Tag Archives: Copyright

Copyright, Derivative Works, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Even More Abuses Of Copyright

Copyright, copyright, copyright.

What kind of world do we live in, where a law that is meant to give a creator a monopoly on their works and encourage creativity for a certain period of time is being used for everything else except creativity.

First up is Axl Rose. In the past he has used copyright (via the DMCA Takedown Notice Scheme) to shakedown websites over album leaks and now (via a shonky firm called Web Sheriff) is using copyright to take down unflattering pictures of himself.

Here we have a Government law, (the DMCA) used in the name of copyright as a censorship tool without any consequences for fake claims.

Next, is a company called Smart Circle who is going after a WordPress blogger that is critical of the company. It looks like Smart Circle didn’t like seeing pictures of their Executive Team with devil horns and fire put up on the blog. So of course, the company sent WordPress a takedown notice, however WordPress left them online. Freedom of speech and fair use comes into play here. As the Torrentfreak article states;

Not pleased with this decision, Smart Circle asked the court for a DMCA subpoena against the blog owner, which a clerk has now signed off on. This means that the company can compel WordPress.com to hand over the personal details of the blog owner.

Yep, it’s nice to see how copyright gets abused to take down the voices of others.

Next.

AMC, the creator of “The Walking Dead” TV show and HBO the creator of “Game Of Thrones” are ramping up their abuses of copyright to take down websites that are “predicting” what would happen or who would die in the TV shows. In both instances, AMC and HBO are accusing the people behind the websites/Facebook pages of violating copyright law.

“What the?” is the first thing that comes to mind. Here the DMCA is being used in the name of copyright to silence fans of the TV shows from talking about them.

For “The Walking Dead” forum users, if they post who they believe their Lucille victim is and if they are right, then AMC will sue them. Well anyone who has read the comic books or gone to Wikipedia to catch up on the comic book stories will see that Glen is the Lucille victim. If the TV show chooses to run with that storyline then it’s no big secret is it.

So how does writing about it, lead to a copyright claim. Remember, copyright was designed to encourage creativity. It wasn’t designed to be used in a ridiculous manner by taking down websites/forums/Facebook pages, predicting what will happen in a TV show.

Then we have the many cases happening about “plagiarism” or “copyright theft” or “influence”.

“Stairway To Heaven” is going to court, almost 50 years after the song was released. Was copyright created to serve the heirs of creators and be used as a pension fund by these people.

Ed Sheeran is going to court because two Californian songwriters claim that they were ripped off. In a nut shell, the songwriters wrote a song called “Amazing” which was used by an X Factor winner and retitled “Amazing 2”. The songwriters then claim that “Amazing 2” was copied by Ed Sheeran and called “Photograph”.

“The chorus sections of Amazing and the infringing Photograph share 39 identical notes — meaning the notes are identical in pitch, rhythmic duration, and placement in the measure.”

Is Copyright designed to sue anyone who has a hit song because your song failed?

Of course not.

But every artist pours their blood, sweat and tears into their songs so they must be entitled to a piece of the pie in some way.

Their songs are their children so they must be entitled to something if a song that sounds similar to their song makes a connection with audiences. The fact that the songs these artists created in the first place are based on other songs that came before doesn’t seem to make it into the conversation.

Which is sad.

Jimmy Page is testifying that the passage in “Stairway” is a thousand years old and generational. However in a courtroom, in front of people who have no idea how music works, Page’s comments don’t hold much weight. These people don’t understand that music is a sum of many influences that our brain mixes together and when we create music, our brain blends what we have heard and stored and what comes out is unique and original. Their might be some overlap here and there, but doesn’t equate to plagiarism.

And when the same jurors are asked to assess the two songs based on various legalities, Page’s comments don’t benefit his case at all.

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Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

What If Led Zeppelin Decided To Start Taking Bands To Court for Copying Them?

The “Stairway To Heaven” case is the tip of the iceberg for cases like this.

Mark my words, Metallica (or the corporations who will own the Metallica copyrights in the years ahead) will be sued for plagiarism by the corporations and heirs of artists from the NWOBHM movement that Metallica used on their first three albums, and the California skate-punk band they ripped off for “Enter Sandman”.

Remember Copyright was designed to encourage creativity, but in the hands of corporations and heirs of the actual creators (who never should have held the Copyright of a deceased artist), copyright is now building up to have the opposite effect, “discouraging, rather than stimulating, music creativity.”

As the Conversation article states;

“I don’t think that it is appropriate to consider the act of devising a tune that simply has the same “feel” and “groove” as another as copyright infringement. This is how music creativity often works. Musicians frequently build upon earlier arrangements and styles, and so the increasing occurrence of cases such as these should give us pause.”

“Borrowing from earlier pieces is a structural element of music creation in many genres (a tune cannot always be created from scratch by just improvising). Classical music composers such as Handel, Beethoven, Shubert, Mozart, Bach and Puccini all significantly borrowed from earlier colleagues. The same holds true for jazz (which has built upon popular music and opera), rockabilly (influenced by country), rhythm and blues (which derives from boogie-woogie and gospel) and the Jamaican music scene (where traditionally covering and arranging each other’s tunes was widespread and largely accepted).”

Now, the term “original” means “not the same as anything or anyone else and therefore special and interesting”. It would be difficult to find a musician who has never listened to music written by someone else.

And yes, there are artists that did do something that “sounded not like anything else”, however if you take away the sonics, the root notes of every song are tied back to a composition that came before it and so forth. Even the evil sounding tri-tone made famous in the song “Black Sabbath” has its roots to classical music. The whole British Rock invasion of the Sixties was tied to the American blues of the Thirties.

It’s pretty safe to say that the majority of music out there is unoriginal.

Just think of how many metal and hard rocks songs have a riff over an A pedal point or an E pedal point that sounds similar in feel and groove?

But for some reason, our litigious society wants music to follow the same citing mechanisms as a University essay, with citations, footnotes and a discography of music used as an influence for the song.

At the root of it all is the descending bass line, played in the same key and an attorney called Francis Malofiy, who is well-known at bringing copyright infringement suits against any song that sounds similar to another because the acts/estates he represents are so original and their music could not have been influenced by other .

It’s easy to sue Led Zeppelin, because others have done it and its well-known that Jimmy Page likes to build on past works. But man, Led Zeppelin, actually Page and Plant in particular can sue a whole generation of artists for copying their feel and groove.

Let’s start with the most obvious (of the top of my head);

  • Robert Plant to sue David Coverdale from Whitesnake for copying Plant’s vocal feel in every Whitesnake song between 1978 and 1982.
  • Robert Pant to sue Lenny Wolf from Kingdom Come for copying Plant’s vocal feel and phrasing in every Kingdom Song between 1988 and 2016.
  • Jimmy Page to sue Lenny Wolf from Kingdom Come for copying “Kashmir” and calling the song “Get It On”.
  • Robert Plant to sue Randy Jackson from Zebra for copying Plant’s vocal feel
  • Jimmy Page and the Bonham estate to sue Coheed and Cambria for the song “Welcome Home” because it sounds a lot like “Kashmir” and for the drums having the same feel and groove as “Kashmir”.
  • Jimmy Page suing Tool because songs on “Aenima” sound a lot like “No Quarter”.
  • Jimmy Page and Robert Plant suing Billy Squier for the verse in “You Should Be High Lover” because it sounds a lot like “Black Dog”.
  • Jimmy Page and Robert Plant suing Wolfmother for the song “Woman”.
  • Jimmy Page suing Jet, for the song “Cold Hard Bitch” and how it sounds a lot like “Communication Breakdown”.
  • Jimmy Page suing Soundgarden for “Pretty Noose” because it sounds like the love child of “Kashmir” and “Whole Lotta Love”.
  • Jimmy Page suing Steve Vai for a three note sequence in his song “The Attitude Song” that is derived from “The Ocean”.

See the absurdity of it all.

I am sure there are a million bands out there that have ripped off Led Zeppelin and there are a million acts that Led Zeppelin has ripped off. But Led Zeppelin made what came before, BETTER and made a lot of MONEY from it.

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Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit

There Is A Reason Why Copyright Terms Are Very Long

There is a reason why Copyright terms are very long.

Yep, older recordings are outselling newer recordings. So instead of those older recordings being in the public domain as they should have been, they are locked up for terms that seem like they will never end.

So what does this tell us about people and music consumption?

We don’t mind purchasing music, especially music recorded a long time ago which has shown itself as enduring and forever. Hell in twenty years’ time, don’t be surprised if “Hail To The King” and “The Blackening” are outselling all before them. But in 20 years’ time, who would benefit from those catalogue sales.

Would Robb Flynn from Machine Head (or the rest of the guys that played and performed on the album) benefit from those catalogue sales?

Same deal for Avenged Sevenfold.

“Hamlet” by Shakespeare is the biggest seller when it comes to books. The book was written in the 16th century, in the public domain for centuries after that and people still could make money from it. So is the public domain such a bad thing.

Would Hamlet be as popular today if it was locked away under copyright protectionist practices.

Think of all of the people who have made money from longer Copyright terms.

  • Lawyers (from all of the lawsuits)
  • Record Labels (from signing artists to one-sided contracts)
  • Publishing/Licensing Agencies (set up by the record labels, so they could double dip)
  • Collection Agencies (set up the record labels, so they could triple dip)

Each song I write has two separate copyrights. One for the sound recording and the other for the musical work.

If I sign a record deal, the label will licence the rights to exploit the ‘sound recording’ copyright from me (and then own it for a long time) and the publisher (an agency set up the label) will take care of my ‘musical work’ copyrights. Who benefits from this arrangement in the long run?

If I write a song with other people, I would need to put a contract in place that agrees on the percentage splits.

If I write a song and I have a session musician or just a friend who comes in to play an instrument, I would need to have an agreement in place (via writing, which means lawyers) about what payment they will get for playing on the song and how does that transfer over to royalty payments down the line on the sound recording.

Because Copyright Laws are written to suit the interests of the Corporations who licence (in other words, own) copyrights, we live in a world where copyright is a mess.

A court decided that Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams are guilty of copyright infringement for their hit song “Blurred Lines,” because of a “feel”. The court ordered the duo to pay $7.4 million to the estate of Marvin Gaye.

Yes, that’s right, the children of Marvin Gaye, who have contributed nothing to the musical industry have a secure pension fund set up because copyright terms changed to include another 70 years after death. The Corporations give them a bone, while they take in the gold.

The bigger the song, expect the lawsuit to come.

Even when people do get clearances to use the music of another artist, they still get sued. The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft negotiated a cost to use a sample from the Rolling Stones ““The Last Time” for “Bitter Sweet Symphony”. The Stones sued after, when the song became a hit, because the sample that was cleared was the song.

In the end, Copyright is important for a creator, however the current mess that is known as Copyright, benefits the Corporation, otherwise known as the Record Labels, the Movie Studios, the Publishing and Collection Agencies and of course, the Lawyers more than the creator.

John Fogerty said something similar like “Get yourself a lawyer to look over the contract and then get yourself another lawyer to look over the contract and what the other lawyer said” after he was duped out of his Creedence songs;

For those that don’t know, I will let Wikipedia tell his story about being sued for copyright infringement because he copied himself;

John Fogerty was the lead singer of the popular rock group Creedence Clearwater Revival. In 1970, while part of the group, he wrote the song “Run Through the Jungle.” Fantasy Records, the record label to which Creedence Clearwater Revival was signed, eventually acquired the exclusive publishing rights to the song.

Creedence Clearwater Revival disbanded in 1972, and Fogerty began a solo career with another music label. In 1985, Fogerty published the song “The Old Man Down the Road”, which he released on Warner Bros. Records.

Fantasy sued Fogerty for copyright infringement, claiming that “The Old Man Down the Road” was essentially the music to “Run Through the Jungle” with new words.

So I end this post, the same way I started it; there is a reason why Copyright terms are very long.

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Copyright, Derivative Works, Influenced, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

The Public Domain Issue

January 1 of each new year is meant to be when certain works come out of copyright and into the Public Domain. However, each year, the Corporations in charge seem to lobby hard to get the terms extended. As such, the public domain is becoming less and less.

An artist is bringing a class action suit against Spotify for Copyright Infringement. It’s a perfect example of how far removed copyright is at this point in time, especially when Spotify obtained the music they have on their service from the record labels. The users didn’t upload it. Is YouTube such a perfect citizen when it comes to paying for mechanical licenses?

The case to free “Happy Birthday To You” a song penned in 1893 and still under the copyright control of a corporation is another example of the great Copyright Hijack.

The whole “Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town” copyright suit is another example of what a farce copyright is. A corporation had the rights to the song and they made a lot of money from licensing it out. Now a judge has ruled that the rights will go back to the children of the creators. It’s worth noting that the creators of the song died between 1975 and 1985. As far as I am concerned this song from the 1930’s is MEANT to be in the Public Domain and out of copyright. Read the article to see the absurdity of it all.

Here is another example of copyright stupidity.

Canada had shorter copyright terms, which meant early Beatles recordings entered the public domain. The record labels didn’t like this, so they lobbied/bribed hard in secret and copyright was extended on sound recordings for 20 years that are still under copyright without any debate or public discussion. Anyway a company called Stargrove Entertainment saw an opportunity to make money by releasing a CD of public domain Beatles music. By default it became a top seller in Canada and that’s when the Empire known as the Record Labels decided to strike back, because hey, the 60 year monopoly they had on the sound recordings was not enough.

Some of the Record Labels tricks included;

  • While the sound recordings are in the public domain, the compositions remain under copyright. So Stargrove paid the standard licensing fee and the record labels via the publishing companies they owned, decided to not approve the mechanical license and refunded Stargrove’s royalty payment.
  • Universal then interfered with the distributor so they could resolve “the public domain issue.”
  • Universal started posting negative reviews online of the Beatles CD.

Let’s remember the purpose of copyright. It gives the creator the right to stop people from copying their works for a certain period of time. Basically it is a monopoly given to the creator, so they have an incentive to create more works. Once upon a time that monopoly lasted 14 years and as soon as corporate entities started to make money from this monopoly, the length of time increased to life of the author plus seventy years.

In order for creators to be granted a monopoly on their works for a period of time, the trade-off was that once the copyright term expired, the works would fall into the public domain, which would mean they could be shared, adapted, improved, remixed and basically new stories be created.

I am still dumbfounded as to how people believe that a copyright term of 70 years after the death of the creator is a normal copyright term.

What incentive does a creator have to create more works when they have departed the land of the living?

It’s all about money and its driven by the blockbuster albums that continue to make money for decades. However, the majority of other creative works might have enjoyed a brief window of success and sales during a period of time and their value is very low compared to the block buster releases. Labels try to sign the artist for five albums on a 360 deal, with the promise to negotiate the original deal depending on how hot the artist becomes. It never happens without any incidence or litigation.

For example, Dokken and RATT had platinum certifications in the Eighties. If you look at their output it was five albums. The label made money and the bands saw money and success. In 2015, the value of their musical output is not the same in the eyes of the corporations compared to the value of Bon Jovi’s, Metallica, Motley Crue or Bruce Springsteen output. Metallica wasn’t as big as Ratt and Dokken in the Eighties, but we all know how that turned out after the behemoth “Black” album in the Nineties.

So from a copyright term perspective, the self-titled Metallica album is of a higher value compared to Dokken’s or RATT’s discography. And it is because of these blockbuster albums that Copyright terms get extended. Metallica and their heirs or the corporate entity that will own their rights will get richer while Dokken and Ratt fade into obscurity, locked up in 100 year copyright terms.

This article states that Copyright should be about 30 years.

Copyright should last a more-than-generous 30 years, and no longer. The Lord of the Rings would have been in the public domain in 1986, 13 years after Tolkien’s death. He would have been fine and his great trilogy would still have been written. Mickey Mouse would have been in the public domain in 1959. A tiny minority of wealthy creators would be somewhat poorer under such a scheme. But our culture would be vastly richer.

That would mean “Smoke On The Water” would be in the public domain and not locked up for a century plus. It would mean the Black Album would be in the public domain by 2021 for others to build on and enhance. It would mean that “Were Not Gonna Take It” would have entered the public domain in 2014.

I am sure Deep Purple, Metallica and Twisted Sister would be able to cope with that?

It would mean that Dokken and Ratt songs from the Eighties would be in the Public Domain for people to build upon and re-create, which means the songs live on and our culture is richer. Cast your mind back to the whole Sixties British movement, including the Beatles success is due to building upon blues works from the 1930’s.

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

Ripped Off – Here Is My Middle Finger Salute

“Gettin’ ripped off, underpaid” ….. from “It’s A Long Way To The Top If You Wanna Rock ‘N’ Roll”

Bon Scott knew his stuff. For a person who had been trying to make it for a long time, he was well seasoned and experienced enough to come up with some great lyrics. He was a perfect fit to the youthism of the Young brothers. If you take the time to dig deep into his lyrics, you will notice a certain theme of being ripped off by promoters and record label execs, which is polar opposite to what artists are saying today. With so much backlash against streaming services and royalty payments, more and more artists are going on record to state that the “fan doesn’t support and respect music”.

So how can the music industry explain how bands that have performed live have not been paid the monies owed to them by the promoters?

The fans that supposedly “don’t support and respect music” purchased their $180 plus concert ticket. Surely this is a show of support to the acts on the bill that people value and respect music.

“So if you’ve got the money, we’ve got the sound,
You put it up and we’ll put it down,
If you got the dollar, we got the song,
Just wanna boogie woogie all night long” ….. from “Aint No Fun (Waiting Around To Be A Millionaire)”

For those that don’t know, the 2016 Soundwave Festival in Australia has been cancelled due to poor ticket sales. However, the roots of the problems go back. From the 2015 edition of Soundwave, a lot of bands are still owed money from their festival appearance.

For the full list, click on this link.

Here is a selection of a few;

The main artists;

  • Soundgarden — $2,132,075.00
  • Slipknot — $1,645,299.29
  • The Smashing Pumpkins — $1,267,446.43
  • Faith No More — $751,076.20
  • Marilyn Manson — $588,000.56
  • Incubus — $571,428.58
  • Slash — $484,628.00
  • Fall Out Boy — $394,107.14
  • Judas Priest — $349,560.55
  • Ministry — $203,952.01
  • Godsmack — $200,000.00
  • Lamb of God — $161,323.33

The medium-sized and self-financed artists;

  • Papa Roach — $93,050.93
  • Steel Panther — $92,517.57
  • Fear Factory — $78,263.96
  • Apocalyptica — $65,601.90
  • Falling In Reverse — $54,064.98
  • Atreyu — $52,044.64
  • New Found Glory — $43,279.88
  • Nothing More — $35,000.00
  • Of Mice and Men — $29,040.00
  • Killer Be Killed — $24,513.00
  • Escape the Fate — $21,985.68
  • Dragonforce — $21,000.00
  • Monuments — $19,153.00
  • Animals as Leaders — $16,607.14
  • Nonpoint — $8,137.54
  • Ne Obliviscaris — $5,720.60

Commissions to an agency for organising acts;

  • Live Nation Worldwide, Inc — $1,180,325.56

That’s some serious dollars taken from the hard-working hands of the fans and not paid to the artists. You see, a fan believes that the act would be getting their cut. It’s an unwritten law that it will happen. The fan also knows that the promoter, venue and so forth would also get their cut. Which in a lot of cases is more than the acts cut.

“Living on a shoe string,
A fifty cent millionaire,
Open to charity,
Rock ‘n’ roller welfare” ….. from “Down Payment Blues”

Life is tough and when you don’t get paid, it’s even tougher, because we all have other commitments that we need to make. So are the fans to blame again for not supporting music.

Are the fans to blame when managers, promoters and record labels rip off the artists?

“It’s a song (“I Believe In You) I wrote a long time ago. Well a long time before it got put on a record, which is kind of a drag in a way because our original managers ripped us off for our publishing (on) the first two Yesterday and Today records. We haven’t received a penny publishing to this day from those two records. I wrote “I Believe in You” about the time they were managing us so when I put it on the “Earthshaker” record well after they were gone they still took my publishing and never gave me a cent for “I Believe In You”. Anyway it was written a long time ago about a break up that I had with a long-time relationship I had with a girl so the song inspired itself more or less.”
Dave Meniketti 

There is a lot of money to be made in music and the fans are spending. The fans respect music and value music. It’s a shame that the corporate entities that benefit largely from the music that artists create don’t value and respect music in the same way.

Unless Artists make a stand and take back their copyrights or organise better rates for themselves when they sell/license their rights to the corporations, then that copyright royalty pay rise will just end up with the corporate entity the artists sold their copyrights too.

SoundExchange, the organization that collects royalties is considering an appeal at the Copyright Tribunals decision to increase the royalty rate that Pandora and other stations needs to pay.

Now why would SoundExchange want to do that?

It’s because they have collected over $3 billion dollars in royalties since 2003 and once you take their standard 30% administration costs, it adds up to a lot of money for SoundExchange for doing absolutely nothing. But they want more of that pie.

Artists as usual get short-changed by all of the corporations taking their cut. And even when they perform live, it looks like they are still being shafted by the promoters.

In Australia, the recording industry revenues are growing and have been since 2012. And what was the defining moment in 2012 that caused this shift in revenue.

Of course, it was the arrival of Spotify in May 2012.

And that is what fans of music do. We double dip. I like to stream and on occasions I love owning something physical from the artists that I support.

Since 2008, those physical purchases include only the special deluxe pieces of art that bands produce. To pay $30 for a DVD/CD special edition album release is just not worth it. I would rather pay the $12 a month Spotify subscription and access that digitally. Recently, I was one of 40,000 people who purchased Coheed and Cambria’s “The Color Before The Sun” Super Deluxe Edition for $70US and I am one of many who have pre-ordered Dream Theater’s new album “The Astonishing” for $170.

Music doesn’t exist without its best customer; the fan. So as a fan, here is a big middle finger salute to all of those comments about fans of music not respecting music.

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Stupidity

How Long Until The Streaming Well Goes Dry?

“Musicians can go out and play to fill the gaping hole that the lack of record sales has created, but streaming has actually become the saving grace for record companies. But it really is to the point of such diminishing returns for musicians that I have no words to describe it. I would turn around and say, “Okay, let’s make this work,” but now I’m hearing that new contracts that are sent out from friends of mine who are lawyers, that record companies now want to pass on paying even streaming royalties because they consider streaming “promotion.” That is beyond a grey area.”
David Coverdale

Streaming and Spotify is the best thing to ever happen the music industry. It competed with piracy and more or less won the battle. It’s subscriber base is growing and people are moving from freemium to the pay model. Adele’s record label is withholding her album from streaming services, however Pandora is streaming it, because as it happens, Pandora is a radio station.

But it is a long game. As Coverdale alludes too, the record labels want to wither away the streaming money tree as well, claiming all of the licensing fees and royalty payments for themselves. All of those writers and musicians complaining about Spotify or another streaming service, need to complain about their labels and publishers.

Because the people who used to control music, have a short-term mindset. And it all comes down to money. Streaming service Rdio is gone, claiming bankruptcy. It didn’t have the user base to support the licensing fees it needed to pay. Pandora purchased it’s assets, however Pandora has its own problems with court cases (financed by the Record labels and the Publishers) around pre 72 recordings and royalty payments on those recordings and others. And it’s a battle for which service will win the streaming wars, as to the victor, 70% market share awaits them. Like how Facebook and Apple won the social media and phone wars.

The reason why the record labels are so powerful is because they have locked up culture and copyrights for a very long time. As I have posted before, “Smoke On The Water”, a song written in 1971, will still be under copyright once we enter the 2100’s. The writers/creators will have passed a long time before that, and there is a good chance that any heirs of theirs will also have moved on to the afterlife. But the main beneficiary in this copyright hijack, is the corporation.

So what we have in the music industry are Record Label Executives that contribute nothing to music, living it up, flying private, because they satisfy Wall Street and via their lobby group, the “RIAA”, fight to get laws approved to protect their business models.

“The old copyright model – the person who creates something owns it and anyone else that wants to use it or see it has to pay them – has expired in the same way that around the world you’re seeing structures and social norms [lapse] that were standard for many years. The old copyright model has expired. It can no longer exclusively control music.”
Steve Albini

The old copyright model only benefits the labels in this day and age, so it’s no surprise that they are fighting hard to get even longer copyright terms. It’s a monopoly they don’t want to lose, even at the expense of the public domain, because the public domain is how more works are generated.

The power to make change lies with the musicians.

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

Victory Records Saga

It’s been almost three weeks since Spotify pulled Victory Records catalogue of songs in a dispute over $23,000 in royalty payments to Another Victory, the Publishing Arm of Victory Records.

The Victory Records founder has stated in an email that somehow “found its way to the press” that if Victory’s catalogue of songs is not placed back on Spotify soon, with their histories and stream counts as they were, he would be forced to lay off staff and drop artists.

You see, it’s no longer about sales, but streams.

Did you see how Metallica, once anti-digital are on iTunes and Spotify? Did you see how Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin also caved? It’s just a matter of time before the Beatles are there as well as the imitators of Beatles music are raking in due to holdout.

All the action is in streaming and that is where the artists need to be. The music business has undergone a revolution where a “hit song” is something people listen to forever and ever, not something which they buy once.

Forget about how the media trumpets Adele’s “25” as a music industry (it should be recording industry instead of music industry) saviour.

Adele’s figures of 1.1 million first week sales for her new single are impressive and news worthy. There is a limited supply of Adele music and she has a universal “mainstream” appeal (by the way all of the Eighties Hard Rock bands had this mainstream appeal with the backing of a cultural juggernaut in MTV). This in turn makes demand for her music very high.

As appealing as the first week numbers are, they are just numbers. A lot of the times the real hits are “slow burners”.

To use books as an example, Dan Brown’s “Angels and Demons” his second book, sold only 98 copies in its first week. It wasn’t until his fourth book “The DaVinci Code” which sold hundreds of millions that “Angels and Demons” got a second wind to the tune of about 40 million copies.

Five Finger Death Punch’s debut album only moved a couple of hundred copies when it came out. Within a few years it was certified “Gold” and it is still selling, almost 8 years later.

Def Leppard’s “Hysteria” was out for 12 months before it got a second wind on the backs of “Love Bites” and “Pour Some Sugar On Me”.

However, the tides of change set forth by the customer show that streaming is the way forward. Labels like Victory Records collect between 25 and 50 percent of their digital income from streaming services.

This whole saga highlights so many wrongs with the music business;

  • Lack of transparency
  • Bad data collection
  • The length of copyright terms means that heirs of the artists (kids, grandkids, step kids, business partners, lawyers, accountants, etc.) are “songwriters” of the song and they should be paid.
  • Who actually should be paid?
  • Missing money (about 25%) to songwriters due to all of the above not being met.
  • Artists selling away their copyrights to the labels for an instant pay-day (advance) and then the record label keeps all monies earned as “recoup costs” (charged expenses like recording costs, marketing budgets, advances) that the artist needs to pay back.
  • Who is the rights holder? The artist or the record label and/or publisher? Because it is the rights holder who is receiving the 70%. If a writer or artist isn’t seeing the money, the answer to their question can probably be found within their label or publisher contract.

But when artists are in control of their own copyrights with a lot fewer people in between, guess what happens. They actually make money if their music is listened too.

One song can earn a decent amount to the songwriter if there are fewer hands in the cookie jar. In the link, the take away line is that 10,929,203 streams on Spotify has resulted in royalty payments of $56,329.35 to the rights holder, which in this case is the artist and songwriter. If one song has been streamed that many times, by default, other songs from the artist will be streamed and the article talks about another song earning $37,000 from 11 million streams.

The consumers have made their choice that streaming has a future.

It’s time for artists to wake up and be smart about their choices when it comes to signing away their most valuable asset, their “COPYRIGHT”.

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Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity

Copyright Will Expire Say When

I’ve been listening to a few new album releases while reading a few articles on Copyright. As everyone knows, copyright lasts for the life of the creator plus 70 years.

In 2015, Matt Heafy from Trivium turns 29 years of age and Claude Sanchez from Coheed and Cambria turns 37 years of age. According to various research, males are expected to live to about 80. If all goes to plan then their copyrights on “Silence In The Snow” and “The Color Before The Sun” (both released in 2015) is expected to expire/enter the public domain on 1 January 2136 and 2128 respectively.

That’s right people, the way copyright currently stands around most western societies, “Silence In The Snow” and “The Color Before The Sun” will be protected by copyright for 121 and 113 years respectively.

Now remember, Copyright was designed to provide creators of works an incentive to create more works by rewarding the creator with a number of rights for a limited period of time. After the copyright expires, the work enters into the public domain so that any person can copy the work in part or in whole in as many as different ways possible. The whole British rock movement happened because most of the blues, jazz and folk standards from the 1930’s were out of copyright, free for others to build upon.

However, from Copyrights beginnings, the terms have been extended a number of times, so that in 2015 we have a copyright that protects works for a long time.

Hell, even a song like “Smoke On The Water” will still be under copyright long after I am dead, and I was born after the song was released.

Jon Lord’s Copyright will expire in 2082, as he passed away in 2012. Ritchie Blackmore’s, Ian Gillan’s and Roger Glover’s Copyright will expire in 2095 while and Ian Paice’s Copyright will expire in 2098 provided they all live up to 80 years of age.

So what we have is a problem where the public finds it difficult to build upon works protected by copyright to create new products.

So who do you think will benefiting from this long copyright extension after death?

Will the family members of the creator benefit?

Will the third-party who owns the Copyright because the creator or the family of the creator sold/licensed the copyright to them for a fee and for a time period benefit?

In the future to come, I expect to see a music publisher purchase the Copyrights to an obscure NWOBHM song called “Rainbow Warrior” from a band called Bleak House and then take Metallica to court under plagiarism claims for “Welcome Home (Sanitarium). Or a music publisher who owns the copyrights to “Sad But True” and “Symphony Of Destruction” from Metallica and Megadeth, then taking Avenged Sevenfold to court under plagiarism claims for “This Means War” and “Heretic”.

Sort of like how the music publishing company Larrikin who purchased the copyright to the children’s song “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gum Tree” from the Public Trustee, sued Men At Work for a 10 second flute solo on their song “Down Under” that sounded similar to the melody in the children’s song. .

The sad part is that the Copyright collection societies are posting record collections, while still screaming for restrictive and longer copyright terms.

It’s basically these kind of societies along with powerful rights holders like Disney and the Record Labels that have lobbied governments to extend the scope of copyright. And it doesn’t look like changing anytime soon and the courts will be clogged up with plagiarism suits, when in fact, all of those suits should be thrown out. Because no music is created in a vacuum.

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A to Z of Making It, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Unsung Heroes

INTERESTING: In A World Of Free, Metal and Rock Music Still Continues To Sell

There is a great article over at the Metal Insider website.

If you are too lazy to click on the link, the article covers the biggest selling metal and rock albums for 2015.

From the results, it’s pretty obvious that metal and rock fans like to purchase music. There is still a collectors mindset there. What’s even more fascinating is that a lot of the albums that have sold a decent amount in 2015 were not even released in 2015.

NOTE: The figures are based on U.S sales.

“Master of Puppets” was released in 1986 and in 2015 it sold 107,800 units. The self-titled “Metallica” album released in 1991 has sold another 77,100 units in 2015. It is well on its way to 17 million units sold in total.

Now think about for a second.

All of Metallica’s music is available on streaming services for paid subscriptions and for free. All of their music is available for downloading via legal options and illegal options. And they still continue to sell.

A band’s longevity is based around the need to replenish their fan base year after year. If you are not doing that then expect to play smaller venues. Dokken and Ratt are two bands that come to mind who haven’t replenished their fan bases from the Eighties. Both bands in the Eighties had platinum sales and played arenas. Today, they have almost no sales and play clubs.  Of course, not having the main creative forces in the current version of the band plays a part, however, even if Lynch and Pilson or Pearcy and Croucier did rejoin Dokken and Ratt respectively, it doesn’t mean that millions of people would be interested.

Metallica,  however is doing a good job at replenishing their fan base based on their selected live performances in new markets and in markets that have high rates of piracy.  They basically have a whole new generation of music fans who more or less consumed the music of Metallica for free and in most cases illegally. However, that still hasn’t stopped them from selling music and concert tickets.

As business people, the move to their own label “Blackened Recordings” was a no-brainer.

The record is how it all starts. It hooks the audience in. Anyone born in the Nineties, will know Metallica as the conformist poster artist for the labels in the Napster case. Anyone born in the Seventies and early Eighties know Metallica as a non-conformist band that pushed boundaries.

The whole Napster kerfuffle in the end just showed why it was not a good idea for Metallica to get in the way of people experiencing their music. However, they have learnt that by making their music available everywhere, they see better returns in other areas.

As an artist, it is a privilege for people to listen to your music. Respect that.

“Back In Black” from AC/DC was released in 1980. In 2015 so far, it has sold 110,000 units in the U.S.  The new album, “Rock Or Bust”, released in 2014, has sold 143,400 units in 2015.  Put it down to the band being on the road and building awareness of the new album. It just goes to show that the blanket marketing campaigns before the album release date, the Grammy appearance and all of the other medical issues/jail issues in the media meant nothing in 2015.

You see, when the music eco system was controlled by the record labels, the marketing blitz by the labels meant something. In 2015, it means nothing.

From the 2015 releases, Breaking Benjamin’s “Dark Before Dawn” has sold 209,000 units so far, Marilyn Manson’s “The Pale Emperor” has sold 124,200 units so far and Halestorm’s “Into The Wild Life” has sold 114,500 units so far.

From the 2014 releases, Foo Fighters “Sonic Highways” album has sold 87,800 in 2015, for total sales in 480,000 so far. Slipknot’s “5: The Gray Chapter” has sold 84,000 units in 2015, for total sales of 344,000 units. Nickelback’s “No Fixed Address” album has sold 101,000 units in 2015. Like the Foo Fighters it is approaching Gold status.

Led Zeppelin continues to be a selling machine, so why would they create new music when Copyright grants them and the owners of their songs, rights for the next 110 years to exploit the works.

In case you are wondering “Led Zeppelin 4” sold 75,000 units and “Physical Graffiti” sold 112,400 units in 2015.

Kid Rock’s debut “Devil Without A Cause” is still selling. For 2015 alone, it has moved 86,000 units. Add that to the other 10 million units it has sold so far.

So what is all of the above telling us.

Eventually people will pay, however if a piece of music that people want to check out is not available for free, they will turn away until it becomes convenient. Don’t expect people to pay just because you want them too.

And for all of those critics saying the new bands cannot attain the same level of success as their Seventies and Eighties counterparts, well have a look at some other stats.

 

As influential as Black Sabbath was to metal music, they are being outsold by Linkin Park, Korn and even Limp Bizkit.

Also for all of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley’s comments about rock being dead because no one is buying recorded music, well, Kiss has never really been a big seller of recorded music anyway. Their 21 million is pretty tame compared to Metallica’s 62 million. In the end, the live show is where it’s at. Deliver there and make that show a cultural event, the sky is the limit.

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

In Copyright Corporations Trust

I have a Google Alert set up called “Copyright Music”. Each day, I get five to ten alerts about Copyright stories.

Let’s not kid ourselves about Copyright in 2015. It is a monopoly that is controlled by greedy corporations who contribute nothing of value to the public domain or to the music industry.

A lost Beatles concert film from February 1964 (51 years ago) has been stopped from getting released because Sony and Apple Corps (The Beatles label) took the film makers to court screaming copyright breaches.

The breach is due to the film containing eight songs out of twelve that are still under Copyright.

So who is Copyright benefiting here?

You need to remember that it was due to a lack of copyright on standard blues and folk classics that benefited the British Rock invasion in the Sixties and Seventies. I can tell you that between 1955 and 1975, no song recorded 51 years ago, in other words from 1904 to 1924 was still under copyright. And look at the music we got.

It is due to copyrights expiring that we have a song from the 19th-century by a little known guitarist called Francisco Tartego now known as “The ‘Nokia tune”.

Who knew back in the 19th century that when he wrote the song called “Gran Vals” would end up being one of the most-played songs in music history.

So what we have here is a situation where corporations who hold the copyrights to old songs, fighting tooth and nail to keep these copyrights. And these greedy corporations are changing laws to suit their business models.

Copyright exists to create incentives for artists to make new works. Extending the rights for recordings made in the 1970s and earlier doesn’t encourage new music. At best, it might generate some income for the small number of “oldies” labels and rights holders whose recordings still have commercial value.

There is no greater Copyright sin than the case against Men At Work. The band lost a court case in 2010 because a judge found that a 10 second flute riff in the 1981 song “Down Under” copied parts of a song called “Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gumtree” from 1934.

As the article states;

“Kookaburra is a simple, four-bar tune. Men at Work were found liable for copying two of these bars. The Court found that this copying was sufficient to award Larrikin Music Publishing – the current owners of Kookaburra Sits in the Old Gumtree – 5% of Down Under’s royalties from 2002 onwards.”

The disconnect here is that people/company who didn’t even write the song “Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gumtree” suing the Men At Work writers almost 30 years after the release of their song and 67 years after the “Kookaburra” song was released.

So who is Copyright benefiting here?

Remember copyright is designed to promote creativity. The writer of the song has passed away. On death, all copyright used to cease and the works would fall into the Public Domain. It hasn’t been that way for at least 60 years.

Led Zeppelin who are no strangers to infringement lawsuits have another one on their hands, albeit 43 years later from when “Stairway To Heaven” was released.

Expect Metallica to cop a few lawsuits in the future once the copyrights to some obscure NWOBHM songs end up with Corporations. Just think of the songs “Welcome Home” and “Enter Sandman”. If i was Metallica Inc, I would be the ones purchasing the rights to the NWOBHM songs they copied otherwise a lawsuit will eventuate.

If you need further evidence about how important Copyright is to corporations (instead of artists) look no further than the donations these corporations give to politicians.

Since Copyright became a financial windfall for the Corporations that hold the rights to songs, we have those same corporate entities via their lobby groups donating to political parties in the name of Copyright.

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