A to Z of Making It, Classic Songs to Be Discovered, Copyright, Music, My Stories, Piracy, Stupidity, Treating Fans Like Shit, Unsung Heroes

Eye Empire

“I know that all of you are wondering, what happened to Submersed? Well, the answers is… A lot.. This business and struggle to make it took its toll on the members… Two weeks before “Price of Fame” was slated for release, Tj, Kelan and Justin decided to move on with their lives and left SubmerseD. Garrett and I believing in “Price of Fame” made the choice to press on and see what could happen. Well, nothing happened… the single never had a chance… mind bottling… The fact is, is that a majority of our fan base is unaccounted for due to Burning, making it impossible for the labels to understand just how many people really support us out there… When it comes down to it now, SubmerseD no longer has a place on Windup’s roster and will be dropped shortly… I was trying to wait until things were a little more official before an announcement but you guys and gals are smart and I felt you deserved an explanation now rather than later”

The above is what Donald Carpenter, the singer of SubmerseD put up in 2008 on their MySpace page. Some people call it a whiny rant, however the truth of the post is hidden in the words “making it impossible for the labels to understand just how many people really support” the band. Yep, while Wind Up Records focused on the old business model of CD sales or mp3 sales as a band’s popularity, they ended up failing their artists. Piracy is a black hole that the record labels like to put in their financial reports back to artists that if something doesn’t sell it must be piracy’s fault.

Go on YouTube. The song “Never Again” has had 351,372 views. An acoustic version of the band performing “Hollow” has been viewed 178,498 times. People were listening to the band. Maybe not in the way they hoped or wanted, but they were listening.

For those people who don’t know about SubmerseD. They band was signed to Wind Up Records. Mark Tremonti from Creed/Alter Bridge worked with them. Guitarist Eric Friedman was a key ingredient in the chemistry that made “In Due Time” such a good album however by the time their second album “Immortal Verses” came out, Friedman was gone and the band was dropped by Wind-Up Records after its failure.

So in 2009, Eye Empire is formed. It was a pseudo supergroup of members who had label deals with other bands. The foundations come from Dark New Day members Corey Lowery and B.C. Kochmit. Vocals came from Donald Carpenter. Drums came from a range of other musicians.

So they go the Independent route, self-releasing their music through their website in limited edition 1000 runs. That way they compile an email list of people interested in purchasing their music. YouTube became a promotional outlet. That is how I came across Eye Empire. Their clip of “I Pray” has had 147,120 views. The song “More Than Fate” has had 81,729 views on the Eye Empire VEVO account, 46,447 on the Eye Empire You Tube account, 41,694 on a user/fan account and 72,508 on the Submersed YouTube account. In total, that is 242,378 views.

The band was making inroads and I always say that success comes to the ones who outlast the competition. In this case, the version of Eye Empire that people started to adopt as the definitive band is no more. From when the release of Eye Empire’s second album “Evolve” came out in October 2013 to April 2014, Donald Carpenter, the very reason why I got into the band was out. Lowery, Kochmit and Bennett said in a statement that Carpenter was trying to reassemble a former band which to me means SubmerseD. Carpenter replied with a philosophical “Starting over is always hard but it’s not the first time and I am certain that it won’t be the last.”

The hardest part of change is actually making the decision to change. Once that decision is made then the rest is easy. In relation to Eye Empire, I can relate to the driven aspect of some members not being in sync with another band member.

In the early nineties, I was in a hard rock band that was out-of-place in the Industrial Alternative Nu-Metal wasteland between the years of 1996 and 1999. It was a three-piece band. The drummer wanted to be big as Pearl Jam but didn’t have the work ethic. The bass player/singer was happy playing the club circuit week in/week out as it was a stable income.

Each three-hour gig got us $150 each. We used to play three gigs a week. So $450 in the pocket each week was a good little additional income for me on top of my normal full-time job. However, the bass player/singer and the drummer didn’t have any jobs. So their cash income came on top of the unemployment benefits they received. So our lifestyles were very different. While I had a mortgage, they lived at home with their parents. So the work ethic between us was very different because of the different responsibilities we had.

I practiced my guitar playing each day. The drummer didn’t even practice. The only time he played the drums was at band practice and then live. The bass player always started the jam sessions/live performances sober and by the end was getting pretty tipsy. So again, the drive between us as musicians was different.

I was married and looking to start a family. The drummer was single, in and out of relationships. The singer was separated and had two kids to two different woman. So our personal lives brought different responsibilities to the table.

The song writing was like this. If I wrote a song, I would bring it in complete, with music and lyrics. If the bass player/singer wrote a song, he would bring it in complete. And we jammed them without any questions. So you can see where the arguments would come from later on.

And you get this in bands.

The different work ethics, the different drive of the individuals and the different expectations that they place on each other and the band.

And I am thinking that Carpenter’s definition of success and fame is over exaggerated or over inflated.

Shinedown is one of the biggest rock bands right now and they play two to five thousand seat arenas. Is that a bad thing. Of course not. Maybe if Donald Carpenter was the lead singer it would be a bad thing.

So what about the songs on “Evolve”?

“Beyond The Stars” and “Live Loud” are real good songs. The stand outs by far. “Within” is a good merge of their Sevendust influence along with Muse. “The War Isn’t Over Yet” is an aggressive piece of music. “The Man I Am” is very reminiscent to what Donald Carpenter did with SubmerseD and to be honest it brings back a memory of Deep Purple “Soldier Of Fortune” for some reason. “Don’t Look Back” is reminiscent of “Animosity” era Sevendust. Another quality track.

The other half of the album borders too much on Sevendust. Which is a shame as the potential is there, however it will remain unfulfilled.

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

The Barrier Of Entry

It always pained me to talk about business models with the bands I was in, especially when the business started to change dramatically from the early two thousands.

The other members just believed that someone will find us, sign us up with millions and off we go recording and touring the world. They still had this view in 2010, when after another argument over business decisions, the band splintered apart.

So after I left, they signed a record deal with a small European label for the album that we just finished recording, and they had to pay $1500 Euro for that deal. WTF. After all of those arguments they still didn’t listen to me and they signed away my copyright to the songs that I had written to that label. Guess they just wanted to say to people that they had signed a record deal.

I contacted a lawyer who charged me $300 just for the consultation, however since the band was only a minor league band, it wasn’t worth pursuing in the courts and attempts at any mediation to have me set the record straight and get back my copyrights ended with further arguments and fisticuffs.

The songs in question are songs that I wrote for previous bands I was in and had them registered with a performing rights association years before my most recent band was even formed in 2008. So imagine my surprise when the performing rights association contacted me in 2010 saying that my ex band members have put in claims as songwriters. Even the bass player that joined after the album was finalised put in a claim for a 25% share of the songwriting.

The ugly truth of being in a band.

Just in case aliens are visiting the Earth right now, the “old record label business model” was to identify an artist, put them in the studio, release their recording on a format that a customer could take home and hope that it connects with an audience. That is what my ex-band mates wanted to happen to them in 2010.

This was the principle revenue stream for a very long time for the record labels. It was the sole purpose of their existence. Now that physical product is a loss leader. It has been reduced to an advertising tool to help the artist build a fan base and sell the live show.

Withholding an album from Spotify in the way that Coldplay or The Black Keys are doing is the wrong line of thinking in 2014. It’s back to the old paradigm of “windowing” and maximizing sales through physical retail or download stores first and then moving over to the streaming service when those sales die down. Windowing is still employed by the TV and Movie industry with zero degrees of success and a high rate of piracy.

However, Coldplay did release the singles to Spotify, so it’s no surprise that “Magic” has been streamed more than 55 million times on Spotify. To me, it seems that the recording industry is trying to re-create that “BARRIER OF ENTRY” around how they distribute new music today.

You see the music business once upon a time had a thing called “THE BARRIER OF ENTRY”. This barrier of entry was around which acts got picked up and which acts didn’t. This barrier of entry was also around which music was released and which music wasn’t.

Now the record labels could argue that this “barrier of entry” was the reason why the music coming out of their stables was of high quality. You know the model I am talking about, the one where the artist got lucky because they had some look that the label could exploit and by default they ended up getting a record label deal and the only way to hear all of their output was to buy an overpriced CD. And now those labels are not raking in the cash they used to get and they are blaming piracy.

Let’s look at three superstar acts today and how the show artists today, that the barrier of entry didn’t exist for them, because if you want it, you will do anything.

Metallica

“Kill Em All” was independently financed through independent record label Megaforce Records. Megaforce Records was founded in 1982 by Jon and Marsha Zazula solely to publish the first works of Metallica. The Zazula’s even had the Metallica guys living in their house because they believed in the music and the attitude.

Even Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning” album was recorded and originally released in 1984 through Megaforce Records. A few months later, Metallica signed with Elektra Records who re-released the album.

Motley Crue

The first album “Too Fast For Love” was independently financed via their own Leathur Records imprint in 1981. Leathur Records was a small imprint owned by the band and their original manager Allan Coffman. It was actually Coffman that coughed up the funds for it all.

Elektra Records signed the band the following year.

Five Finger Death Punch

“The Way Of The Fist” was recorded, produced and financed by the band members themselves. Once the album was done, they ended up getting a small independent deal to release the album. In its first week of release it did nothing, but four years later, it was certified GOLD for sales in the U.S.

Only after those bands had proven themselves as viable options did the major Record Labels commit to them. Because they saw dollars and profits. Nothing else.

What all of the bands above had was a product that was ingrained with a cultural movement.

Today, we have musicians promoting themselves on Facebook, Twitter or other social media outlets and in reality they still do not have an actual PRODUCT that connects. Getting 10,000 likes doesn’t mean 10,000 fans if no one is talking about your product or sharing what your product with others.

Don’t blame piracy, blame the lack of product because there is so much product out there today, we normally don’t go back to something we checked out once and didn’t like.

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

Some Truths

Music is cultural. It was always possible to identify people’s musical tastes by the clothes they wore and the style of their hair. Our musical identity was a source of pride.

The definition of a casual music fan twenty to thirty years ago meant having a high music IQ and typically purchasing a seven inch single on a weekly basis. The definition of a casual music fan today means having a lower music IQ about who was involved in the song’s creation and focusing all on the song.

Nobody owes a musician a living.

What is valuable is subjective.

From the beginning of time, musicians always made money from public performances.

Copyright at its basic level ensures that people receive compensation for a valuable good that they spend time and energy to create. This creates an incentive to put more time and energy into producing new work. Longer Copyright terms do not benefit the original creator in any way whatsoever.

People start to create for the sake of creation rather than money.

Whether people want to admit it or not, every song that is written relies on some sort of connection to past works.

Piracy has never been the problem. The RIAA just found it convenient to blame Piracy. It was all a smokescreen to fool the politicians into action so that they can get control back over the distribution/gatekeeper monopoly they had.

Recording revenues never recovered because it turns out that most people just want the best songs and not all of the songs.

There is a big difference between getting paid a “living wage” and earning one. Just because a musician creates a song or records an album, it doesn’t mean that you need to get paid a living wage. You need an audience that believes that you have provided a service to them by releasing your music.

Music is a form of entertainment. It is not an essential service and today we take in entertainment in mega-doses.

Music is something people choose to do free and money is a by product of doing music.

A wage is something your employer pays you for doing your part in bringing him profit.

If you want a wage for playing music and you are not a superstar act, then you need to put in your 40 hours a week. Be a music teacher, gig every day.

Being paid is good, but being known is better.

Price, Piracy And “The Stealing vs Copyright Infringement” Argument Again

Australia (where I reside) is always mentioned as a leading country that specialises in copyright infringement.

So it comes as no surprise that the latest Attorney General, George Brandis flush with lobbying dollars from Village Roadshow (Village was part of a failed court case two years ago against iiNet, in which the High Court ruled that iiNet as an ISP had not authorised copyright infringements) is pledging to do something about these “pirates”.

You see, Brandis and Village Roadshow are two such entities that have grown up with the notion that because they have made a profit out of the public for a number of years, that it is the duty of the government and the courts to guarantee that such profit remains the same in the future even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest.

If Australia does have a massive problem with piracy, one way to solve it would be to provide a legal alternative that is like “The Pirate Bay”. The evidence is right there in front of the content industries. People like to download content. So why don’t they run ads and allow people to download content for free.

Instead Village Roadshow chief Graham Burke just keeps on lashing out against Google for not doing enough to curb piracy. He lashes out at Google for not doing enough to protect his profits. He keeps on emailing the Attorney General for a graduated response scheme funded by the ISP’s even though evidence from all over the world clearly show that these schemes do not work.

On the point of prices, there is a war going on in Australia right now in relation to the prices that Australian audiences need to pay for movies, software, mp3’s, ebooks and devices. Our consumer watchdog even took the drastic step to tell Australian consumers to use a VPN so that they could alter their IP address.

The main talking point doing the rounds the last few weeks is the price of a movie ticket. In Australia, the main cinemas charge $16 to $20 a ticket while Independent cinemas are charging between the $8 to $12 price range.

Graham Burke (yep that same person mentioned above from Village Roadshow) is on fire. Check out some of his quotes;

“In Australia we pay approximately $23 an hour for our people; in America, where we operate cinemas, it’s $8 an hour.”

Umm, the last time I was at the cinema I was served by 16-year-old workers, who are earning nowhere near the $23 an hour figure. More like $15 an hour.

“It’s like going into a bookshop through the back door, and taking all the books out. It’s something that needs to be addressed and is being addressed in democracies throughout the world.”

No, copyright infringement is nowhere near the same as taking all the books out of a book store. Once the book is taken out of the book store, it is gone forever and no one can use it again. When music is infringed, the copy is still there for others to download and share. No one has taken anything away. All they have done is made a copy.

To put Burke’s argument misleading quote in context, Copyright Infringement is going into a bookstore, copying the book you want and then walking out, leaving the original book still there for others to use, share and copy.

The problem with recorded music is the supply vs demand argument.

Let’s use 30 Seconds To Mars as an example.

Their music is available for downloading, both legally and illegally. Their music is available on YouTube, on official channels and unofficial channels. Their music is available on streaming sites like Pandora, Spotify, Beats, iTunes Radio, Rdio and many others. Their music is available on vinyl and CD.

There is a large supply chain there and the demand is not centered in the one place anymore.

Streaming is the future because consumers want music to be free. This is the cold reality and artists need to accept that.

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

The Old And The New – Times Are Changing

MY MUSIC COLLECTION vs THE KIDS MUSIC COLLECTION

This is my record and CD collection along with the issues from Guitar World from January 1986.

My kids have all of this on their iPod’s and iPad’s.

THE PURCHASE OF MUSIC from RETAIL STORES vs INSTANTANEOUS

I took the kids to the “Record Store Day” two days ago.

They loved the record store and it was their second record store that they had visited ever. They enjoyed searching through the piles of records but hated the following things;

– the line up/wait to pay for our purchases compared to clicking a few keys and having it all happen instantaneous.

– the chance that what I wanted to buy at the Record Store Day could not be there or it could have sold out compared to having the history of music available at your fingertips without any issues. For the record, it was the last copy of the “Killers and Kings” single and the second last copy of the “The Illumination Theory” picture LP.

– that once they found a record that had a cool cover from an unknown act, they couldn’t hear it BEFORE they decided to buy it compared to what they do on-line with YouTube and Spotify.

– the price of the special edition releases. As a hobbyist/collector I paid $30AUS for the Machine Head “Killers and Kings” single and $40AUS for the Dream Theater “Illumination Theory” picture LP. My kids thought I was insane, spending $70AUS on two products, especially when a years subscription to Spotify is just a touch more and for that you get millions upon millions of songs.

MY BOOK COLLECTION and DVD COLLECTION vs THE KIDS BOOK COLLECTION

In other words, Physical books vs The Kindle Touch.

If you are a business that is in the entertainment/arts arena that is still hoping on physical sales for profits, then your business model is challenged.

Research is constantly showing that in order to compete with piracy, sellers of music, movies and books need to have a “free music approach, targeted at young users and supported by advertisements along with a high-quality music offering to older customers, where they pay for downloads but with no visible advertising.”

The take away is this comment;

“Our research shows that consumers do prefer legal and ethical options if available but each age group has different ways of making this economically viable.”

I bet that comes to a shock to the traditional labels and marketing firms. The days of when music was only made available to people who had disposable incomes are over and have been for a long time.

Music consumption is now being driven by different age brackets. The 113 million streams of Katy Perry’s “Roar” is being driven more by the kids in the 4 to 14 age bracket than the 25 plus adults. It is the song of the young, their anthem, their “We’re Not Gonna Take It”.

It all reminds me of a song I once wrote called “Times Are Changing”.

I wrote it in 1993, just when Grunge finally made the hard rock movement a footnote in history for the next decade. And the song wasn’t about the death of hard rock, it was the about the power of a cultural movement enforcing a change that no one could stop. As the pre-chorus stated;

It’s a revolution in their eyes
Against society and its lies

Times are changing, re-arranging x2

Guess the times are constantly changing and they are changing even faster in the era of the internet. And when I compare the new to the old, the times have really changed.

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

Who Is Ahead Of The Game and Who Is Behind The Eight Ball

Ahead Of The Game
Demonoid. As the single largest semi-private BitTorrent tracker that ever existed, Demonoid offered a home to millions of file-sharers. Throughout it’s history it has been taken offline a few times and the most recent one occurred last year. However, the site is known as the “COMEBACK KID” and it is back again. Never underestimate innovation. It always trump corruption and money.

Behind The Eight Ball
As expected and predicted by everybody, the Entertainment Industries/Hollywood Studios are now suing MegaUpload. The fact that they conspired with the Government to take a cyberlocker off-line was not enough. The fact that they made a lot of people lose personal content like photos, papers and videos is not enough. Let’s spend more money and sue the organisation. I suppose the catchcry is going to be the whole “WE NEED TO SEND A MESSAGE”.

Ahead Of The Game
YouTube dominates music streaming UNOFFICIALLY.

Behind The Eight Ball
Apple’s got no streaming solution. iTunes Radio is no match for Pandora so Apple/Cook making a billion dollar deal with Beats Music (which was losing money) so that they could have a streaming solution. And Trent Reznor (who was an investor in Beats) cashed in with the Beats sale to Apple by making way more money than he ever made in music.

Ahead Of The Game
Streaming wins.

Behind The Eight Ball
Spotify laid the foundation for streaming by fighting from trench to trench. Can they compete with Apple? The word on the street is that Apple will have a better royalty rate when it comes to streams.

Ahead Of The Game
The Techies are still the winners when it comes to music and distribution.

Behind The Eight Ball
Ponos and Studio Quality music in our ear buds.

Ahead Of The Game
Independent bands that come up with creative ways to engage their fans. “The Airborne Toxic Event” a few years back released a series of stripped-down, single-shot videos for every song on their album. Check out their Spotify and YouTube numbers today. A lot of the established rock bands do not have those numbers. The lesson here is that the artists in today’s world have way more opportunities to reach out to their fans and share content with them. It’s a lifer game.

Behind The Eight Ball
Artists talking about CD sales. Or research that focuses on innovation hurting sales of music. Hell, lets bring back Eight Track Tapes and Cassettes while we are at it.

Ahead Of The Game
Number crunching. MusicMetric, Echo Nest and Next Big Sound are all out there providing analysis on music by examining all aspects of a bands presence, like Social Media, Peer To Peer, legal mp3 purchases and streaming numbers.

Behind The Eight Ball
Lobbyists are still pushing hard for prosecution of online pirates and that new law is known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). Basically it is a free trade deal that is being negotiated in secret and it has similar provisions to America’s controversial SOPA and ACTA bills.

And what about these other little innovative beauties from the entertainment industries;

DreamWorks calling for a piracy crackdown while they rake it in.

MUSO (a takedown service) is the Entertainment Industries answer to piracy. And the UK Government is providing funding.

If you are an artist, you need to keep on creating so that you can stay ahead of the game. If you are a label, you need to be finding talent and innovating to stay ahead of the game. Otherwise, you will be behind the eight ball and blaming everyone else for your shortcomings.

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

Innovation V8.0: You Gotta Love Innovation From The Entertainment Industries!!!

Progression

Music piracy opens up new technological innovations and new conversations. The latest one doing the rounds is the battle against piracy on the SMARTPHONE. The music industry trade group, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, (IFPI) called it an “emerging and as-yet-unquantified threat”.

It’s the same old argument.

One thing that is certain is that the SMARTPHONE is here to stay. That is why the “Music Maniac” app has been downloaded more than 10 million times. So why can’t the music industry innovate and have an app that is downloaded 10 million times.

The music industry of course have sent notices to Google requesting the apps removal. How typical. What’s next? Ban the smartphone because it enables song piracy. Ban cars because they kill people. This is progression. It is a new frontier.

Regression

In the UK, politicians decided to tax digital downloads. So this would mean a price increase for music.

A price increase in digital downloads will lead legitimate music customers to streaming and the more casual ones to piracy.

In my opinion this is a stupid decision by a Government that acts like a police force for the Entertainment industries.

Don’t mistake this tax for what it really is. A protectionist tax for the brick and mortar stores who think of their profit margins instead of their customers.

Bring back the CD’s screams the British Government.

Progression

Piracy in China is huge.

Not because that the Chinese don’t want to pay for it, its just that China audiences don’t have access to a lot of legal alternatives that are worth it.

So with Nokia launching a very OVERDUE streaming service in China, it is a step in the right direction to monetise that pirate money into legitamite money.

Nokia’s service will provide a legal alternative for free or a premium version for the equivalent of $3.99 a month.

Regression

Music industry group IFPI believes it is time to expand the web site blockades to other countries, and censor mobile networks too.

It looks more like censorship to me.

Progression

Anyone heard of Hatchet.

“Hatchet is a place (website) where users can share music, tastes and thoughts against one or more music services – and be portable across them.”

This is tech companies innovating to stay ahead of their competitors and it is no surprise that the announcement by Hatchet came shortly after Spotify acquired music technology firm The Echo Nest.

Regression

The everlasting saga of MP3Tunes and it’s founder Michael Robertson took another drastic turn in the courts. The whole lawsuit was another case of the record labels just being generally angry about innovation.

While MP3Tunes initially, won, the case went around the blocks and now the judge in the MP3Tunes case withdrew the original ruling and decided to take another look. That’s now resulted in a jury apparently finding that MP3Tunes was “willfully blind” to infringement.

So a jury now decides Copyright Law. Who would have thought that when Copyright was first introduced?

Maybe we should start charging all of the car makers for their cars being used in drive by shootings and drug trafficking.

The eventual endgame for the Entertainment Industry is to reduce the internet to a distribution model that is under their control where the flow of all content is all about paywalls.

Progression

BitTorrent and Music is normally associated with piracy, so of course you always need someone to show how it can be used for something different.

Moby showed last year that being the most downloaded torrent is a good thing.

This year we have a Hip Hop artist leading the way with a world first BitTorrent / Bitcoin venture, alongside their regular iTunes offering. And all donations go directly to the band as there are no middlemen.

Regression

So what do we own when it comes to music these days. According to a US politician, we own nothing.

According to this moron, the mp3 that we buy from iTunes is not really ours.

Of course Rep Nadler’s fifth largest campaign donor is…

Drum roll please…..

TV/Movies/Music

Progression

The courts are finally realising that an IP address does not identify a person.

Copyright troll’s like to use IP addresses as evidence to ask courts to issue subpoenas so they can get their hands on account details from ISPs. The problem with that, is that the person listed as the account holder is often not the person who downloaded the infringing material.

So it is good to see that judges are using some common sense.

Regression

Rightscorp is still in the news. It is a copyright troll that is purely there to shakedown people.

None of that money will ever go back to the creator of said works. It’s whole business model is built on identifying IP addresses and then sending notices to the ISP provider so that they could forward it over to their customer.

Progression

Music streaming services have taken in over $1 billion in sales worldwide. This is a big positive for the music industry. Let’s hope that the record labels dont kill it, by strangling the payments back to artists.

Regression

People still complain about the difference between analog dollars and digital dollars.

Progression

It’s good to see that Billboard is trying to remain relevant however it could be too little too late. Their latest piece of innovation is charting the chatter that happens on Twitter when it comes to music.

Of course, it wouldn’t be just Billboard taking this project on. Twitter and Billboard announced that they plan to create the Billboard Twitter Real-Time Charts: which is a continuously updated list of the songs being discussed and shared the most on Twitter in the United States.

Regression

This whole notion of a piracy tax. Italy is another country that is bringing it in.

The levy applies to any piece of hardware that can hold photographic or video material – whether that’s stand-alone storage or the hard drive of a device. In exchange for the fee, consumers are able to make private copies of copyrighted works they own — films, music and so on — for their own personal use.

So by having a piracy tax in Italy, does that no mean that uploading and downloading copyrighted works is now legal. Because hey the Entertainment industry cant have it both ways.

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”

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

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/

	Luke Holik on The Case For Ozzmosis
	deKe on Always a Few Years Too Late: W…
	2loud2oldmusic on The Place Matters
	destroyerofharmony on The Place Matters
	Lana Teramae on Megadeth