Category Archives: Piracy

Copyright, Derivative Works, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit, Unsung Heroes

RANT ALERT: Copyright, Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame and The Walking Dead

BUSINESS MODEL PROTECTIONISM

It’s pretty pathetic how the entertainment industries need to get governments to pass laws and update laws every time there is a shift in technology. Remember, back in the Eighties, when the boss of the MPAA Jack Valenti proclaimed at a Senate Congressional Hearing that the VCR’s are to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone. Yep, that is right, the head of the MPAA said that in 1982.

Fast forward a decade later and VHS sales of movies proved to be a very very large income source for the movie industry. So if the MPAA had their way, this technological innovation would have been killed at the beginning. Sort of like how the music industry reacted when Napster exploded. And due to that poor reaction, they allowed piracy to grow and due to their unwillingness to license Spotify, they allowed YouTube to become the unofficial streaming king.

All of this innovation happened because of copyright infringement. If all of the innovators followed the law or asked permission from the Record Labels to go ahead, well, no innovation would have been possible, because hey, any innovation in the entertainment industry that is not controlled by the gatekeepers is like the Boston Strangler to their business profits.

Let’s get one thing straight. Copyrights have been infringed forever by consumers of music and it still hasn’t killed off the music business. The difference now is that the main holders of Copyright are large corporations called Record Labels, who have the cash to go all nuclear with lawyers on people that violate that copyright.

So when it comes to negotiating new laws for copyright, it is these large and cashed up business entities that are lobbying politicians.

So what we have is a disconnect. The copyright industries want the tech industries to introduce measures to reduce piracy. The copyright industries want ISP’s to introduce measures to reduce piracy. The copyright industries want Governments to introduce measures to reduce piracy. The copyright industries want Judges to introduce measures to reduce piracy. Basically, the copyright industries want everyone else to help them, however they choose to do nothing themselves in terms of innovation.

Call it the last screams of the ENTITLEMENT EXECUTIVES.

That is why take down requests from copyright holders are going through the stratosphere. The Entertainment Industries are abusing a law by trying to catch a site that is NON-COMPLIANT. If the site that is hammered with the robotic takedowns doesn’t comply then they could be held liable.

This is not what copyright is designed to do.

Copyright was always designed so that the creator of a piece of work is granted a certain monopoly on their works and by that grant they can then sell their right to copy their work to another entity in exchange for a fee. A quick search of Google for the definition of Copyright states that it is “the exclusive and assignable legal right, given to the originator for a fixed number of years, to print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material.”

So now add “The Record Label” to the definition. The definition would read something like this;

“The exclusive and assignable legal right granted to the originator who then sells that right to a corporation for a fixed number of years (in some cases, for their whole life plus 70 years) so that the corporation can print, publish, perform, film, or record literary, artistic, or musical material.”

Burton C Bell from Fear Factory didn’t know how much his songs were worth when he signed his first contract with Roadrunner Records.

Imagine a young up and coming sports star who is signed to an NBA club for peanuts and then after a season or two, shows that they are really a star athlete. Two things would happen to that sports star. The NBA club that they are with will either up their contract to match their new-found stardom or a new NBA club will swoop in and make them an offer they cannot refuse.

Fear Factory showed Roadrunner that they are a star athlete. Instead of getting a better royalty deal they got the same rubbish for 20 years plus. Instead of being allowed to negotiate with other labels and getting a transfer to test their net worth, they got locked into a restrictive contract with terrible payment rates.

Copyright is too distorted and removed from what it was intended to do. It needs a rethink and a massive re-write. The kids of today, the ones that pirate, will one day step up into government and then, change will happen.

THE WALKING DEAD

It’s passed its prime.

The last half of Season 4 was by far the worst. It is a yawn fest of massive proportions. The only two episodes worth talking about so far is the Rick Grimes House episode. The house when the group that Daryl is with right now decided to crash it.

And the other one was the Carol episode with the two little sisters. However I still have issues with that episode, as I saw it just an episode put there to shock, instead of progressing the story line.

AMC is down two big shows in “Breaking Bad” and “Mad Men”, so they are pumping all of their resources into milking TWD.

Seriously spin offs. It only dilutes the main brand. Think of “Law And Order” or “CSI”. They had so many spin offs it got to a point of silliness.

The main show runners in Frank Darabont and Glen Mazzara got booted for various reasons, with TWD comic creator Robert Kirkman being behind the Mazzara booting. One thing I can say is that comic book writers should stick to comic books. They are not TV show runners.

Frank Darabont got the TV show up and running. It is the house that Darabont built in it’s tone, settings and style. Not Robert Kirkman.

Prior to the show exploding, The Walking Dead comics had a cult niche following. Now it has a popular culture following. And that is because of the TV show. Not because of the comics. The comics provided the story, however how original is the story when the whole Zombie genre is copyright free.

I actually went and purchased the comics recently for my Christmas Present. And that is because of the show.

ROCK’N’ROLL HALL OF FAME

They call themselves “leaders in the music industry” that joined together to establish the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.

Joe Elliott from Def Leppard called it as it is. Elliot called them a “board room of faceless tuxedo-wearing morons” who decide such things based on their own determination of what’s cool. And with that, a final lyrical quote from the great James Hetfield

“Who made you God to say”

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

The Piracy Conversation: The Good and The Bad

Anyone heard of this beautiful new piece of software called “Popcorn Time”. There are no registrations, or restrictions on content. It looks like Netflix and it is free. The user just presses play. It’s easy to use and its design is elegant.

Did you also know that “Popcorn Time” was designed by programmers in Argentina, where the movie “There’s Something About Mary” is still classed as a new release by the movie industries in that country.

So of course, the “Popcorn Time” development team created an innovative piece of software to meet a service problem for their country because the content industries failed to. There is a reason why South America has the highest rates of copyright infringement when it comes to music. Access to content is not serviced in an affordable way.

Of course the creators shut the service down when their “experiment” put them at the doors of legal threats around piracy and copyright infringement.

However the saga did not end. Remember that the internet is a copy system. So of course, the source code was made available and now other programmers took over the open-source code and made it available to people once again.

Hollywood is not up against people who want to be millionaires. They are up against educated people who want to create something new to solve a problem that they have in their home country. If the developers followed the “laws” then “Popcorn Time” would never exist. The restrictions around copyright and patents would have killed it in the start-up phase.

To compete, Hollywood needs to employ the best and the best don’t want to work for companies who see innovation as a way to prop up profits from the past. They want to work for companies who see innovation as a way to stay ahead of other companies.

So the best minds go into business for themselves, or for companies that meet their expectations or they just stay in their bedroom and innovate without the law in mind.

We all know that piracy is wrong, however it opens up the conversation to the larger issue.

Let’s put into context what piracy/copyright infringement has done.

THE BAD

It made the RIAA spend millions suing music customers.

THE GOOD

While Apple started to see a market here and began to turn those Napster digital natives into iTunes buyers by making it easy to grab the latest music, anywhere, at any time.

THE BAD

It made the RIAA/Record Labels sue/kill off thousands of technologies that would have given them better profits if they only had the foresight to innovate instead of legislate. Think of Napster, Limewire, mp3tunes and many others.

THE GOOD

With the rise of Spotify/Pandora, the music piracy problem is declining and the labels are now cashed up

THE BAD

Artists are not seeing a lot of it.

THE GOOD

Piracy opened the door for format shifting.

THE BAD

The music industry introduced DRM and the ones that got hurt by it were the ones that actually paid money to purchase the product while the pirates bathed in DRM free mp3’s.

THE GOOD

YouTube piracy has also led to another source of income. It’s actually official now that record labels make more money from fan-made videos uploaded to YouTube than they do from their official music videos. Check it out on the link at the end of the post. And this is coming from Universal Music Group.

THE BAD

And still the labels send out billions of takedowns to these kinds of videos on YouTube because they still see fan made videos as a breach of copyright.

THE GOOD

However, YouTube has innovated even more and now the label is notified when a user uploads copyrighted content. The label can then choose to place advertising before the video, making royalties from the views.

THE BAD

And the labels/RIAA still scream that Google (the owner of YouTube) isn’t doing enough to protect their profits.

THE GOOD

YouTube fan made pirated videos is a massive growth area alright.

THE BAD

How much is the artist seeing? Again a lot of power in the hands of the label and a lot of money coming into the label accounts for work done by fans this time around. These monies should be at least 70% to the artist.

THE GOOD

Basically, piracy has also highlighted how broken Copyright is. The pure essence of Copyright has been hijacked by the Corporations that now hold the majority of copyrights. To further show how broken it is, Sir Tim Berners-Lee (one of the main creators of the World Wide Web) has called for a copyright reform passage to be included in any new legislation written as part of the “Web We Want” initiative. He further stated that the current law is purely there to protect the interests of movie producers, not the public at large.

THE BAD

The labels see piracy as a case for even more draconian copyright legislation and even longer terms post death.

THE GOOD

Piracy has opened up more distribution channels

THE BAD

However the “Popcorn Time” software has shown that the current movie industry is still employing the old distribution model.

THE GOOD

However, Netflix has shown the movie industry that fans of movies and TV want content on demand/twenty-four hours a day for a fair price. And Popcorn Time has shown that they want top-tier content.

THE BAD

Google is still blamed for not doing enough.

THE GOOD

Because the future is in streaming for music and video.

THE BAD

However the RIAA and the MPAA are doing their best to kill it. Pandora had to raise their fees to cover the cost of licensing the songs. Plus they also had an expensive lawsuit in relation to the royalty rate paid on a radio stream. While the movie studios still lock content away.

THE GOOD

Legacy analog revenue sources get replaced by digital revenue sources. It’s a transition right now. The transition isn’t happening fast enough for the labels however it is their fault in the end. As their need to control has more or less slowed the transition process down.

THE BAD

It is a shame that the RIAA and the record labels focus on the shortfalls between analog and digital revenues at this point in time, instead of looking at the bigger picture.

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/3/21/technology/how-video-piracy-killing-hollywood-star

http://techcrunch.com/2014/03/17/popcorn-time-is-hollywoods-

http://www.themusicnetwork.com/youtube-fan-videos-earn-labels-

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/pandora-raises-

http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140317203156-

http://www.businessspectator.com.au/article/2014/3/21/technology/tuning-musics-digital-struggle

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Copyright Innovation V7.0 – More Legal Crap and No Innovation

You know Copyright is all wrong, when you have a composer of several Motown hits combines copyright law with divorce law. Seriously, how much more distorted can copyright get.

Smokey Robinson is seeking a declatory judgement against his ex-wife. You see, Robinson is reclaiming the rights to his pre-1978 songs from Jobete Music Co. Robinson’s main problem is that his ex-wife (since 1985) believes she should be entitled to 50% of whatever income these songs generate and she has filed suit to ensure that happens.

It looks like to me that everyone tries to twist copyright law to suit themselves. It’s that whole ENTITLEMENT argument.

The labels claim that all pre-1978 songs are “works of hire”.

Smokey Robinson claims that his ex-wife isn’t entitled to his profits but his heirs are.

A judge ordered YouTube to take down a movie based on a copyright claim of the actor.

Rightscorp (a copyright troll) is ordering ISP’s to pass on fines to it’s customers like the “Thought Police” from 1984.

Or maybe your a Dutch collection society who just won a court decision to have a “pirate tax” on every storage device, because, hey, every storage device, smartphone, tablet and PC MUST be used to store media files. Talk about entitlement. And they had to balls to say that it is all in the name of “protecting artists.”

Like the three strikes policy that the lobby groups keep pushing. All in the name of “protecting artists”. Did you know that in Ireland, it has been in place for 4 years with one ISP and no pirates have been disconnected. In New Zealand the ISP’s are still arguing with the Entertainment industries over who should foot the bill. Since the Entertainment industry doesn’t want to foot the bill, nothing much is really happening.

It’s pretty obvious that these legislated policies do not work however they still come up in the public conversation. Australia is another country talking about a three strikes scheme.

And all of them are to “protect the artist”. However the artist doesn’t see an increase in their bank balance.

So there you have it, another solid week of copyright innovation from the entertainment industries.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140308/08430726495/smokey-robinson-sues-ex-wife-to-prevent-her-claiming-50-his-recaptured-motown-hits.shtml

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140307/07424226477/dutch-supreme-court-agrees-to-let-rights-group-collect-back-you-must-be-pirate-taxes-mp3-players-hard-drives.shtml#comments

http://torrentfreak.com/three-strikes-isp-no-pirates-disconnected-in-four-years-140313/

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What Metal and Rock Labels Should Be Doing?

One thing is clear when it comes to the digital music market. It is constantly evolving. Apple is trying it’s hardest to retain its competitive advantage as streaming services start to reduce the number of downloads they sell. We can safely say that Apples monopoly on download sales is more or less over.

Across the board, song downloads are down and digital album sales are down. CD sales have been declining for a long time as well.

So what do we have at the moment. Streaming is growing in popularity and YouTube is still there, the unofficial streaming monolith. As fans of music we are using our smartphones to stream music instead of downloading it.

So if you are a metal or a rock label like Frontiers, Century Media or Nuclear Blast and you have all the above information in front of you, what do you do?

1. Don’t hold back music from streaming services. It’s not about sales anymore. It’s about who is listening to it.

2. Corporate deals/exclusives alienate the fans while it brings a return on investment to the record label.

3. If piracy sites make so much money from offering mp3’s for free, why don’t the record labels get into the same act. Get into bed with BitTorrent. High piracy rates today will lead to payola in the years to come. Volbeat were streaming stars in Denmark and Sweden before they even broke through in America. Moby’s “Innocents” BitTorrent bundle was downloaded 8.9 million times. Expect 20% of those customers to purchase the next album and expect 50% of those customers to attend a live show from Moby.

4. iTunes is finished as a main income source much in the same way CD’s are over. Sure, hobbyist will still purchase, however the fans have moved to streaming.

5. Streaming is not the enemy. To use a non-metal or rock example, hip hop artist Schoolboy Q had his “Oxymoron,” album heavily promoted on Spotify. In a smart promotional move, they released the album on Spotify months ahead of the album physical and digital release and by the time it got released, 3.3 million streams got racked up and in its first week of release it sold over 130,000 copies. The first two earlier albums, “Setbacks” and “Habits & Contradictions,” sold 17,000 and 48,000 units respectively.

6. It’s not a great marketing strategy to dictate to fans how they can consume that band’s music. People want uniqueness and those special packages. People want to stream. People want to download mp3’s for free. People will download mp3’s and pay for it. People will buy a CD/DVD package. People will download a free app, if they know that it contains the whole album. If “Flappy Bird” was making money from a free app, why wouldn’t music artists make money.

7. The label is in the recording business to make money. The best way to make money is to have deals in place that is a win-win for both the label and the artist.

8. Sales are not a measure of success anymore. I was following the band Otherwise after their album “True Love Never Dies” was released in 2012. Each week they moved 400 to 700 units in the U.S. They were also on tour with 3 Doors Down and Daughtry. By delivering on stage, they saw sales resonate. Eventually all those small amounts started to add up into 10,000. Then 20,000 and so on. Spotify shows the song “Soldiers” at 937,417 streams. The song “I Don’t Apologize” with 768,304 streams. “Die For You” has 402,458 streams. The “Soldiers” official video on the Century Media channel has over 1.7m views.

Smaller returns today, will lead to greater returns in a few years. It’s all about longevity.

As a label, YOU WANT YOUR ARTISTS TO LAST and STAY TOGETHER. It is about outlasting the competition.

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Copyright, Music, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Copyright In The Modern Day. It’s Not About Driving Innovation Anymore.

It’s all about stopping copyright infringement. It’s all about shaking down internet users. It’s all about a ridiculous and “out of touch with reality” penalty system. For example, if a user downloads one song, the RIAA have argued that the copyright holders are out of pocket between $20 to $10,000. It’s a huge mark-up from its iTunes price of $1US.

When discussions are had on Copyright, it’s all about the enforcement. It’s all about creating a monopoly. The ones that sit on the innovation fence are shouted down to from the ones that control/hold the Copyrights.

There is a great article over at The Conversation website. Go read it. Journalist David Glance has a lot of viewpoints that I agree with.

The thing is, people have been “copyright infringers” since day dot. Anyone that remembers cassette tapes, will tell you how they used to copy songs from recordings onto a cassette tape. James Hetfield used to copy Lars Ulrich’s record collection onto cassettes.

We used to copy songs from the radio onto cassettes. We used to copy movies from TV onto VHS cassettes. Then we got even more creative and hooked up two videos at once to make copies of the latest releases. With the advent of the CD and blank discs, we started making mixed CD’s. When Napster exploded, people flocked to it.

Richie Sambora was a guest host on “The Panel”, a TV Current Affairs/News show on Channel Ten in Australia. This happened last week. There was a segment on Spotify and how streaming has led a slump in music sales. One of the members of the panel asked Richie Sambora, how many records has he sold. Richie replied back with “about 130 to 140 million records”. Richie then further stated that piracy was big even in the days before the internet, as pirated Bon Jovi LPs, cassettes and CD’s sold like hotcakes in Asian, African and Eastern European countries.

So I did some research on this and I came across the Moscow Peace Festival. The Moscow Peace Festival took place in 1989. Hard Rock and Heavy Metal music was hard to get “legally” in Russia, however it didn’t stop over 100,000 people from attending the show to watch Skid Row, Ozzy Osbourne, Scorpions, Motley Crue and Bon Jovi perform.

All of those fans of music must have gotten their music from somewhere. Actually musical sales in the USSR at that point in time didn’t even exist. Hell, it wasn’t until 2010 that the National Federation of Phonograph Producers (NFPF) was established in Russia. And they don’t even have a website. All of this shows how serious the legal music business is treated in Russia.

All of this supports the argument that we are all copyright infringers. Governments need to look at how people adopt these laws and change them to suit. Instead the Governments look at who puts money in their pocket and add more bad laws to existing bad laws.

Australian Attorney-General George Brandis has got no idea what is happening in the real world or how the internet works. His comments show that he is just a puppet for the Movie Industry Lobby Machine. Check out some of his comments;

To pirate a video or a song without paying the fee for it through iTunes, and so on, is an act of theft, it’s pure and simple.

Um, no. To infringe on a copyright is not an act of theft, as the mp3 is still with iTunes. No one has stolen it. What has happened is that multiple copies of that mp3 are in circulation right now. People pirated Adele’s 21 album, however all of that piracy didn’t stop it from moving over 10 million units in the US because no one stole anything. They infringed on an artist’s copyright. Something that fans of music have been doing since day dot.

When people, pirate “Game Of Thrones”, they don’t steal the original master copy from HBO. What they do is download a copy that someone made from the actual legal broadcast.

The ISPs, in my view, do need to take some responsibility for this because they provide the facility which enables this to happen.

Um. No. ISP’s don’t need to take responsibility for bad business sense and business models designed on controlling distribution. To provide a few different analogies, should the gun manufacturers take responsibility for their guns killing people. Should car manufacturers be responsible when their cars kill other people due to high speeds. Should the knife manufacturers be responsible when knives are used for violence. Should gas bottle manufacturers be held responsible for when their gas bottles are used in drug laboratories. Should alcohol brewing companies be held responsible for all the alcohol fuelled violence.

It is easy to lay the blame on others. However it is the record labels that need to take responsibility. They still don’t get it. People want FREE music. Spotify provides a service that is free, however it is still seen as restrictive and people still go to other torrent sites to download content. And then the recording industry claims that these sites make so much money from running ads on their site. If that is the case, then why isn’t the recording industry offering the same service and make that same money.

They don’t want to, because that would mean that their margins will shrink a little bit more and that is all they think about. The NOW. What is the plan for the future? A small return today, could lead to a greater return in 5 year’s time.

The fact is that people don’t have a right to download pirate copies of songs or movies or television programs because the people who make those programs or other items have a right of property in them. The way artists earn their living is through royalties and that’s the way they are remunerated for what they do.

Um no, artists have never made a living from royalties. The record labels have. Artists previously made a living from touring, licensing, merchandise and large advance payments. In today’s world, the main revenue streams are disrupted, however other revenue streams have opened up.

http://theconversation.com/copyright-reform-will-drive-innovation-not-trying-to-stop-the-internet-pirates-23286

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20140225/12341626346/australian-copyright-reform-goes-into-reverse-fair-use-out-three-strikes.shtml

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

The Labels Want To Be The Good Guys

The labels want to be the good guys. They really do. However their lobby group the RIAA does not carry itself it in public in a manner that is acceptable. They put across an image that all the labels are focused solely on the now and what money can be made now. They put across an image that all the labels have no interest in planning for the future. Then the labels follow suit, flying the bullshit flag from the RIAA.

Regardless of the labels motives and business sense, they will survive.

Read the financial reports on Universal Music Group. Spotify has propped up their bottom line and that bottom line will get better each year. And with money, comes power and relationships. So how do the major metal and rock labels rate in relation to influence and relationships.

Century Media Records and Nuclear Blast are still independent labels. While Century Records lost their cash cow “In This Moment” to Atlantic, Nuclear Blast gained a new cash cow in “Machine Head”. Looking at the rosters, Nuclear Blast has surrounded themselves with a stronger group of artists however Century Media are the ones out there trying to identify new talent. Both labels will be around for a long time.

Frontiers have become a major player in the classic rock, melodic rock and hard rock scene. Frontiers kept the flag of melodic rock flying high since 1996, when all of the other major labels put their monies into grunge first and then industrial rock/metal and then nu-metal. Now that they have traction, I am just confused as to what their business model is.

Let’s sign up all the classic popular artists from the Eighties and get them to re-record some of their classics along with new music. CHECK.
Let’s get artists from different bands together to do a super group project. CHECK.
Let’s get female singers to re-record melodic rock songs that the label president likes. CHECK.

What about identifying new talent and breaking that new talent to the masses with creative and innovative ideas? NOT CHECKED.

Metal Blade is still independent however with strong ties to Sony Music and Warner Music Group in relation to distribution while Roadrunner used to be owned by Universal between the years, 2000 and 2006 and after that, they are under the control of Warner Music Group.

Roadrunner is still the major player here, however with ties to Warner, expect them to be “RIGHT NOW” profit driven and be all about the HYPE. With all the corporate deals they organised on the new Dream Theater album, they would have made up the advanced money plus the recording costs and more.

Spinefarm Records is part of Universal Music Group, with a lot of power to operate independently. They are getting out there and signing new talent. However, like all of the above labels, they are stuck in the old way. And that is the ALBUM.

They just need to realise that it is not about the sales anymore. While Steaming numbers and revenue are still small today, in the long term the labels will be able to reap the benefits.

Why?

Because streaming is a regular recurring revenue business.

For example, I have been streaming “Strife” from Trivium non-stop. Each stream is regularly producing revenue for that song. If I purchased that same song as a download, the revenue produced would be at the time it was sold. Every time that I would have listened to “Strife” at home or on my iPod or on my smartphone would not have produced a cent. All that the band or label would have made from me is the sale of the downloaded song. However with streaming they will continue to make money long after the album is released.

So if anyone believes that streaming is bad for music and that it is going to kill the incentive to create new music, tell them they are uneducated. If bands or artists are complaining about their payments, then they need to negotiate better deals with their labels or get back their Copyrights.

Let’s put it this way, if Metallica is on Spotify, then the rates paid back to the COPYRIGHT HOLDERS (and Metallica do own their Copyright) must be good, because Lars Ulrich and Cliff Burnstein would not allow Metallica to enter a business arrangement that is not in their favour.

The real truth is that there is much more music out there than there has ever been, so the issues that are present to artist and labels is how do they get people’s attention directed towards that new music.

Personally, I don’t even know anybody who pirates music anymore. There is no reason to pirate and legitimate customers/fans would always turn to legal alternatives.

In relation to sales figures and charts. Goneski. No longer relevant. Sales (as a stand-alone measure) no longer means anything. Focusing on recording sales is old school thinking. It’s all about everything else today.

“Recording Sales Revenue” plus “Streaming Revenue” plus “YouTube Ad Revenue” plus “Ticket Revenue” plus “Merchandise Revenue” plus “Corporate Deals Revenue” plus “Sponsorship Revenue” plus “Publishing Revenue” plus “Licensing Revenue” and then decide if you are winning or not.

Again, if you are not seeing a lot of revenue, then you need to be speaking to your label, because if you have numbers in all of the above Revenue streams then something is a-miss contractually.

Another thing that the metal and hard rock labels need to understand is that they reside in a niche. The heyday of when that niche was mainstream is long gone. Today, certain artists might have a crossover song that many people will latch onto and then it is back to the niche.

“Adrenaline Mob” released “Men of Honor” last week and by the end of the second week it will be forgotten. The songs are great, the musicianship is great, so what is the problem. The hard core fans picked it up and everyone else doesn’t know about it. It’s a twenty four seven job staying in the public eye and it’s god damn hard. It’s the labels job to figure out it out, however the labels don’t want to spend the money to innovate, so what they do is get most of the hate directed towards them because of their monopolistic extortion like practices from back in the day.

If the labels want to be the good guys, they need to be more transparent. They need to call out the RIAA when they spin shit. They need to do be realists and sensible. And the main thing they need to understand is that the days of when they had control of the distribution channel are long gone. The profit margins from the CD sales are never coming back. So don’t dwell on the past and start to move forward.

http://theconversation.com/music-sales-slump-is-streaming-or-the-music-industry-to-blame-23901

http://www.billboard.com/biz/articles/news/5915732/spotify-drove-universal-musics-75-jump-in-streaming-revenue-last-year

http://torrentfreak.com/artists-think-instead-spewing-spotify-hate-140222

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Music Trends in Hard Rock and Heavy Metal – What’s On The Up and What’s On The Down

ON A DOWN SLOPE

DAUGHTRY

The band leader, Chris Daughtry messed up big time chasing the crowds of “Train” and “Imagine Dragons”. He was a hard rocker from day dot and that is what gave him his legion of fans. For the ill-fated and recent “Baptized” album, he committed career suicide, throwing his lot with the hit songwriters. The songs are good, however they are not Daughtry songs. It would have been better for him as an artist to have given those songs to other artists that are more electronic pop rock minded. Daughtry needs more music right away and they need it to ROCK.

RECORD LABELS

The major metal and rock labels will continue to sign the bands and artists that had success in the Eighties and Nineties and get those bands to release forgeries of their greatest hits. It’s all about locking up the songs under copyright. “He who owns a lot of copyrights, will make a lot of money in the future, when said artists are dead and buried.”

In relation to new bands, they will sing fewer bands on even more shittier deals and shift their efforts to breaking them. It doesn’t mean that we will pay attention. It will be bands from certain niche’s that will break out and we will gravitate to them.

Also no one wants to pay. Look at the APP business. The highest downloaded APPS are all free ones. And they are still making money. We are happy to provide our private data to Apple and Google, as long as we get what we want, with no strings attached. If a record label has a business model that is dependent upon people paying, re-evaluate.

KIRK HAMMETT

He is out of touch. We live in a world right now that is connected 24/7. A lot of those connections happen because of social media. So his recent, “Ivory Tower” comments about social media show just how out of touch he is. Also from seeing him play live on three occasions, he has made a career on the coat tails of James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich. Don’t believe me, watch the making of the Black album, especially the scene when Bob Rock tells him that the solo he just put down for “The Unforgiven” is garbage.

HYPE

We can see through the hype and we hate it. So much hype was around Dream Theater’s self titled release and it disappeared from the conversation within six weeks. Megadeth’s “Super Collider” is being outsold by the Black album. Daughtry’s “Baptized” took forever to record and it did nothing. You can’t have a song called “Long Live Rock N Roll” and not have it sounding anything like ROCK. It sounds like that one hit wonder song “I Wish I Was A Punk Rocker With A Flower In My Hair.”

RESPONSE SYSTEMS FOR COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT

NAPSTER showed the music business and the entertainment business at large, how fans of music, movies and books want to consume content. They want to download it easily, free of DRM, use it in any way they want and they want to do it for free.

For all of the talentless CEO’s that flew in private jets off the hard work by the artists, this was a big NO NO. So off they went to their lobby group arms, the RIAA and MPAA and they started to lobby hard the governments. The various sister associations around the world started to do the same thing. The best thing they could come up with is a graduated response system, financed by the ISP’s. It failed in France. It failed in New Zealand. In the U.S it is hard to tell, especially when you have a copyright troll like Rightscorp shaking down IP addresses. So if Rightscorp is sending shake down notices to ISP’s, then why does the US have a graduated response scheme?

The bottom line is this, the people who the RIAA and MPAA want to catch are years ahead of them in INNOVATION. And INNOVATION is what they should be focusing on.

THE ALBUM FORMAT

We are challenged with time and we only want the best. Since we are allowed to cherry pick, we will. Heavy Metal and Hard Rock artists need to understand they are in the hit business. It doesn’t matter if they are radio-friendly or not. Each band in each metal and rock genre, needs to create that song that hits us on the first listen.

That is why bands like Five Finger Death Punch, Avenged Sevenfold and Shinedown are so successful. They get the game. That is why Killswitch Engage is successful. Adam Dutkiewicz understands the power of a massive chorus. That is why Trivium is having a career. Over the course of all of their albums, they always had a song that had “hit potential” for the genre they are in.

Making money is hard. Just because a band releases an album, it doesn’t mean that we want to pay for it in its entirety, especially if it has got a couple of crap songs on it. It’s better to release 8 songs that a “certifiable smashes” instead of 12 songs that have four crap ones. However, it turns out the public still has time for Metallica’s “Black” album. It is still moving two to three thousand units a week and it is expected to pass 16 million by May.

Artists need to think about the no limits that digital offers them. We want the good stuff. Artists need to think about how they can provide us the good stuff, without resorting to the album format. Don’t base your career on dropping an album every two years. An artist needs to base their career on constant events.

GOING GOING ALMOST GONE

CLASSIC ROCK

The artists are on their last legs. Motley Crue is ceasing to tour, however stand alone shows, plus new music are still in the works. They have hit the same markets over and over again since their 2004 comeback and in between they have released 3 new songs on a “Greatest Hits” album, 13 new songs on “Saints of Los Angeles” and 1 new song in 2012. The train is slowly coming to a halt.

Aerosmith released a DUD. The train is not a rolling anymore for them. All up, Classic Rock bands have maybe have another 10 years left.

A transition is happening. The younger acts are generating touring dollars, playing smaller venues and at affordable prices. It’s happening.

ON THE UP

STORYTELLING

That is why TV shows are the most downloaded torrents of all time. Tell a good story and the world will be at your door step.

RICHIE SAMBORA

Seeing him in Australia, he is invigorated and he is having a blast. Not having to play second fiddle to Jon Bon Jovi, he is branching out again and this time, his roots are strong enough to balance his branches. The “Aftermath Of The Lowdown” is the best hard rock record from 2012 that went unnoticed because it was released so close to his Bon Jovi work.

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Innovation V5.0 – It Just Keeps Getting Better from Liberation Music and Rightscorp

Each week, the technology industry and the sites that enable copyright infringing are innovating at a rapid rate to stay ahead of the curve.

YIFY is one of the more popular torrent sites out there. Instead of resting on their laurels they are innovation even more. Read this article. You will see all the development that YIFY carries out. These are the people who the recording industry need to employ, not shutdown. But when the entertainment industry only cares about dollars, sites like YIFY that facilitate sharing are seen as the bad guys.

The funny thing in all of this, is that Napster showed the entertainment industries what people want 15 years ago. So why haven’t they listened. Spotify is trying to compete however it is failing because people still want to download a song for free and be able to do anything they want with it. And they want to do it easy and with no strings attached.

In relation to the entertainment industries, check out their “wonderful” innovation list.

This one has been going on for some time. Liberation Music sent a bogus take down notice to YouTube on a presentation that Larry Lessig posted back in June 2013. Now for those that don’t know, Larry Lessig is a famed professor and a copyright/fair use expert. So they picked the wrong guy to try to censor. Lessig then filed a counter-notice and Liberation threatened to sue for copyright infringement if Lessig didn’t retract his counter-notice.

So who is Liberation Music. Of course they have to be from the same country that I am from, good old Australian. So Liberation Music owns the Australian copyright for a song called “Lisztomania” by the band Phoenix. The Lessig presentation has a snippet of that music.

Let me get this straight. Liberation is an Australian label, who owns the copyright for a song in Australia only and then issues a bogus take down notice on an US presentation that has a tiny “fair use” snippet on it.

So in response, Lessig filed for declaratory judgment and sought damages for the bogus take down offer. Liberation finally came to its senses when it realised it was going to lose and agreed to settle the case with Lessig, paying him an undisclosed sum that Lessig then passed on to the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) who worked on the case.

Moving on to some innovative news, we have the latest internet troll Rightscorp at it again. This time they are trolling the torrent public trackers for IP addresses that are linked to the torrenting of songs that are on the Billboard 100. Nice business model if people actually get scared by the threats and pay. If they send out 10 million notices a year and 1 million pay the $20 infringement tax, then that is a cool $20 million.

Surely some of that money will go back to the artist, songwriter, producer or the performers. Innovation has ceased/never began for the Record Labels. All in the name of the guaranteed dollar.

http://torrentfreak.com/revealed-the-secrets-of-yify-torrents-network-140223/

http://torrentfreak.com/lawrence-lessig-wins-damages-for-bogus-youtube-takedown-140228/

http://torrentfreak.com/billboard-100-pirates-automated-fines-140227/

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Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Piracy

Jake E. Lee

A lot of people don’t know who Jake E Lee is. Do a survey and you will see. US sales for week ending February 5, 2014 had Red Dragon Cartel listed with 5,300 sold. Put those 5,300 people down as the hard-core fans. The niche. Now what. What is the next step for the album? It didn’t show up on any of the sales charts the following week.

In my view, sales of recorded music is not a true measure of success anyway. People still cling to it because they do not know how to do anything else. To use an example from the indie scene, Lorde was a streaming star before she became a sales star and the darling of the PR run mainstream media. Spotify broke Lorde.

I quickly previewed the new album on Spotify. I gave each song 1 minute, just to get a feel for it. Then I went back to Jake E Lee’s recording history just to re-visit what he has accomplished and get a feel for it. And then I went back to the Red Dragon Cartel album and gave it multiple listens.

It is a good listen, however there isn’t really a song on the Red Dragon Cartel album that can market the album. This is a problem in a world that only has time for the best. When Jake E Lee joined Ozzy, “Bark At The Moon” marketed the album, while “Shot In The Dark” marketed “The Ultimate Sin” album. When Badlands released their self titled debut, “High Wire” was the song that marketed the album, while “The Last Time” marketed “Voodoo Highway”.

“Bark At The Moon” was the first piece of music that fans of heavy metal heard from Ozzy Osbourne after the death of Randy Rhoads. And what an opening riff. The same riff that if you look at the albums credits is supposedly written by Ozzy Osbourne with one finger on the piano. The lyrics are written by Bob Daisley. Ozzy’s contribution is the title and the vocal melodies.

So it is fitting that the opening track “Decieved” from Red Dragon Cartel has a riff, very similar in style and structure. So it is fitting that the vocal melodies are styled from the Ozzy Osbourne vocal phrasing book. I have no issue with artists referencing the past.

“Shout It Out” sounds like it belongs on a Saliva album. Not that it’s a bad thing, it just wasn’t what I was expecting from Jake E Lee. “War Machine” sounded like a joke to me, however it does fall into the “progress is derivative” theme. The “War Pigs” intro then moves over into “N.I.B”

“Fall From The Sky” has a solo that is very reminiscent to the “You’re No Different” outro solo from Jake’s Ozzy’s days and “Redeem Me” captures the Badlands vibe.

Unfortunately, the Robin Zander (Feeder), Maria Brink (Big Mouth) and Paul DiAnno (Wasted) vocal songs just don’t resonate.

If there is a song to comes close to being “the song”, well that honour goes to “Slave”. It has the best of Jake E Lee. Metallic riffing, fast single note picking, tritone melodic infusions and it encompasses what Jake E Lee is all about. However, behind every great guitarist there needs to be a great singer. In this case, Jake has a decent singer and in today’s cut throat music, decent doesn’t cut it. We only have time for great. If the band decides to release more music, the decent voice needs to be great.

Regardless it is great to see Jake E Lee back in a band setting. Welcome back.

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Entertainment Industries Innovation V4.0 – When Will “Smoke On The Water” enter the Public Domain?

As a fan of music and the public domain it’s hard to understand why longer copyright durations are requested from the Corporations that control/hold the majority of copyrights. The majority of the music that I like was under copyright when I was born and by the time I die, it will still be under copyright. So how is that benefiting the creator in creating more works (who will be long gone) and the public who are meant to build off previous works because that is how culture thrives.

Remember, copyright was designed to give the creator a monopoly on their works for a certain period of time so that the creator can monetize their work, which in turn provides an incentive to create further works.

So without really realising it, we (the public) have a copyright law that more or less lasts a lifetime.

Let’s use “Smoke On The Water” as an example. It was released in 1972. Copyright on the work is meant to last the lifetime of the songwriters plus 70 years. The male life expectancy is 80 years. The songwriters listed for “Smoke On The Water” are Richie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Ian Paice, Roger Glover and Jon Lord (RIP).

Let’s start with Jon Lord. Due to his death in 2012, his copyright in the song will expire in 2082. However the song will still remain under copyright due to the later deaths of the other members.

Let’s assume that all of the members live to the life expectancy age of 80 years old. That would mean Richie Blackmore, Ian Gillan and Roger Glover would have an end date of 2025. Add another 70 years to that and the copyright that they hold in the song would expire in 2095. However at this point in time the song is still under copyright.

Ian Paice is born in 1948, therefore his life expectancy end date would be 2028. Add another seventy years to that and the copyright monopoly held by the corporations on “Smoke On The Water” will finally expire in 2098, 126 years after the song was released. That is when, the public (provided that no more retroactive extensions are added) are allowed to use the song to build other works and derivative versions.

So the next time a copyright maximalist insists that copyright has an expiry date, tell them they are full of it. Copyright in reality has no expiry date during our life time. Remember in the US, the “Copyright Term Extension Act” extended the copyright of old works that should have been in the Public Domain to 2019.

And guess what the copyright corporations are gearing up for?

Yep, you guessed it. They are gearing up for another secret lobby/bribery effort to extend it. Using PIRACY as their weapon of choice, the lobby groups are pushing hard for the Government to step in and protect their business models.

Maybe they should focus on paying their artists accurately and properly. A story over at Hollywood Reporter, mentions about how Sony Music Entertainment is getting sued by the music company “Thursday by 19 Recordings” for royalties not paid, to the tune of $10 million. The interesting part of the case is how the record labels treat streaming payments.

The lawsuit is making the claim that streaming payments to the artists need to be classified as licensed works and not as sold works. The difference between royalty payments for licensed works and sold works is huge.

On what about this for a piece of innovation from the entertainment industries. Poor old LeaseWeb, the web hosting provider. One if it’s clients was Megaupload.com. As we all know, Megaupload was taken down in an Osama Bin Laden style raid in a classic example of overreach by the entertainment industries. The law enforcement bodies took action on this case based on evidence provided/lobbied by the Entertainment Industries namely the MPAA. Anyway, fast forward to 2014 and LeaseWeb is now being sued for allowing the hosting of websites that infringed on copyrights. While we are at it, let’s sue the car manufacturers for allowing us to infringe on the speed limits.

In Australia, the Attorney General, George Brandis wants the ISP’s to outlay money and carry the burden of protecting the business models of the entertainment industries. How about the entertainment industries releasing content on time and at a reasonable price. Graduated response schemes haven’t worked in France, the US and New Zealand, so let’s keep on pushing for them.

And to make this story even more interesting, the lobby group that is pushing for this three strikes rule has donated close to AU$4 million to the Liberal and Labor parties since 1998.

The Australian Screen Association (ASA), formerly known as the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft (AFACT) who is well-known for the triple knockdown they received from iiNet in the courts. So of course, since the 2012 ruling, ASA has lobbied the government hard for a graduated response scheme. ZDNet did a great piece on this around the donations.

Keeping with the Australia theme, I just finished reading a story over at News.com.au about how Foxtel (the ONLY Pay TV provider in Australia) is planning on taking on the people who pirate “Game of Thrones” with a new cut-price plan. Before we get into the new cut price plan, it’s important to set the scenario.

Foxtel holds the exclusive rights to the “Game of Thrones” season 4 run in Australia. This means that the only legal way to watch the fourth series of “Game Of Thrones” in Australia is to pay for a subscription. Nice innovation.

Obviously this is an unpopular choice. No one wants to take out an expensive Pay TV subscription just for a TV show that has a 10 week run. Foxtel has another package called Foxtel Play, which is pay TV over the internet.

So Foxtel is saying to people, hey, if you have a Foxtel Play account, which costs $25 a month for a package based on a genre and of course the movie genre/Showtime is not included in that package, however if you chuck in another $35 over three months, you can watch “Game Of Thrones” legally.

So in reality, that three month run is going to cost a fan of the show, $110 to watch Game of Thrones legally in Australia. That is $75 (from the $25 a month for a Foxtel Play package that will still continue after the shows run is over) plus the $35 for the Showtime channel.

Yep, that is typical innovation from the entertainment industries.

Or how about the comments from John Landgraf, CEO of FX Network and Rick Cotton, Senior Counsellor of IP protection at NBC Universal.

“The legal copy of a property that’s been placed online can then be pirated.”

Yep, much the same way a legal DVD and Blu-Ray can be copied. Much the same way a legal airing of the TV show can be copied. Much the same way a legal VHS cassette could be copied.

Yep, sounds like typical innovation from the entertainment industries to me. I also like the part how they are trumping up the stats that piracy websites make a whopping $4.4 million annually on ads. If that is the case, then why don’t the entertainment industries offer the same service as the piracy websites do and make that same money. That is one way to compete with free. The reason why they don’t do it, is that the licensing deals they have around the world is worth way more. A lot more.

The audience for entertainment products has changed. Napster changed everything. That happened almost 15 years ago. So why haven’t the entertainment industries given the audience what Napster did 15 years ago.

http://m.theaustralian.com.au/business/latest/brandis-mooted-piracy-crackdown-riles-up-isps/story-e6frg90f-1226831754567

http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/game-on-foxtel-takes-on-game-of-thrones-pirates-with-new-cutprice-plan/story-e6frfmyi-1226835839975

http://www.zdnet.com/au/lobby-pushing-for-australian-piracy-crackdown-donates-millions-7000026421/

http://variety.com/2014/digital/news/nbc-universal-fx-chiefs-call-for-increased-anti-piracy-measures-1201111186/

http://www.vcpost.com/articles/21728/20140219/digital-citizens-alliance-report-shows-piracy-websites-also-make-a-whopping-4-4m-annually-on-ads.htm

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