Lyrics.ch Trying to Work out a Settlement 56
John
Bridleman
sent us a link to a wired article where you can read
more information about the Lyrics Server Hoopla
that we mentioned a few days ago. Apparently
after this whole mess, they're going to try to get it online.
All I want is to see the Lyrics Server, OLGA, and something
like CD-NOW linked together in one ubersite. Read lyrics, read
tablature and buy CDs. If we had MP3s there as well, life would be
perfect, but I'll take my fantasy realm one step at a time...
MP3 this, MP3 that... >:| (Score:1)
You geeks rant and rave about MP3s and how evil the recording companies are for maintaining a cabal keeping prices high and tacitly prohibiting electronic distribution, but frankly I'm having difficulty sympathizing when I know there are loads of you that already have several hundred dollars worth of bootlegged MP3s. I own >$500 worth of CDs, and yes, it's taken me a long time to accumulate the collection. As soon as I get a CDR I'll be as MP3-happy as the next guy, but every track will already be owned by me. Have you considered that the prices may be as high as they are because so many of you are bootleggers? I'm for netification of as many industries as possible, but your best "Wired" philosophies cannot justify theft.
Work with the system to change the system, and you'll look like a visionary. Lie, cheat, and steal to change the system, and you'll just look like another punk.
I've bought CDs because of the lyrics site (Score:1)
I feel this is a better argument, since it tells how the site helps the bottom line, which is the only way to get attention.
Mp3 != piracy (Score:1)
www.mp3.com, www.musicglobalnetwork.com, and several other sites have legal mp3s to download. goodnoise.net actually sells mp3s, thus giving me the ease of purchasing song or songs without having to go buy a CD somewhere, while still giving the artist money.
Why isn't a web site a library? (Score:1)
No, the Harry Fox Agency stupidly thinks that if people don't have lyrics.ch, they'll be forced to buy either the sheet music or a record to get the lyrics. They don't care that the vast majority of the songs on lyrics.ch don't have sheet music. They don't care that too many CDs don't have lyrics on the (because the record company would have to pay the publisher for using them). They don't care about anything but making money. They would outlaw public libraries if they could.
Congress-critters will never do anything other than make more restrictive laws favoring the "copyright holders" because they know who has the money. Our only hope lies with the courts.
The Supreme Court has to answer one simple question:
Scoring (Score:1)
The Funniest Phrase (Score:1)
Go ahead. Try to "steal" my thoughts. Come on! Do it! I dare you! I won't let you have them; they are my property and you are not permitted to _think_ the same thoughts I've already thought. I will sue you!
The Funniest Phrase (Score:1)
If you wish to make such a concept more abstract (for the sake of allowing the government to regulate the extent to which one is allowed to do, copy, or make something someone else has already done), then you're talking ruling based on someone's mental representation of something. The "property" these laws seek to protect are the ideas (not specific implementations) of a product or method. They do not protect, say, John Thompson's Tappan gas range and oven. They protect the idea of the design of a _class_ of ovens. If John Thompson's gas range and oven were taken by force, without his notice (insert a conditional, prepositional phrase from your local legal definition of "theft" as it applies to real property), then it is theft. He no longer has the item; he is sad, and he calls the police.
Now, I hear your little voice saying, "just because nothing is lost doesn't mean it's not theft." Well, that's for the courts to decide. I don't have volumes 22-57 of the United States of America's Federal Guidelines on and About Intellectual Property and the Technicalities of Enforcement of Ownership (or any such encyclopediatic work). I do know that on an atomic level, "copying" electrons is in no way stealing them from their original creator. In fact, even if every electron in transit was accounted for, and since the transaction is voluntary (between the person who has in his possession the software and the person who wishes to copy the software) they are simply sharing electrons. If they're using magnetic media, they're sharing a pattern of electrons indirectly through settings in a floppy disk, a hard drive, etc. There is no loss of actual, concrete property. People do not sue over a loss of electrons from an unauthorized copying of an electronic work.
So without any actual property exchanging hands, we're down to ideas again. Why should someone have the right to reserve an idea? "I thought of this, did this, or created this first. I have a record of it, stamped with the date and time. I do not permit you to do a similar work under any circumstances under THREAT OF IMPRISONMENT." Who thought of this concept? What was he smoking?
"There is a valid, legal definition for intellectual property." I dispute its validity, but notice that I don't advocate an entire, complete and sudden disregard for intellectual property as its recognized by world governments. Humans are scared little herding animals, easily frightened, and they don't deal with sudden change that well. But it took a long time for humans to recognize that some people (because of the color of their skin) have a simple right to speak in public without permission from master.
Confusing Words and Phrases that are Worth Avoiding - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF): Intellect ual Property [gnu.org].
Harry Fox, et. al. ought to leave them alone! (Score:1)
So it costs less to ship a tape? (Score:1)
Give me a damn break.
CD's are the cheapest things to create in common distribution yet for some greedy reason, they cost more than tapes.
Let's distribute mirrors! (Score:1)
Without a Usenet-type organization where individual entries propagate, a central repository would be required to prevent divergent versions, which is no good if that central repository goes away.
Let's distribute mirrors! (Score:1)
1e+05 ISPs, Universities, and managers it would
require to shut everyone, or even a good portion,
of them down?
Supply and demand (Score:1)
That's the definition of 'willing', isn't it? Maybe few people *want* to pay that much for a CD, but they're willing to. If they were *un*willing to, they'd have to be *forced* to buy the CD's, which they're obviously not. They're making the conscious choice to buy the CD, so they're willing.
If half the people that regularly buy CD's were to suddenly decide CD's were too expensive and stopped buying them, I bet the price would come down. Initially, when CD's came out, the pricing was purposely set ~1.5x cassette tapes. If CD's were priced equally, the cassette market would nearly instantly dry up. They're making the consumers pay for the extra CD quality. Things simply haven't changed.
It's the same thing with DVD's. They're probably cheaper to produce in quantity than VHS, but I doubt they'll ever drop in price to equal the cost of a VHS tape.
There IS a demand for CD's and DVD's at the prices they're at, which means things aren't going to be changing any time soon. This is high school economics, folks.
If MP3's or other alternative music distribution channels end up succeeding, it's quite likely that that will take a chunk of the CD market, which will mean lower CD prices.
Sacred Soul Records supports lyric sites. (Score:1)
We'll take all the free advertising we can get
HFA and the NMPA (Score:1)
That said, I take issue with reflexively charging people with theft because they're doing it. A child who sings a Barney tune on some talent show might be violating all kinds of laws, but that doesn't mean that Barney Int'l SHOULD press charges. The question is, who is harmed, and how much. The recording industry is not making money distributing lyrics, are they? And the site makes no attempt to try to claim that THEY wrote the lyrics. Quite the opposite, by definition of the site's purpose, they credit the authors.
Now, the NMPA claimed that they tried and failed to get in touch with the web site's authors. Assuming that is true, then they may make a quite reasonable settlement. Say, all proceeds of banner adds go to NMPA, but they pay all the sites fees. That way, the site meets its stated goals, with no profit, and the NMPA knows it. That works, more or less (it leaves the independants out in the cold, but some solution should be workable from there)
Of course, we'll know the real agenda when the NMPA makes its offer. I kinda doubt it will be reasonable.
I have to agree with the RIAA (Score:1)
I think it's amazing how many people are complaining about RIAA greed, yet seem perfectly happy with someone stealing others intellectual property and making money off it. That's not just greed, that's being a leech.
If it's true that he makes no money, then it shouldn't be too hard to make his accounting information public detailing said claim.
I think you'll find that most artists and record labels don't have a problem with having their lyrics available. But like the article said, they do have a problem with people taking that work and making money off it without compensation.
Let's distribute mirrors! (Score:1)
Remember, Information Wants To Be Free!
MaxZ
(Hey, RIAA, I don't get it! Why the heck are you refusing free advertising?)
Kinda harsh (Score:1)
The record labels are acting like bullies. To condemn people for pointing this out is foolish. Don't forget that they are the 800lb gorillas here.
As far as MP3s go, it really doesn't matter the medium that music is on. Sure it is illegal to bootleg music. And videotapes. And software. I also have over $500 worth of CDs, but unfortunately that doesn't amount to a whole lot of CDs. According to industry "spokespersons" CDs were originally expensive because of the manufacturing costs of the new media. Now (almost 15 years later) CD prices are higher than ever.
Movies used to cost upwards of $80 (U.S.) when they first became available on videotape. Now the same movies can be purchased on DVD for as little as $15. It seems like the movie industry has a clue.
I don't pirate music, videos, or MP3s either. I even discourage it when friends ask. But I'm not gonna lose sleep over the big record labels when they are clearly refusing to adapt to the times. When they show me that they give a damn about customers, I'll consider growing my CD collection some more.
MP3 this, MP3 that... >:| (Score:1)
I have kept my end of the bargain, (Score:1)
since the day OLGA was closed. This has not
been easy! I'm an avid music collector!
Any well linked countries? (Score:1)
it is being run by the entertainment industry?
(I have to agree with the RIAA) (Score:1)
in the artwork/layout. The Jewel Boxes cost more
than the discs. Distribution is expensive too.
Everybody in the record company isn't getting rich
either. It's not really such a gravy train as
we make it out to be from the point of view of
the people who stand to be harmed by their overzealous lawyers and execs. The market dynamics that lead to the artists getting screwed over amount to an intractable problem. It's not
the black&white issue that we make it out to be.
definition of theft (Score:1)
It is called theft by the record companies to make it sound bad (or worse). For example:
Someone makes an MP3 copy of a CD - what happens? Nothing. Your friends still has the CD.
Someone steals a CD from a store - what happens? The CD store no longer has the CD.
It doesn't take much to see the difference. In the first case the only thing that has happened is that the record company has lost a sale. But what if you weren't going to buy the CD in any case? What exactly have they lost?
My house was broken into a month or two ago and my 70 music CDs were stolen. Had the theives broken in and MP3'ed all my CDs, would that have been the same thing? Of course not.
Supply and demand (Score:1)
Oh really? And how else do you propose to go about purchasing music? The bottom line is that the only reasonable method for purchasing music today is the CD. Vinyl is almost impossible to find, as are decent turntables which don't run into thousands of dollars. Tapes are also harder to find than CDs, and are of much less quality. It is very possible for a record to sound as good as if not better than a CD. Tapes do not, and will not. Music is not distributed extensively on MiniDisc or DAT, nor is is distributed extensively on any format except for CD. So how does supply and demand work here? There's a monopoly at work.
Show your support and sign their petition, too. (Score:1)
petition, it takes just a few seconds and shows
your support for them. The more people backing it, the better the chance that the music industry
will settle in their favor.
MP3 this, MP3 that... >:| (Score:1)
HFA and the NMPA (Score:1)
Supply and demand (Score:1)
Other costs (Score:1)
Seriously, how can any musician claim to be really outraged when somebody steals their music when every musician has stolen from black folks, indian drummers, township jive guys, latin american music, etc, etc, etc. Show me a musician who doesn't owe a heavy debt to tradition, and I'll show you a crappy musician. Don't we all admire musicians more because they're closer to their roots?
Don't give me any bullshit about Sting or Beck creating musical ideas Ex Nihilo. There's more perspiration and imitation there than there is inspiration, and if you're gonna pay Michael Jackson for sweating, you'd better be prepared to pay the people who work in auto factories a hefty royalty every time a car leaves the showroom.
If you really think about it, charging for music is like laying claim to a free territory and then charging people rent just because you got there first or charging a toll to let them through because you've commandeered the only bridge. In other words it just sucks.
MP3 this, MP3 that... >:| (Score:1)
First, there is no connection between creating great art and getting paid. If you really want people to create great art, you'll make it easy for them to be exposed to other people's art by making it publicly accessible. It seems to me that if we really want to preserve and enhance intellectual output, we ought to spend less time locking stuff away from children and more time sharing stuff with them.
Secondly, the argument that "well the artist/inventor/game show host/whatever has to eat and sleep somewhere" is totally spurious. Yes, everyone has to live somewhere and eat stuff, but that does not mean that they have to make their living solely as a creator of intellectual goods. Einstein (the scientist, not Albert Einstein who later changed his name to Albert Brooks and made movies) worked as a patent office clerk. Elvis was a truck driver. John Locke (the philosopher) was a physician. Lots of musicians, writers, inventors, philosophers and other intellectual property "creators" only moonlight as that and have a day job doing something that ought to be paid for, such as building stuff or directing traffic or something.
What motivation would there be to invent, you ask? Whatever happened to the old idea that necessity is the mother of invention, or have we forgotten what necessity feels like because we're too damn rich? We have patents because some whiners wanted the government to protect their moneybags just because they wanted to spend it on something that might not work out. What the hell is that about? I thought the beauty of entrepreneurship was that it encouraged risk taking? If you're not prepared to lose it, don't gamble it.
But you say, I'm exaggerating. Well, yes, I am. But not a lot. If there were no patents, it would have at least two impacts on investments: investors would accept a much longer payback period and wouldn't depend on getting their money back just on one invention. Also, the R & D investment wouldn't have to be as large because the competitor's ideas would be open as well. Yes, truly original research would not be as well compensated as it is today. But if original research can't be done for a reasonable profit without ransacking the public domain, then perhaps it should be left to public institutions like Universities. And don't give me this knee-jerk crap about big government. What we fucking need is right-sized government and sometimes that means spending money on things we all agree we care about. (Unless there aint any more of those things left, in which case its just the law of the jungle out there). Don't worry, businesses will adjust. Trade and commerce existed long before copyright and patents.
As for the writer who spent years writing a book only to never earn a dime - tough luck, buddy. Nobody said that life was going to be easy. If the only reason you were writing it was to get paid, then it probably wasn't worth saying.
"You DO have to pay for thoughts and creative inventions"
Yes it takes effort to do something worthwhile, but that does not mean that the state owes you protection for it. If I spend time doing macrame or raising tulips, or building model cars the state doesn't bust down doors to make sure that I get paid for my time. Culture is many-faceted. It's not just white guys doing important stuff in offices. Why do we draw the line where we do between what you can and cannot patent or copyright? What about tribal medicines? What about herbal remedies? Shouldn't I be compensated for the time I spend raising my children? Naah, we don't pay for that kind of lame-ass crap in America -- that's women's work.
"Do you really believe more people would write software or music if they couldn't make money off it?"
Man, do you care about anything except money? I can think of lots of reasons I would write software or music even if I KNOW I wont make money off it. How about "I enjoy it" for starters. I may not even care if someone else is making money off it, although if there were real freedom in Idea Space, it would be hard for someone who stole my idea to really take people to the cleaners. I may be really pleased that my ideas helped someone else make money, maybe even my competitor. Hey, I don't have anything against making an honest living.
"Wouldn't it be easier for musicians to just perform popular works stolen from others without paying?"
Yes, and that's exactly my point. Why slow down the healthy hybridization of influences by putting up a toll-booth? And say, what about all the royalties your guys owe the Delta Blues men and the rest of the people who really created American music? If you ask me, I don't think they'd give a damn about the money even if you offered it to them because they made music for the love of it. Sure, if they could get paid for it, that was nice, but it was never a career choice.
"Intellectual Property is one of the primary products of most white-collar jobs"
That explains why American companies did better after they got rid of three quarters of those jobs. My idea of intellectual property would not include a transcription of you and your workmates gossiping about the most recent Dilbert cartoon while standing beside the water cooler.
"Radio stations pay to play songs on the air... Copy that to MP3, and suddenly there's less revenue headed to the performer."
Yes, radio stations pay to play songs on the air. In the next sentence you said that they pay for it with advertising. How is it that Joe Blow's MP3 decreases the amount that a station charges for advertising? Well, (you reply) what if everybody just recorded MP3's and then didn't listen to the radio any more? First, that's incredibly unlikely. Second, even if it happens you still have to listen to the radio to get the MP3, and third, if it means radio stations are just dinosaurs headed for extinction, so be it!
"Intellectual property is EXACTLY what we should be happiest paying for. It enriches our lives and our culture."
You know, you sound like the people who wear price tags on their clothing. It's not laying down the cash that makes something good. Are you saying that I should be really excited about Arnie's newly patented cure for cancer JUST BECAUSE ITS SOMEONE'S PROPERTY? Oh, hooray!!! Someone owns it! What I want is a cure for my ailing mother, and ownership of that cure is something that I will just barely tolerate - a necessary evil - not something to be celebrated.
"Claiming that theft is justified by high prices is like saying it's okay to shoplift because the CD prices are too high."
Ehh... let me see... "Theft is justified by high prices" and "It's OK to shoplift because the CD prices are too high" Is there an echo in here? I wouldn't say those things are "like" each other, no. ""You're just repeating the same thing twice." is just like saying "You're just repeating the same thing twice."" would be like what you just said.
"I used to write for a living... and I was sure glad copyright existed."
I appreciate the fact that you're honest enough to reveal your vested interest in copyright. Now I understand why you are in favour of it. A doctor hates naturopaths because they threaten medical livelihood. I can understand that. My dad was a doctor. What you have to accept is that those days are gone and you've got to find something else to support yourself, which you already have done apparently.
I would argue that rather than freeing the spirit, the burden of having to make ones living as a writer, musician, inventor, etc, actually interferes with the creative process. It's as if someone is standing behind you with a gun saying "Hurry up, we want that Requiem by Tuesday." Is this the environment in which one can be the most inspired? It may be OK for real prodigious geniuses like Mozart, but for ordinary people like you and me and 99.99 percent of the population, it's probably a drag. Aren't you just going through the motions when you're fulfilling contractual obligations? Doesn't getting paid for stuff encourage you to write for the lowest common denominator? Doesn't it force you to compromise on quality? Isn't that exactly what Open Source Software was supposed to cure?
Three cheers for freedom, Free the corporate drones toiling in the salt mines of our collective consciousness!!!
Any well linked countries? (Score:1)
HFA and the NMPA (Score:1)
I liked lyrics.ch but the fact is they didn't have the rights to the material they were redistributing. If musicians in the future wanted to make money off the lyrics they wrote, their profit would be hurt by the existence of lyrics.ch.
IMHO, the copyright holder has the right to set whatever value they want upon their work. Others have the right not to buy that work. There is no "fair" issue w/regards to price - only whatever the creator feels they want to release the work. Whether or not the purchaser chooses to make money off the licensed work is irrelevant (nod to fair use, which Lyrics server was absolutely not.)
If you can't make enough money running a lyrics server to support whatever the lyric's copyright holders want to charge, that's your problem, not theirs. It would be nice if an agreement could be reached, but it's not anybody's fault if it doesn't happen. Maybe lyrics are just to valuable to be something you can give away for free to end users on the net. That may just be a economic issue, not an emotional one.
RE: I have to agree with the RIAA (Score:1)
lyrics.ch didn't make a dime off their server,
ad revenue was purely in order to recoup their
investment in servers and bandwith.
The answer to the problem would be for the
record labels to establish their own lyrics
server, as user-friendly as lyrics.ch or
maybe they could pay lyrics.ch to run, and
eliminate advertisements?
Stealing intellectual property (Score:1)
That is like arguing that someone committed libel
and not slander.
You may not be stealing the "property" but you are using it unauthorised and therefore stealing its use; that is the same as someone using your lawnmower without your permission.
Remember, the musicians, engineers, and writers sell it to make a living. They use distributers and stores to get it out, they also need to make a living. Using it without paying for it, (as paying for a copy is their only means for recovery of cost and the profit they make, which is the reason for doing it at all) is stealing the product from them without paying for it.
They could use more direct means to save money and cut middlemen, but they don't have to. That would be dictating who they could sell it to. Saying that I will get a bootleg MP3 instead of buying it because too many people make too much money on it is like going to Wal-Mart and shoplifting an apple because the apple growers are artifically raising prices and making a killing.
The spirit of what is going on is true, stealing
is stealing.
Side note: Consider this, if you remove the incentives for the distributers, you may as well say that no musician should make more than this much money, heck, let's say they have to work for free. Let's ensalve them for our listening pleasure. Sure, that's the American way.
so 85% of $2.50 is how much? (Score:1)
After all, what's the big deal if they "garnish" a huge percentage of nothing.
Hmmm, I wonder if they would also share in the "losses" then if he doesn't make enough to cover bandwith ocasionally...
Hrumph!
John.