Category Archives: Stupidity

Copyright, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Copyright Sickness

I haven’t done a copyright post for a while, but I haven’t stopped reading on the subject. Because once you have been exposed to the laws of copyright and how those laws are meant to protect the creator but all they do is protect the organisation who holds the rights, well, I just can’t look away. Because the creator never had a proper seat on the negotiation table. In order to get a chance to make music, they had to give away their rights to their music for a long time.

First up is a little snippet on how much an organisation makes by holding on to copyrights. The organisation her is Sony.

For a three month period, Sony was paid just over $654 million for streaming. Now I don’t know about you, but that’s some serious money.

How much of it went to the artists, well that is a different story? And because Sony has a publishing arm, that division also received $375 million. This is $375 million which is meant to go to songwriters.

Again, how much of this makes its way to the songwriters, is unknown?

And I’m not sure if people are aware, but Copyright laws do have a termination clause, which allows an artist to reclaim their copyrights after 35 years have expired.

But the labels like Sony are not letting go easily. So these cases are in the courts, because the labels know that if they don’t have an extensive copyright collection of songs, they have no income. Because at this point in time artists who released big selling albums in 1985 can reclaim their rights to those albums.

Next year, Jon Bon Jovi can reclaim the rights back for “Slippery When Wet” and then he will own his biggest selling album, with all streaming monies to go back to his organisation. The year after, in 2022, Guns’N’Roses, Whitesnake and Def Leppard can reclaim back the rights to “Appetite For Destruction”, “self-titled 87 album” and “Hysteria”.

Do you reckon the labels will allow that to happen so easily?

They will either throw some extra millions at the artist or off to the courts.

And here is another one on payments to musicians.

PRS For Music is an organisation in the UK which collects copyright payments on behalf of songwriters, composers and publishers. For the 2019 year it collected a record £810m. The amount involves a few different segments, like public performance, streaming, radio, TV and international. With public performances being put on hold because of COVID-19, streaming subscriptions are becoming popular.

But the streaming money pie is not distributed evenly. What the labels get and what they pay back to the artists is based on contracts and what monies have been given to the artist vs what needs to be paid back. And if the artist owns their own rights, then they are in position to negotiate better especially if they have had some success in the past. Metallica and Motley Crue come to mind, as artists who own their own rights.

The thing that streaming companies do wrong is that they treat it as a pool of money and then they work out what ratio each artist is entitled to, based on the streams played on the artists songs divided by the total streams for the service.

So even though fans of Metallica, Tool, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, etc, listen to those artists, their subscription monies are also distributed to Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande and all of the rest of those high streamers.

I know as a consumer, I want my subscription fee to go to the artists I actually listen to and not to a central pot, where the money is divided on a percentage basis against every single artist on Spotify. But the system is as fair as it could be right now.

And here is what happens when an IT organisation creates a streaming service to allow music to the spread to the masses because in reality, the labels were negligent in their duty of care to the artists to do it much earlier on.

So for Spotify it’s court case after court case. Because people who contribute nothing to culture and made some serious money because they hold the rights to other artists songs, still want that money train to continue.

There is this dude from the U.S called Jake Noch who has an independent label called Sosa Entertainment and he has his own collecting society called PRO Music Rights.

So Spotify removed his labels recordings from the service because Noch was manipulating the streaming count of his labels music.

This scam is common, where the teams behind artists, create enough streaming accounts to just stream the music of the artist so they get a bigger piece of the pool of monies distributed to the rights holders. Noch didn’t like how Spotify pulled his labels music and he sued. He accused Spotify of “unfair and deceptive practices” and Spotify called him a “fraudster”. And via his collection society PRO Music Rights, he has accused every other streaming service of copyright infringement.

It shows the amount of manipulation involved here by a record label, who hired a bot farmer to set up millions of streaming accounts (all of them on the free ad-supported tier) who would then listen to the songs on the service. 99% of the revenue for Sosa Entertainment came from the free-ad supported tier.

Smells on Payola, it is Payola.

Finally, remember those MTV shows from the 80’s which actually had music videos and interviews. Well the Internet Archive uploaded heaps of em. It shows the early stages of MTV and the steps they took to become a cultural icon. All of the material is from a user’s own VHS tapes of MTV recordings.

But these have been taken down on copyright grounds. Basically an organisation which holds the rights to an artist has made a claim to censor a part of history. Or it could be the VJ themselves via an organisation. Whatever the reasons, history is being censored and locked up. Copyright was never intended to censor. From day one, back to the 1700’s it was to give a creator an incentive to create more works by giving them a monopoly to monetize their works for a certain period of time.

And it gets worse and will only get worse, because after the death of the creator an organisation holds on (in other words, locks up) the copyright for another 70 years after death and they are pushing for another 20 more to take it to 90 years.

P.S. Remember the British invasion in the 60’s and early 70s.

It happened because all of the blues and folk music created between the 1930 and 1940 had expired and become part of the public domain because they all had 28 year terms. Classical music was already in the public domain and a lot of jazz standards were as well.

And suddenly we had artists who pieced all of these styles together.

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Music, My Stories, Stupidity

IsoRamblings And IsoThoughts

In the last couple of years, everything we knew has changed. The tech heads who we pledged our loyalty and private information to, stopped innovating and started protecting their riches, selling out data and search/like histories to everyone and anyone.

Remember the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data breach.

It’s old news now. Irrelevant. That’s how quickly we move on.

And then comes a company called Clearview who builds a database of peoples faces which can track where that face appeared by using cameras in streets, shops and traffic lights.

Sounds scary right.

But the scary part is that, we the public, willingly gave em our faces and we didn’t even know we were doing it, because of our social media accounts or tags from other social media accounts that didn’t haven’t their privacy set high.

And the biggest topic before COVID-19 was climate change. It got that big that grown adult men felt threatened and decided to make fun of Greta Thunberg.

But Michael Moore has brought that topic back in the conversation with his latest documentary. Moore definitely knows how to stir up shit. But that was last week’s news, it doesn’t even rate a mention today.

And what side are we on for COVID-19?

Are we on the “health before the economy” side or the “economy before health” side.

The Governments are really about the economy and if people die, so be it, it’s all collateral damage.

How will live music return to the masses?

You can’t really practice social distancing and one person per 4 metres square in a live venue.

Bryan Adams went on a Twitter meltdown because he couldn’t do his residency and Brent Smith from Shinedown wants to tour because he’s healthy and eats right and he’s telling his fans to do the same. And if they do, they will be fine in the venue together and not get Coronavirus. Umm, yeah.

And the U.S via Trump are getting a lot of press around the world for the wrong reason. And he keeps calling it the China Flu.

Do people even know that the Spanish Flu started in a farm in Kansas, USA and was then spread to the local garrison there and then spread all around the world by US troop movements during WWI?

It was a U.S flu.

And even back then the leaders of the U.S failed to acknowledge it, and they put economics before public health. It didn’t turn out too well did it.

And I never thought in my lifetime I’ll see a pandemic. But I have.

And music still lives. It thrives. Because of digital distribution. And if that stops I still would have my collection.

So read critically, read from different sources and make up your mind that way, because our leaders are not the ones to trust.

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Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Spreading The Disease

On Thursday, March 19th, a cruise ship called “Ruby Princess” was allowed to dock in Sydney and all passengers were allowed to disembark. Four people went straight to hospital and tested positive for COVID-19.

The storm had just begun.

As of yesterday, March 24th, 133 people (107 in New South Wales and 26 interstate) have COVID-19. One person has already died and experts reckon this will get worse.

The PM blamed NSW Heath and NSW Health blamed Border Force. This is what happens when you have people employed in positions who don’t question the status quo. This isn’t the time to just do your job like you’ve always done and to just listen to the people above you.

This is the time to be brave and ask questions.

NSW Health asked the ship Doctor for a report on sickness, and deemed the ship low risk based on the report.

Border Force just carried out what NSW Health told them. But NSW Health is not protecting our borders, Border Force is. So they had one job to protect our borders and failed.

Don’t let the people off the ship and demand that NSW Health come in and do swabs on all of them.

And for NSW Health to trust the ships Doctor.

Seriously. How fucking negligible?

These kind of doctors are not trustworthy because they work for a corporation who is in the business of making money and who also pays the Doctor their wage.

The ship couldn’t afford to be quarantined, so it wouldn’t be surprising that they would advise the Doctor to report what they need to report, in order to operate.

Because after it docked, the “Ruby Princess” reloaded with new passengers and set sail again on the same cruise to New Zealand.

Talk about spreading the disease.

The intro to “Among The Living” which goes for almost two minutes, is as good as any Megadeth or Metallica or Slayer cut.

And Anthrax were one of the first acts to branch out and merge metal with hard core. Of course the metal elitists hated them for it, but in the 90’s with John Bush on vocals, they delivered some of the best metal albums of that decade with “Sound Of White Noise” and “Stomp 442”.

Disease, Disease, Spreading the disease, with some help from Captain Trips, he’ll bring the world down to his knees

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My Stories, Stupidity

COVID-19

There’s an evil virus that’s threatening mankind
From Virus by Iron Maiden

Yeah, I know, the Maiden song is using virus as an analogy of the ills that the two faced elites and backstabbers do to society. Regardless, the song highlights a troubled society and we are living in troubled times.

COVID-19 is spreading around the world and people are scared.

I’m due to go to London, Mallorca and Munich at the start of April with two of my boys for a football tournament. And there is no travel insurance for a pandemic. Although the virus hasn’t been classed as one yet, it’s getting close.

There also isn’t any insurance for travelling when a virus is circulating. Yeah there is some grey wording around it, like, “if you took out the insurance policy before it became a known event, you might be covered”, but I’ve worked in insurance and policy of the insurance companies is to deny all claims from the outset. Then if people persist with appeals, they will revisit the claim, and try to wear down the people, hoping that they give up.

Viruses are contagious based on their R-nought rating, and the R0 rating of COVID-19 is 2, which means that for each person who has it, another two more people will get infected. And looking at people who are coughing in a strange way doesn’t help the situation, as people who are not coughing are as contagious.

And no one cannot escape this or buy their way out of this. It’s something we will need to face and a mask will not do the trick nor will the riches of a person.

The public is scared, panicked and fearful. And Governments like fear, because fear is control,

On the way to paranoia
From “Hardwired To Self-Destruct” by Metallica

We live in a world where facts don’t matter.

So social media spreads the paranoia even more with disinformation mixed in with facts to suit the narrative. People start panic buying, because its every person for themselves. And the ones who need it most, the sick, have no supplies, because all of the hospital gear comes from China and all imports are stopped or delayed for 14 days.

Yet, millions of people would die from smoke related illnesses, a motor vehicle accident, a cancer or heart related complications then they would die from this virus.

China was first, then Japan, then a cruise ship, then Korea, then Italy, then Iran and the rest of the world is slowly getting cases. And how the hell did the patients of a hospital that caters for the elderly in Washington State get it. In Australia, the virus entered via the returning citizens from Italy, Iran and China.

Dean Koontz even wrote about a biological virus called “Wuhan-400”, manufactured by the Chinese to kill humans. It appeared in a book he released in 1981, called “The Eyes Of Darkness”. It’s another event of fiction mirroring real life, sort of like that Simpson episode that had Trump as President in the future.

So, once again, we are on our own.
I don’t want to live forever but I don’t want to die
From “Live Forever” by Black Sabbath

To a pandemic.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Progress Is Derivative – What The!! – It’s Not Okay To Show Your Influences

Led Zeppelin became the biggest rock act in the world. They wrote songs based on their influences and some songs even sounded like the songs they were influenced by. From traveling the world, they were also exposed to exotic sounds and as technology got better, to new sounds.

Suddenly, thousands of wannabe guitarists and singers and drummers and bass players started to copy the licks and melodies and beats of the mighty Zep, forming an influential bond with the music, much in the same way, the members of Zep allowed other artists and songs to influence their music and melodies.

And Zeppelin wasn’t just an act with a geographical location. Their music was everywhere and there was no way that any teenager in the 70’s could escape the sounds of the Zep. Fast forward into the mid 80’s and suddenly a lot of bands on record deals had a lot of musical passages in their songs which paid homage to Zeppelin and in some cases too much homage. But Zeppelin never sued. These derivative versions of songs based on Zep cuts actually increased the value of the Zep cuts.

I’ve been listening to some songs recently, and the resemblance to other songs is a beautiful thing to hear. I know that these kinds of similarities are bringing forth a lot of court cases in pop music where a jury is asked to decide what is plagiarism and what isn’t.

In the Cult’s song “Peace Dog”, the middle part section has a similarity which comes from the “Stairway to Heaven” section before the solo section kicks in.

And on the topic of Led Zep, no one can forget Kingdom Come. “Get It On” basically lifted the whole “Kashmir” chord progression, and “What Love Can Be” is similar to “Since I’ve Been Loving You” and “The Rain Song”. Regardless, Kingdom Come made me want to listen to Led Zeppelin.

Whitesnake broke through in the 80’s on the backs of MTV and a sound that rivalled the Sunset Strip, but when they started off on the blues rock journey, David Coverdale was channelling Led Zeppelin in “Trouble”. Coverdale even looked like Plant and sounded a lot like him on this cut and along with Sykes they brought the Led Zep sound, filling the void for a lot of fans of that music.

And this was okay, to show your influences and pay homage to styles.

But Copyright kept changing and evolving, because the corporations kept pushing for perpetual laws, as they knew that if they lost the copyrights to valuable recordings and songs, they would be losing money.

And by pushing for laws that lasted 70 years after the death of the creator, it also meant that the heirs of the creator would also benefit as a by-product. And the heirs are now taking from the hand that gave them the right, because if copyright terms stayed the same (28 year term (14 years with the option to renew for another 14) or if the artist died before the 28 years, on death), the majority of these court cases would not even exist, because the songs would be in the public domain.

But it was still okay to show your influences and pay homage, because the record labels and publishers still paid the heirs and the artists for their rights, as the labels made 300% more profit due to CD sales. But when the record labels stopped paying, as mp3 ripping and then digital downloads and then streaming took over, suddenly, there was a problem for the artists or the heirs/organisations who owned the copyrights. The payments ceased or became dramatically less.

So with a combination of Copyright law changes and a change to the distribution model, a new situation was created with lawsuit after lawsuit, because every artist or heirs of the artist feels that their work is so original and free from influence, that they must be compensated.

And suddenly it wasn’t okay to show your influences or pay homage. But all progress made in music was to build on what came before.

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Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

Aerosmith and Kramer and Grammys

Joey Kramer files a lawsuit.

He had a few injuries last year, Aerosmith got a temporary drummer to fill in and once Kramer was ready to let the music do the talking (I know bad joke), the rest of those Aero boys were thinking, maybe not so fast, hombre.

They tell him, “You need to audition for your role” and when the Aero team said, “you are not up to standard”, Kramer’s replacement, John Douglas, played the rest of the “Deuces Are Wild” shows for 2019 and Douglas’s payment came out of the absent member’s cut.

Like it or not, each band has an agreement in place which outlines these things. Kramer’s issues are with the “moving targets of these made-up standards” in the bad agreement.

For Aerosmith it’s business as usual with their lawyer written response, but as a fan I would be questioning why Aerosmith would like to be involved and even play at the Grammys.

You wanna know what happens in that organization. Click here and read the Guardian article.

The Grammys organization brought in a lady called Deborah Dugan as boss, after their former boss Neil Portnow stepped down unexpectedly, which the article states, could have been due to raping a female recording artist.

But as soon as she came in, the Grammy board got rid of her because she didn’t play ball. But how didn’t she play ball. The Grammys chairman asked her to re-employ his mate Portnow as a $750K consultant after he left and after the rape allegations. She played ball and did.

Entertainment lawyer Joel Katz, who acts as the academy lawyer also made sexual advancements towards Dugan, Katz also has a private plane purchased from the monies the Academy earns on behalf of the artists and their TV deal and also represent various board members in a conflict of interest.

Dugan also mentions about the corruption in the voting. Basically a first group called the “voting pool” selects artists. Then the nomination committee which also has current artists on the committee who could be up for awards shortlist the “voting pool” list with their own additions. And the Grammys board further corrupts the nominations with what they think is needed.

Basically that Grammy award you might have on your mantle piece; how valuable does it feel when you know that the ex CEO raped an artist, the legal counsel is a sexual predator who lives rich, ripping off the artists who bring in the money to the organization and that the nomination process is corrupted.

As veterans, Aerosmith have a chance to make a stand here.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Copyright Just Keeps On Giving

Copyright is the gift that just keeps on giving.

Remember how copyright is meant to protect the creator so they have a monopoly on their work, with the aim to be paid if the work is popular. A lot of artists create works which are not popular and as such, their monopoly on their copyrights have no value.

However, in this case, the creator gets a stroke and other people allegedly forge the creators signature to transfer the rights to corporations who seem to benefit.

The Seinfield creators couldn’t even come up with this kind of a story. You can add elder abuse to the list for Copyright court cases.

The other big one is Ed Sheeren and his song, “Thinking Out Loud”. You see even if Sheeren did copy a Marvin Gaye song, the song should have been in the public domain anyway because both Gaye and his co-writer are dead. Then again the labels wanted these kind of perpetual laws many years ago and now they are getting bitten in the ass.

And companies like Structured Asset Sales, founded by an investment banker called David Pullman exist by purchasing a lot of copyrights from the children of these creators many years ago and now we have this stupidity of suing people.

And as usual, Copyright is already benefiting the corporations who create nothing and now it is benefiting the heirs of artists who create nothing, to sue the creators who create something.

But if you really want to know how the recording industry via the RIAA caused this mess, then read this article over at Techdirt.

Nothing is original especially in music which has mass appeal. No artist writes music without being exposed to music. Everyone is working from the same instruments and the same chords.

And the courts now cannot make a distinction between influence and theft. It’s set the precedent that all influence is theft. And the labels went with that for decades only to be sued over the last 10 years from heirs of dead artists.

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Music, My Stories, Stupidity

The Camera Eye = Social Control

How much control do we want to give away in order to live our lives the way we want?

Driving up to the traffic lights, I am confronted with a green light to proceed while the cars to my left and right are stopped, because of a red light on their side.

This form of control provides safety and order.

But also at the traffic lights is a red light speed camera, which takes a photo of you if you go through a red light at normal speed and under and it also takes a photo of you if you go through a green light or red light, over the speed limit. And that information is stored by various organizations and contracted out to law enforcement.

And with the rise of phones in cars, in Australia we had laws against texting while driving and when a police officer was hit and lost his legs from a driver who was texting, we now have laws that state we cannot handle or touch our phones while driving.

So to control these new laws, the traffic lights and light poles have extra cameras added to take pictures of drivers inside their cars.

And throwing cigarettes out your window always had a fine in Australia if witnessed by a Police officer, but now there are proposals to make the cameras do all the work.

And of course we have laws against driving intoxicated and affected by drugs.

And all of these traffic lights in our lives create rules and enforce punishment to maintain social control.

Social control in the name of safety.

But a truck driver crossed over to the other side of the road, killed a family in a head on, because he was trying to open a bottle of coke.

So what’s next, laws against coke bottles.

And then we have the social control within family and friends. Everyone wants to belong, no one wants to be alone. So we abide by these norms and rules so we remain part of the tribe as we gossip our way through life.

When you add the criminal justice system which imposes sanctions when the law is broken and the rules and expectations of each company we work for or deal with, it doesn’t feel like freedom and more like control.

Social control is neither bad or good, it just is, because through centuries of control we cannot believe it is possible to live without social control.

And here is the article that influenced this post and Neil Peart was already writing about it in “The Camera Eye” a song about how New York City installed cameras everywhere in a bid to stop crime and make the streets safe again, using a system set up in London, who had to install cameras on every street corner to stop IRA bombings.

Peart made it out that the cameras are chasing the oblivious humans, as the humans do their day to day duties.

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

Public Domain 2020

The post over at Duke University.

The purpose of copyright is to promote creativity. And it does so by providing creators a limited monopoly to distribute their works with the aim to make money.

The limited time for works was 28 years and if the creator renewed they would get another 28 years and if they didn’t renew, then the works would end up in the Public Domain. All up 56 years was the term.

But not all works made money so 98% of them would end up in the Public Domain after 26 years.

What’s the point in renewing if it’s worth nothing?

Having copyright terms that last 70 years after the death of the creator does not promote creativity.

It promotes money for lawyers because of the heirs who sue or it make money for the corporations who control the rights.

It also promotes laziness from the creator who has no incentive to create anymore works. Certain artists tell us that they have no incentive to create new works and are quite happy to live off their past works which had public acceptance.

Works from 1924 will enter the US public domain and most of these works are already in the public domain in other parts of the world, which means anyone can use these works as raw material for their own creations, without fear of a lawsuit.

Prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years—an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years. Under those laws, works published in 1963 would have entered the public domain if Copyright was never extended to last for the life of the creator plus 70 years.

Works from 1963 like the songs from The Beatles’ albums “Please, Please Me” and “With The Beatles” or songs from The Beach Boys’ album “Surfin’ U.S.A” album’s would be in the Public Domain.

Imagine that.

All those works available to build new works, in the same way way The Beatles and The Beach Boys built their works on the blues music already in the Public Domain at that point in time.

But when we create works, we do not do it because of Copyright law. We do it because we need to create and we love to create.

Imagine if those terms existed past 1978. Works from 1991 which failed to get renewed would be in the Public Domain.

Imagine that.

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Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Influenced, Music, Stupidity

Just A Number

Our digital world is at a dangerous level, as people use our data to make billions in ad revenue and other people are trying to gain access to our lives so they could do up fake accounts and use our information/details for fraud.

And governments put the onus on us to protect ourselves, so we get virus and protection software in the same way we get locks on our windows and an alarm system in the house.

And if you think by using a hacked version of virus software keeps you safe, then you are delusional. The police are not even equipped to deal with cyber fraud and the banks don’t even care.

But how can we protect ourselves, when every organisation we deal with, wants our personal information, otherwise we cannot participate with them. And then how do these organisations store our personal information.

Is it under lock and key, on encrypted drives?

Who has access to it and if they destroy it, how do they destroy it?

Because if we need to go to all these lengths to protect our personal information, why shouldn’t the organizations we deal with do the same.

If you’ve been to a Dr’s surgery, you will notice that there is so much personal information in a box near the receptionists desk waiting to be shredded.

Now I am sure that this information gets destroyed/shredded, but it was there, and all it needs is someone to take that box and suddenly, they have names, addresses and dates of birth of real people. In the hands of criminals, this information is gold.

The governments now also want this data as part of policy research, so what we have happening in Australia, are Doctor surgeries passing on private health information to the government for a fee.

Talk about going back to the well over and over again. Doctors bulk bill the government for each patient via Medicare plus we need to pay a gap payment to the Doctors because they over estimate their worth and now the Doctor surgeries make extra money from the government by sharing our personal health issues with the government.

Dollars for data. To doctors we are just walking fees, as treatment takes a backseat to making money.

I guess the people whose data is exposed don’t benefit in any way. Just the organizations who hold the data.

I guess we are all just a number, like the Bob Seger song.

To ma bell I’m just another phone
I’m just another statistic on a sheet
To teachers I’m just another child
To IRS I’m just another file

To change the above;

To Facebook, I’m just another user, a data mine for profits on a sheet, to doctors I’m just another fee, as treatment takes a backseat to making money.

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