ASCAP Starts To Act Like the RIAA 272
Scott Lockwood writes "Below Average Dave, a Dr. Demento style parody artist, has been shut down by the ASCAP. This collective, acting as badly as the RIAA, is now attempting to ignore the 2 Live Crew Supreme Court decision that parodies are new derivative works. Just like the RIAA, ASCAP seems intent on misrepresents the law. If you know anyone who can help BA Dave in his plight, please contact him." This artist doesn't have the resources to fight the ASCAP, even though the law is pretty clearly on his side. Anyone at the EFF or the ACLU interested?
Who's Next? (Score:3, Interesting)
Is This Anything New (Score:5, Interesting)
don't think he'll ASCAPe the charges (Score:3, Interesting)
ASCAP charges both for lyrics and melodies. If you make an instrumental version of a song, you have to pay, and if you create alternative lyrics over that instrumental, I don't think it changes anything. I suspect Dave isn't going to avoid the bill.
Re:Starting? (Score:2, Interesting)
I own a climbing gym, and they have been after my ass for almost two years. We play a radio station, which is already paying ASCAP and BMI. If I break down and pay ASCAP, BMI will come with their hand out, and a small business will be out at least $2000 per year. To play the fukcing radio! Everyone in the gym can have on headphones tuned to the same station and ASCAP won't care. It's a damn climbing gym! People don't "work out to the music" as the contend.
I contacted a guy, and there is a way around it: play music by artists not controlled by these idiots, and/or get written consent to play music from the creators.
Re:Soap box, ballot box, and jury box have failed. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm never one to stand in the way of a murderous rampage (in fact I stand as far away as possible) but I think perhaps you're overreacting just a bit. Why not just boycott them? No one is forcing you to use them or any of their "properties". Just leave them to drown in their own cultural dregs.
Why Is the Music Industry So Messed Up? (Score:3, Interesting)
Why is it that the music industry seems to be so corrupt? I mean, I'm sure crap goes on in all industries, but the music industry in particular is just blatantly messed up. You've got groups like the RIAA suing their customers, all major venues are pretty much owned by Ticketmaster who add ridiculous fees to shows, while ClearChannel controls the airwaves, and then you have groups like ASCAP/BMI who push licenses on small business owners because the alternative are law suits where the minimal fine (or just lawyers fees alone) would drive them out of business. To make matters worst, the artists who are the base of the industry are frequently getting short end of the stick despite in many cases providing the largest contribution which makes the whole industry possible.
Re:Paging Ray Beckerman (Score:5, Interesting)
I think if I was this guy, I'd just ignore the lawsuit completely and continue doing what I've always done. Cost: $0.00. Eventually due to my lack of participation the court case would probably be decided in ASCAP's favor, and I'd be fined a couple million dollars. Then I'd start calling folks like CNN, NBC, FOX, PBS to publicize the ridiculous nature of a law that fines average citizens a couple million dollars, just because they sampled a few seconds in a parody. It would embarrass ASCAP, get the attention of Congress, and lead to change.
Another outcome is that the Judge would simply throw-out the case. Again my cost would be $0.00.
And a final outcome is that if this thing drags-on, I might die of old age, then the whole thing is moot.
I wonder how Weird Al Yankovic feels about this case? He too is affected if it's decided parodies/samplings are no longer allowed. Who knows, maybe he's next in line to be sued. Well whatever. Dear ASCAP/RIAA/MPAA/Authors Guild: Fuck ye. And eat a bullet.
Re:Not all parodies are legit (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Paging Ray Beckerman (Score:3, Interesting)
I think if I was this guy, I'd just ignore the lawsuit completely and continue doing what I've always done. Cost: $0.00. Eventually due to my lack of participation the court case would probably be decided in ASCAP's favor, and I'd be fined a couple million dollars. Then I'd start calling folks like CNN, NBC, FOX, PBS to publicize the ridiculous nature of a law that fines average citizens a couple million dollars, just because they sampled a few seconds in a parody. It would embarrass ASCAP, get the attention of Congress, and lead to change.
If you really think this would work, I encourage you to try it. Generally, if you don't show up for court, you lose and nobody is sympathetic in the least.
Re:Starting? (Score:2, Interesting)
Not licensing for performing someone else's composition, licensing for live music that is totally original and wholly owned by the artist playing at the venue. That's illegal.
When an artist plays their own original music live at a venue, BMI and ASCAP have no right to get involved at all, but they will hound you mercilessly with demands that you pay them money. They want people to believe that they automatically own the rights to all music ever written, and they take that position in their communication with businesses who have original music performances. As has already been stated, they are thugs.
Re:Starting? (Score:5, Interesting)
Not playing covers songs isn't enough for them.
ASCAP in effect shut down a local venue because they had no way to pay the exceptionally high fees they wanted in order to allow live music to be played.
They catered to local, younger musicians playing ORIGINAL music. At first, they let them go because they were playing original music. Then, they came back and said they had to pay the fees.
Why? because someone warming up, tuning up, or whatever may play a few notes that someone else wrote.
This place was for a younger audience, so no alcohol sales. Cover charges were just to keep the place open. They had to close down.
Re:Paging Ray Beckerman (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Soap box, ballot box, and jury box have failed. (Score:2, Interesting)
To point out why this is so confusing for people:
When you play a song off a CD, you are implicating two sets of rights: those of the sound recording and those of the underlying musical composition.
If you were to play a sound effect off a CD, you would only be doing something related to sound recordings and nothing to do with any musical composition.
In the first instance, you'd be doing things related to both (1) artists and (2) composers. In the second instance, you'd be doing things related to only (1) artists.
Case 1 implicates ASCAP. Case 2 does not.
Until very recently, there was no public performance right in audio recordings, and so making your own version of the audio recording would only implicate rights of the underlying musical composition. Thus, if I covered some Coldplay song, Coldplay would have no standing to sue unless they also were the composer of the underlying musical work.
However, within the past decade or so, a new law came into force that creates an exclusive public performance right for sound recordings. However, this only applies when dealing with digital audio transmissions, not with analog/playing-over-your-boombox-speakers performances.
Now that I've written this, I'm not sure where I was going with it. I'll just post it for those interested in the history and development of copyright law.
Re:Paging Ray Beckerman (Score:1, Interesting)
Off-topic...TV commercials are pretty notorious for creating "sound-alike" songs though. I think the theory is that musicians don't deserve to be paid for what they do (maybe they consulted Ask Slashdot and that's the advice they got).
If you can find someone else who can sound-alike for a lesser rate, exactly what value does the original artist add? In theory the mandatory licensing fee for covers compensates artists for their contribute to future covers -- you can argue that fee should be higher, but to suggest that because someone can reproduce the original sound it should not be considered a cover is absurd.
Re:Starting? (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm not invading your personal space. I'm camped on your lawn, scores of feet away from you on the other side of a wall, and doing you no harm. Land ownership is just as much a social-legal fiction as is copyright. Yet you're willing to kill to protect it?
Nor have I mentioned perpetual compensation, I've explicitly disclaimed that. Please do me the favor of not putting words into my mouth.
I tell you this -- I would rather have you camp on my lawn for a few days than falsely claim authorship of one of my works.
Am I harmed if you claim credit for a song that I wrote? Not directly, it neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. But you are collecting something -- credit -- that I am, ethically, owed. I assert that the financial situation is the same: just as you owe me my name on the liner notes of the CD (or whatever the equivalent is for an MP3 from iTunes), when you sell recordings of a song I wrote, you owe me a just royalty.
And I have no objection to that. Is it somehow unclear to you that I am not arguing in favor of copyright? Copy, share and enjoy, please. I just want a fair share if you make money off of it.
That statement, sir, is unadulterated rubbish. Is Hendrix's version of "All Along the Watchtower" inferior to Dylan's? Joplin's "Me and Bobby McGee" not as good as Kris Kristofferson's? Do you think Ike & Tina Turner's "Proud Mary" is not as good as CCR's? Feh, I say, feh.
(On the topic of covers, I have to digress a second: while trying to refresh my brain on covers better than originals I stumbled across this [avclub.com], which mentions that that the version of "Desperado" on the Langley Schools Music Project [keyofz.com]. Let me say that if you love music, you owe it to yourself to seek out this album. Also Songs in the Key of Z [keyofz.com].)