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It’s kind of a gray area, the whole performing/mechanical rights system was obviously invented before streaming. Radio stations pay for performing rights, so th
by DrJokepu 9y ago
It’s kind of a gray area, the whole performing/mechanical rights system was obviously invented before streaming. Radio stations pay for performing rights, so the question arises whether streaming is more like radio broadcast or manufacturing and distributing physical copies (e.g. CDs)? Without further legislation, ultimately only the courts can decide that.
My guess is that ultimately streaming rights will end up as their own category, separate from performance, mechanical or sync rights.
- thomastjeffery 9y agoIt's also the reason behind ridiculous things like DRM. The idea that there is a difference between broadcasting and copying, and that computers can emulate that difference is a pipe dream; nonetheless shared by most music labels.
- QAPereo 9y agoIt’s an endless boon to piracy, which should have largely died if not for the rampant greed and incompetence of publishers.
- sideshowb 9y agoI agree publishers were incompetent (in clinging onto old models rather than adapting), but has streaming really helped the average artist? Having the option to distribute music for free has been good, for sure Setting the expectation that music should be near enough free, less so You could argue this is one of those public good situations universal income is designed to address, but it certainly hasn't yet.
- QAPereo 9y agoFor the vast majority of history, musicians were not some of the wealthiest members of society, far from it. Music has traditionally been “near free” and only ceased to be during a brief period necessitated by tech. That period has long since ended. I don’t see that an artificial value placed on music, rather than the previous real value set on its distribution, is necessarily a good thing.
- emodendroket 9y agoHow would you feel if someone were applying this argument to software development? At any rate, rich, world-famous artists are the least harmed by changes in the music industry.
- CamperBob2 9y agoHow would you feel if someone were applying this argument to software development? I'd ask how much FOSS software is running on your machine right now, and how you intend to pay for it...
- scarface74 9y agoHow much FOSS software is actually funded by big companies that are either trying to upsell support or non free offerings, trying to get others to contribute for free to help them,or by companies who are trying to "commoditize their compliments"? Most major open source software is not done as a labor of love.
- QAPereo 9y agoWhereas most music is clearly the muses working through mortal souls, right? Come on...
- scarface74 9y agoWhereas most music is clearly the muses working through mortal souls, right? Come on... I'm saying just the opposite, he seems to implying that the majority of well known, popular open source software is done by starving programmers as a labor of love. Their is usually a financial motive.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- fnovd 9y agoI'm now imagining a disenchanted musician spending 8 hours a day at the cubicle making "business music."
- ekimekim 9y ago> but has streaming really helped the average artist? Sure has helped most of the artists I know, who would never be lucky enough/know the right people to be among the chosen elite that got to participate in the record system. Streaming services and the internet means that 100000s of artists can have a following of maybe 1000 people each and still make ends meet doing what they love. They won't get filthy rich, but they'll make a living.
- emodendroket 9y agoIt doesn't seem outlandish to claim there's a distinction between a broadcast, where you might hear a song at a particular time of day, and having an on-demand copy of a song at any time. The former scenario could see you, for instance, buying a CD because you liked a song you heard on the radio; that is probably not as likely with Spotify.
- daveFNbuck 9y agoPeople used to regularly create mix tapes from radio broadcasts.
- emodendroket 9y agoYes, I can remember putting the New Radicals on a dictaphone. If you did that the quality would be exceptionally low.
- thomastjeffery 9y agoThere is, but that distinction does not exist with internet distribution. It's arbitrarily enforced via DRM (which doesn't really work), which is in turn enforced by Section 1201 of the DMCA. > The former scenario could see you, for instance, buying a CD because you liked a song you heard on the radio; that is probably not as likely with Spotify. That depends on whether you want to support the record label/artist, and find CDs as/more convenient as/than streaming. The trouble is that CDs are really less convenient, and therefore less valuable. Copyright holders should react to the declining value of physical media by creating better distribution platforms. Unfortunately, they have failed miserably, and now resort to disproportional copyright enforcement and DRM, which pushes the value of their product even farther down.
- thirdsun 9y agoI can't seem to follow your argument. If you want DRM-free, lossless, digital music to download and own you can buy it from countless shops - from iTunes (well, not lossless) to platforms like Bandcamp to niche stores like Boomkat. I think the music industry, in contrast to its Hollywood sibling, has very much succeeded in offering DRM-free content from a wide range of stores, shops and platforms. Physical media like CDs aren't relevant to this development. Of course a subscription-based streaming service like Spotify can't operate without DRM. It's the whole point of the service: If you stop being a subscriber you lose access to the content.
- TeMPOraL 9y agoFriendly reminder: when discussed in context of copyright laws, "broadcasting" and "copying" are colours, only tangentially related to technical meaning of those terms. The law deals with colours, not with physical reality. http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23 (TL;DR: 'colour' captures those path-dependent aspects of a thing, like where did it came from and why someone is doing something with it. A song legally bought and one illegally acquired may be bit-for-bit identical, but they have different colours.)
- thomastjeffery 9y ago> only tangentially related to technical meaning of those terms. Let's get some new words then. We need to be explicit.
- shams93 9y agoOn a logical level it should be treated the same as broadcast radio, however it gets hazy because you can store playlists and play tracks on demand so its really not clear cut. With radio you can hear the song if it happens to be playing but there is no on demand, no playlists.
- bambax 9y agoThere is replay; you can search many radio stations playlist for a specific title and play it. What about Youtube? It seems most / all music is on YT, what licence do they use? Streaming services seem a lot like YT.
- cortesoft 9y agoI think only music owners are allowed to post to YT, so they don't need a license like Spotify would.
- DrJokepu 9y agoBut you see, the thing is with commercial music is that the music owner is not a single entity. There is a composer, if there are lyrics there is a lyricist, if it was translated then there is a translator, if it’s a cover or remix there is an arranger, there is a publisher that published the music, there might be a sub-publisher, then there is a record label… One of the main reasons behind the existence of this complex system of rights is the complex ownership structure of the copyright and related rights.
- ryen 9y ago>My guess is that ultimately streaming rights will end up as their own category That could get complicated if labels and artists have clauses to be involved in any new rights management categories. Everyone might have to renegotiate from the bottom up.
- copywronged 9y agoThese rights should be negotiated relative to consumer rights: if my music subscription fee pays for mechanical licensing as well as performance, I should be free to copy that music for personal offline use.