage rights, all hurts the quality of our science.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @04:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @04:59PM (#384538)

    Brief reminder: presidents don't write budgets.

    They can suggest budgets. They can suggest that every congresscritter wear jockey shorts on their head. They can suggest anything.

    Congress decides.

    While you might be right about the Bush presidency, as a marker of the timeline, that phrasing doesn't put the blame in the right place.

    And while we're talking about blame, there's a lot to go around the scientific community as well. Peer review? Laughable at this point. Grant writing? A fine example of institutionalised disingenuity. Publications? Hyperbolic. You can talk about twisted priorities all you like, but you are as a community actively disencouraging people from taking your work seriously.

    So. Yeah. A for effort. Please rewrite for clarity and focus.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @06:16PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 05 2016, @06:16PM (#384580)

    > ... $10 price these parasitic, evil academic publishers typically ask of researchers for a pig in a poke, 10 page research paper that has all too high a chance of being irrelevant or garbage.

    I thought this was what university libraries were for? Won't your library get you the papers you need? Some of the academic/professional publishers even have blanket download deals with libraries.

    • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 06 2016, @01:57AM

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday August 06 2016, @01:57AM (#384676) Journal

      So, the fact that a third party might be able to get the papers for him makes the GP's complaints all go away? Let us presume that he's doing important, legitimate research, on his own electronic device. Is the library going to permit him to download multiple papers onto his own device? Not likely. The libraries I'm familiar with don't have WIFI, won't permit you to bring your own equipment into the building, much less hook it up to their equipment. So, how many hoops must a person jump through, just to get one paper? And, if he needs or wants dozens of papers, he may well spend a couple weeks just getting the papers, so that he can evaluate how important they are to his research.

      There have been many articles dealing with the expense and difficulty involved with getting research papers.

      Didn't some guy end up committing suicide, not for having the papers, but for the persecution that resulted from making it easier to get papers?

  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Saturday August 06 2016, @12:57PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Saturday August 06 2016, @12:57PM (#384746)

    Artists have to move past copyright

    Copyright is what allows me to say that someone can't (legally) take stuff I created and pawn it off as their own. Copyright is what allows me to demand that when somebody sells a copy of a track I created, they have to pay me royalties of some kind. Both of those things are vitally important for people who create things that can be easily copied.

    No, what I think needs to change is that copyright return to its original purpose, which was a restriction placed by the creator of a creative work on the publishers of creative works, rather than a restriction by publishers on the readers. It didn't restrict some random person with a pen and paper from copying as much as they wanted to by hand. And we could do this with a relatively simple modification to the copyright law: In order to count as a copyright violation, you have to be attempting to earn money from the copyrighted work, and/or pretending the copyrighted work is actually your own. That change would make filesharing, free streaming, etc completely legal.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
    • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday August 06 2016, @04:17PM

      by bzipitidoo (4388) on Saturday August 06 2016, @04:17PM (#384776) Journal

      > Copyright is what allows me to say that someone can't (legally) take stuff I created and pawn it off as their own.

      No, copyright wasn't for stopping plagiarism, it is exactly what its name says, the right to make copies, no more. When you sell your copyright, your name still stays on your creation, the buyer can't legally change that, only now someone else can legally make copies of your work. Have to agree to ghostwriting for a change in who gets credit. But many people think copyright does stop plagiarism, and it has been used for that purpose which is rather like nailing Al Capone for tax evasion because they couldn't get him for alcohol distribution. That confusion is one of the things keeping copyright alive.

      Laws and social expectations against plagiarism, misrepresentation, and fraud are what stops others from pawning your creations as theirs. We don't need copyright to stop plagiarism, we can and do have bans specifically against plagiarism.

      > In order to count as a copyright violation, you have to be attempting to earn money from the copyrighted work

      I am in favor of abolishing copyright. It seems an artificial limitation on the natural right to learn. But some means of imposing a levy on profits from copying could possibly work, and I've been thinking about that.