4 ms·

So go to see that artist performing live where they get a far more substantial chunk of money. Buy some merchandise direct from the band. The antiquated idea

by parfe 11y ago

So go to see that artist performing live where they get a far more substantial chunk of money. Buy some merchandise direct from the band. The antiquated idea is that an artist should be getting money for doing absolutely nothing because they once recorded song months or years ago. If they want to be paid they are perfectly capable of going out and working for it.

williamcotton 11y ago
You need to look at it from a different angle. The article starts by reporting on a $90 million dollar settlement and a "sea of lawsuits against both Pandora and Sirius XM". The gist of these lawsuits is that one entity is collecting profits on intellectual property that they have not properly licensed nor made any effort in paying the rights-holders. Copyright holders are winning these lawsuits because they are able to show a judge that someone else is refusing to acknowledge the commercial rights of the copyright holders and thus they are awarded damages. Every time that someone is making money either directly or indirectly through copyrighted material they are consistently found liable for damages. There are common law precedents going back many hundreds of years and plenty of statue law that reflect this interpretation of copyright. One of the roles of copyright systems and regulated public markets for copyright has been to reduce the number of unnecessary lawsuits. Instead of a world where people are using the justice system to properly route payments to authors and publishers, it was decided to introduce a concept of honorarium payments. These lawsuits are not going to go away. Copyright is baked right in to the constitution of the United States and has been a part of Anglo-American government and legal systems for hundreds of years prior. The only way to stop the lawsuits in the United States would be with a constitutional amendment that took away congress' right to establish, regulate and enforce a public copyright monopoly. The current copyright monopoly is pretty far removed from the intentions laid out by the US Constitution, the Copyright Act of 1790 and the Statue of Anne, but the foundations, that authors have a right to a limited monopoly on authored works and thus a right to any of the profits had on putting that property to use, are quite robust from the standpoint of individual rights balance with those of the public good, and most importantly, at creating a functioning commercial marketplace for ideas.
aikah 11y ago
What you don't get is that if a customer subscribes to Spotify, thinking its money is going to the artists he listens, well, it isn't the case, most of the money goes to Sony and co anyway, because they have a deal upfront with Spotify where they will get X hundreds of millions no matter what. So the customer money goes directly into big label's pockets. How that "new model" is different from the old one? it's not it's exactly the same, aside from the fact that even big artists are getting ripped off. It has nothing to do with your rant about how artists should sell t-shirts, posters, mugs because you know it's not tough enough to be musician, one must also produce all that shit ....
wwweston 11y ago
"doing absolutely nothing" isn't only wrong, it's deeply offensive. Good recordings take an investment of time and money: time to develop the performance ability, time to develop the production skill, time to develop the composition behind the recording itself. By the time you hear it, there's already plenty of stuff that was far from "doing absolutely nothing" that's gone into it, and chances are that even successful recordings won't earn back the time involved in all of it at an above-average wage. Sure, it's possible to make money off of performances, but touring is capital intensive (particularly for any kind of large band production), risky, and as we like to say here, doesn't scale well. "Merchandising" is just another way of saying you think artists should have another job besides making music, because that's what it is. Finally, would you say this? "The antiquated idea is that an author should be getting money for doing absolutely nothing because they once wrote a book months or years ago...." Because it's pretty much the same thing. Though I'm actually waiting for people to suggest authors should make money off of merchandising and live appearances and "creative business models" and "innovation", given the way culture seems to be going.

by parfe 11y ago

williamcotton 11y ago

You need to look at it from a different angle. The article starts by reporting on a $90 million dollar settlement and a "sea of lawsuits against both Pandora and Sirius XM". The gist of these lawsuits is that one entity is collecting profits on intellectual property that they have not properly licensed nor made any effort in paying the rights-holders. Copyright holders are winning these lawsuits because they are able to show a judge that someone else is refusing to acknowledge the commercial rights of the copyright holders and thus they are awarded damages. Every time that someone is making money either directly or indirectly through copyrighted material they are consistently found liable for damages. There are common law precedents going back many hundreds of years and plenty of statue law that reflect this interpretation of copyright. One of the roles of copyright systems and regulated public markets for copyright has been to reduce the number of unnecessary lawsuits. Instead of a world where people are using the justice system to properly route payments to authors and publishers, it was decided to introduce a concept of honorarium payments. These lawsuits are not going to go away. Copyright is baked right in to the constitution of the United States and has been a part of Anglo-American government and legal systems for hundreds of years prior. The only way to stop the lawsuits in the United States would be with a constitutional amendment that took away congress' right to establish, regulate and enforce a public copyright monopoly. The current copyright monopoly is pretty far removed from the intentions laid out by the US Constitution, the Copyright Act of 1790 and the Statue of Anne, but the foundations, that authors have a right to a limited monopoly on authored works and thus a right to any of the profits had on putting that property to use, are quite robust from the standpoint of individual rights balance with those of the public good, and most importantly, at creating a functioning commercial marketplace for ideas.

aikah 11y ago

What you don't get is that if a customer subscribes to Spotify, thinking its money is going to the artists he listens, well, it isn't the case, most of the money goes to Sony and co anyway, because they have a deal upfront with Spotify where they will get X hundreds of millions no matter what. So the customer money goes directly into big label's pockets. How that "new model" is different from the old one? it's not it's exactly the same, aside from the fact that even big artists are getting ripped off. It has nothing to do with your rant about how artists should sell t-shirts, posters, mugs because you know it's not tough enough to be musician, one must also produce all that shit ....

wwweston 11y ago

"doing absolutely nothing" isn't only wrong, it's deeply offensive. Good recordings take an investment of time and money: time to develop the performance ability, time to develop the production skill, time to develop the composition behind the recording itself. By the time you hear it, there's already plenty of stuff that was far from "doing absolutely nothing" that's gone into it, and chances are that even successful recordings won't earn back the time involved in all of it at an above-average wage. Sure, it's possible to make money off of performances, but touring is capital intensive (particularly for any kind of large band production), risky, and as we like to say here, doesn't scale well. "Merchandising" is just another way of saying you think artists should have another job besides making music, because that's what it is. Finally, would you say this? "The antiquated idea is that an author should be getting money for doing absolutely nothing because they once wrote a book months or years ago...." Because it's pretty much the same thing. Though I'm actually waiting for people to suggest authors should make money off of merchandising and live appearances and "creative business models" and "innovation", given the way culture seems to be going.