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| Was talking to a friend yesterday who's finishing up his MBA about the upcoming OFC FL Jam and he told me about these lawsuits and cease and desist orders:
YouTube guitar lessons pulled
Music Industry Shaking Down Coffee Shops
The sounds of silence in Bernal Heights
Bar Performer Arrested For Copyright Violations
Just WTF is going on, and have any of you experienced this first hand? Since when is singing a cover at an open mic night a crime? |
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Location: Scotland | Singing copyrighted material is not a crime. However if a venue allows performers to use copyrighted material and have not paid the appropriate fees to the relevant copyright protection agencies, then they are breaking the law. Personally I fully support this. All venues are required pay a fee which allows them to exploit copyrighted material, either in live performances, background music, karaoke (barf!) etc. In the UK the fee varies according to venue capacity and frequency of use. The venues have to pay this, not the performers, and anyone who owns published copyrights is entitled to receive a share of this.
While it seems they may be going for easy targets, open-mic nights are a means to generate trade and sell beer, coffee or whatever. If copyrighted material is used to this end then the owners of the copyright should be paid.
The you tube guitar lessons thing seems a little draconian, but I can see both sides of it, and if they are going to enforce copyright then they need to be consistent. |
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Location: Utah | Yes, yest they are.
"They got me pegged as a small guy who won't fight" I think that owner got it right. The threat of lawsuits is being used to extort payment from small businesses that cannot afford tens of thousands of dollars to fight back.
In the Salt Lake area, there are a number of venues with open mics which only permit original music. |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | In regard to the youtube part, while I can´t say I do lessons off of youtube, when I´m learning a song, I´ll go to youtube first and watch a couple cover versions. Gives you ideas. I´d hate to see them take down the cover versions, it´s a great tool.
The one thing you can do, is that the moment you see a version you like download it to your computer so you can keep forever.
Does anyone here know how long a copyright lasts? |
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Location: Latitude 39.56819, Longitude -105.080066 | In the one story, the annual fee of under $700 did not seem out of line....actually I thought it was reasonable considering that the music was causing crowds that went into the street. I would imagine the bar made more than enough profit from one Sunday to pay the annual fees.
The common theme seems to be that the letters and the companies are abrasive and rude. Maybe a centralized website for registration and payment would solve a lot of the problems.
You tube lessons were not for profit and ultimately exposed more people to good music. I think that part is bullshit! |
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| I'm by no means opposed to an artist/composer receiving royalties for their work. I'm on several patents for intellectual property (the patents being owned by the university, of course) and I would expect appropriate royalties should those IPs be developed and marketed.
What I find disturbing is the unwillingness of ASCAP to negotiate a settlement with the bar owner in SF and their pursuit of punitive damages, and even I'm even more disturbed by the YouTube story.
Does this mean that *every* music instructor (including high school marching bands, chorales, praise/worship performers in church who perform newer material, and the stay-at-home mom down the street who gives piano lessons) must either pay an annual licensing fee to ASCAP or risk losing everything? |
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Location: Scotland | Originally posted by an4340:
Does anyone here know how long a copyright lasts? It's changed recently but it was several decades after the death of the writer, after which it becomes known as Public Domain. If you record public domain material you pick up a percentage of the royalties as if it was yours. Same with "Trad Arr" when you record or perform your arrangement of a traditional song. |
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Location: Scotland | Originally posted by FlySig:
Yes, yest they are.
"They got me pegged as a small guy who won't fight" I think that owner got it right. The threat of lawsuits is being used to extort payment from small businesses that cannot afford tens of thousands of dollars to fight back.
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Location: Scotland | Originally posted by g8r:
Does this mean that *every* music instructor (including high school marching bands, chorales, praise/worship performers in church who perform newer material, and the stay-at-home mom down the street who gives piano lessons) must either pay an annual licensing fee to ASCAP or risk losing everything? [/QB] Schools, school bands, churches etc should already be paying fees, usually at reduced educational or charitable rates. Individual private music lessons are not considered a "public performance" so really do not come under the remits of the protection agencies |
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| Thanks, Paul. Didn't know that. |
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Location: NJ | The amount of payment the proprietor has to make is based on the "potential" amount of people that would be exposed to the material. They pay the same kind of "rates" for Cable TV, SatelliteRadio, theYesNetwork, etc.
Schools & Marching Bands & such pay this when they buy the musical arrangements for the musicians to play. Even schools who put on plays & musical productions have to pay licensing fees to the authors/rights owners, AND they might not be allowed to even DO it if there is a professional production being performed within a certain radius.
I saw on the CO News this weekend that there's been a big nation-wide "surge" to put on local productions of Disney's "HighSchoolMusical". Evidently, Disney is dicounting/waiving the licensing fees on a goodly part of them. |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | Lifetime, plus several decades.
Let's see, Hank Williams died in 1952, it's now more than 50 years later. All right, I'm good to go. |
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Location: Atlanta, GA. | I think the licensing fees also apply to businesses that have a juke box.
Either the business or the owner of the machine (if it's leased/rented) is responsible.
Then again, I could be wrong... |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Procan, the Canadian artists rights society, approached me about paying for a license in my restaurant because I was playing cds that were appropriate to my business.
I decided to just play the radio where they already pay licensing fees for public broadcast.
Some situations escalate just because of the personalities involved.....and restaurantuers are known to be such a calm, and gentle lot.... |
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Location: Scotland | Originally posted by fillhixx:
I decided to just play the radio where they already pay licensing fees for public broadcast.
In the UK, if a radio broadcast can be heard by members of the public, or a radio is used by employees of a business but can be heard by the public, then that will constitute a "public performance" and a PRS licence will be required. Stores playing background music need a licence. I have a friend who owns a hairdressing salon with maybe 6 or 8 chairs and she had a visit from a Performing Rights Society investigator to check if she was using a radio or CD player. |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Different countries, different laws.
Plus the negotiating skills of the parties involved. |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | I'm good for La Bamba and Worried Man Blues, too. |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | A quick internet search for the US showed:
(Condensing the law to its essence)
Pre-1978 95 years after creation
Post-1978 Lifetime plus 70 years
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#hlc
Let's see, Hank Williams died in 1952 at 29 years old. Let's say he wrote I saw the light in 1948, 95 years later would be 2043. Cr@p. I'll have to go to england. |
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Location: Colorado Rocky Mountains | Our Praise Band purchases sheet music from the publishers and with that purchase comes the right to perform it during a service.
Back in the 80's when I was on the Board of Directors for a semi-professional community theater organization, I was exposed to the licensing process related to public performance of copyrighted material. The fees were all based on venue, number of performances, and ticket sales. With respect to Broadway musicals, the fees would vary from show to show, but for 12 performances in a 250 seat venue, the fee was, as I recall, between $25,000 and $40,000 for a fully staged production. This fee was always the most significant item in the project budget. After the show was over, all the scores had to be cleaned (pencil marks erased) and returned to the publisher. Making copies of anything copyrighted was out of the question, although individual performers were known to make personal copies of their assigned material to facilitate their own personal use. |
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Location: Nashville TN. | Originally posted by Paul Templeman:
Originally posted by an4340:
Does anyone here know how long a copyright lasts? It's changed recently but it was several decades after the death of the writer, after which it becomes known as Public Domain. If you record public domain material you pick up a percentage of the royalties as if it was yours. Same with "Trad Arr" when you record or perform your arrangement of a traditional song.
Old copyrights were 17 years and needed to renewed
or it went into the public domain. |
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Location: Nashville TN. | Originally posted by PEZ:
Originally posted by Paul Templeman:
Originally posted by an4340:
Does anyone here know how long a copyright lasts? It's changed recently but it was several decades after the death of the writer, after which it becomes known as Public Domain. If you record public domain material you pick up a percentage of the royalties as if it was yours. Same with "Trad Arr" when you record or perform your arrangement of a traditional song.
Old copyrights were 17 years and needed to renewed
or it went into the public domain. |
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Location: Scotland | Originally posted by PEZ:
new copyrights are life of author plus 50 years.
Old copyrights were 17 years and needed to renewed
or it went into the public domain. Not exactly. This is taken directly from Donald Passmans book, "All You Need To Know About The Music Business" which is not a book I'd choose to read normally, but I'm teaching a music business module at my local college, and it's considered to be something of a Bible.
These are the main points in US copyright duration
pre 1978 copyrights lasted 28 years from the publication of the work, and were renewable for a further 28, making a total of 56 years. If you forgot to renew the work became PD. In 1992 Congress pased a law making renewal automatic.
In 78 the duration was changed by the 1976 Copyright Law to life of author plus 50 years. It also extended the 56 year term (for work created pre-78) by 19 years to 75 years.
In 1998, in memory of Sonny Bono, Congress added a further 20 years, giving pre-78 work (if they were still under copyright) a total of 95 years, and post-78 stuff became life of author + 70 years. |
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Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | check out that link for the fed gov above. |
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Location: south east Michigan | I had a YouTube guitar lesson listed in my favorites.
It's gone. |
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Location: Keepin' It Weird in Portland, OR | I just checked my favorite Guitar Lessons link from Down-Under...
He's still there, :D but I'm almost skeered to say who it is! :( |
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Location: Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey | I understand that writers should be paid for their work, but I think there is a big difference between illegal downloading of music and a musician playing music in a pub to an audience of 20 or 30 people. I would think that it would cost them more to hire people to go out and investigate these small places than the licenses would be worth. Not to mention the fact that exposing songs to people is a form of promotion. I've had many occasions where people would come up and ask me the name of a song and the name of the artist. I'm not saying that I've ever sold any CD's, but you never know. |
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Location: NJ | Interesting point, John . . .
After they've bought the CD, do they come back the following month and ream you out for butchering the song?? . . .
:D |
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Location: NJ | Mind you, . . . I'M speaking from "experience" . . . ;) |
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Location: Lake Hiawatha, New Jersey | Originally posted by cliff:
Interesting point, John . . .
After they've bought the CD, do they come back the following month and ream you out for butchering the song?? . . .
:D Surprisingly, it hasn't happened yet. |
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Location: Waurika OK | I am all for the creators of music, books, etc getting paid for their work. I also am for those same folks under contract to various portions of the music industry getting their due from the industry. Too many horror stories, at least in the past, about singers, writers, getting screwed out of their due rewards.
What about the OFC jams at the tour? Tim Chapman rightly reminds us to go to the nursing homes, will that come to an end? A few friends getting together and a few non players listening? A bunch of kids at summer camp puting on a skit?
If this is carried out too far it will eventially hurt the music industry and discourage new talent that needs a place to grow and develop.
One good thing, it might be the death knell of karaoke!!! |
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Location: NJ | On the new David Gilmour DVD, there's a scene where the whole crew is celebrating a bandmembers's birthday in a restaurant.
The scene starts off with everyone singing, but the audio is dead silent. The following caption pops up:
". . Due to Copyright Infringement Laws, please sing your Birthday Wishes to "________" Here . ."
The audio comes back just on the last note.
It was quite funny. |
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Location: south east Michigan | Didn't Google recently buy YouTube for something like a ba-ga-zillion dollars???
Now that there is big money being thrown around they are looking to squeeze Google for a check.
Heck... Google can probably afford it. Let them carve out a half percent of their sales, become "legal", then reap the benifits of increased traffic. |
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Location: Scotland | Originally posted by xnoel:
What about the OFC jams at the tour? Tim Chapman rightly reminds us to go to the nursing homes, will that come to an end? This is almost hysteria. Legitimate venues, such as hotels or the ski-lodge should already have licences, so where's the problem? Whether they would be bothered about occasional not-for-profit performances in private non-commercial property is another matter, but they'd need to be aware of it first. Either way I'd suspect not. |
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Location: ms | As i have posted before i`ve been on the loosing end of this . I lost about two years of air play royalties that cannot be collected due to a mistake by the label. Sales royalties are easer to recoup. |
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Location: Yucaipa, California | Tim Chapman rightly reminds us to go to the nursing homes, will that come to an end? Whenever we play at the Rest Homes, we are representing our Church as the "Elder Care Music Ministry" and as such, we are covered by the Church's license. That license covers performances (by members or guests) in the Church proper as well as Church Sponsored performances elsewhere. If we were to branch out on our own, we should either 1) procure the license ourselves, 2) play only venues which have the license or 3) play only PD material.
Public Domain material seems also to be in a rather "grey" area, in that if you cover a PD "arrangement" that is in (for example) a Hal Leonard book, they may have the rights to that particular arrangement. |
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Location: Campbell River, British Columbia | Fortunately, in the free world, no one is watching every single step you take.
No one (sane) is going after one-night coffee houses and free performances in old folks homes.
But when someone is making a major part of their living off someone else's intellectual property, written or recorded, some day an artists right representative will come calling. Even then, it's just a chat about how things work. (even though we all know, things don't work perfectly.) |
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Are RIAA and ASCAP out of control?