ARTISTS: BE CAREFUL OUT THERE!

MANY MUSIC CREATORS want to be exposed on the INTERNET! They join websites to present their music to the public and to get publicity.

What they don't know is that many of this websites, webcasters and companies are not run by people in the music business at all. They have just set up a website, as cheaply as possible and have no clue as to how to market music of any kind.

One such website claims to be run by a corporation which doesn't exist; it's really being run by a man who earns his money selling mundane products for home and business. He has no qualifications to be in the music business but had a few websites and domain names sitting around useless so thought he'd start exploting musical artists.

The user agreement on this website is a joke. Was it written by anone who knows anything about user agreements, the law or music? No, it was written by people who have a vacant space between their ears who stole bits and pieces from other use agreements.

The key question: does anyone listen to the music on the website. Maybe a handful of people who have no ability to do anything for any of the artists on the website. The website is just users listening to other users' music and none of those people know how to promote anything into a major career.

So, be careful when uploading your music to a website for exposure, you're not getting any where it matters.

RIAA LOSES MAJOR ATTORNEYS' FEES MOTION

THE RIAA HAS LOST ANOTHER BATTLE IN ITS WAR TO CONTROL EVERYTHING THAT PERTAINS TO COMMERCIAL MUSIC IN THE USA.

Tanya Andersen's attorneys fees motion in Atlantic v. Andersen has been granted by the Magistrate Judge to whom the question was referred. U.S. Magistrate Judge Donald C. Ashmanskas issued a 15-page decision in which he ruled as follows:
defendant incurred substantial fees before the claims against her were dismissed, including those incurred to file her motion for summary judgment and to respond to a motion to dismiss her counterclaims with prejudice. During that time, plaintiffs were either unable to obtain, or chose not to produce, significant evidence to support their claims.....when plaintiffs dismissed their claims in June 2007, they apparently had no more material evidence to support their claims than they did when they first contacted defendant in February 2005..... Whatever plaintiffs' reasons for the manner in which they have prosecuted this case, it does not appear to be justified as a reasonable exploration of the boundaries of copyright law..... In this case, plaintiffs dismissed their claims before any rulings on any significant legal issues under the Copyright Act, or the factual issues associated with plaintiffs' claim. Choosing that course, on this record, should be deterred in light of its potential chilling effect on the public's access to creative works. If this were to become a more typical course in prosecuting the type of allegations faced by defendant, it is reasonably foreseeable that members of the public would be more hesitant to use the Internet to share creative works in general, regardless of whether their specific conduct violated copyright law or occupied an area yet to be addressed by copyright law.Copyright holders generally, and these plaintiffs specifically, should be deterred from prosecuting infringement claims as plaintiffs did in this case. Plaintiffs exerted a significant amount of control over the course of discovery, repeatedly and successfully seeking the court's assistance through an unusually extended and contentious period of discovery disputes. Nonetheless, after ample opportunity to develop their claims, they dismissed them at the point they were required toproduce evidence for the court's consideration of the merits..... this case provides too little assurance that a prosecuting party won't deem an infringement claim unsupportable until after the prevailing defendant has been forced to mount a considerable defense, and undergo all that entails, including the incurring of substantial attorney fees.The parties will be afforded an opportunity to file objections to the Magistrate's report, after which time it will be submitted to the District Judge for finalization.

Decision of Magistrate Judge Granting Defendant's Attorneys Fees Motion*

and then the RIAA came after me....

They came after the downloaders, and I was not a downloader,

so, I did not object.

They came after the webcasters, and I was not a webcaster,

so, I did not object.

They came after the restaurants and the bars and the nightclubs, and I did not own a restaurant or a bar or a nightclub,

so, I did not object.
They came after the college students, and I was not a college student,

so, I did not object.

They came after the people who owned computers, and I did not own a computer,

so, I did not object.

Then they came after me, and
there was no one left to object.

with apologies to Rev. Martin Niemoeller

Vampires and the RIAA

Ever notice how vampires operate? They suck your blood all the while making you think that they are doing you the favor.

It really does appear that the RIAA and its net representative, Sound Exchange, operate under the same principle.

The RIAA has the Copyright Royalty Board under its thumb and appears to dictate web policy to that board, the RIAA tells webcasters what they will pay or else they go to jail or get sued. This seems to be coercion to me.

So, in effect, the RIAA sets royalty payments unilaterally, sucks the funds from the webcasters and makes them think that the RIAA did them the favor.

If the RIAA had its way, there'd be no webcasting at all. Each note of music would have to be bought from one of the RIAA's constituent members. No more free music of any kind, no more fair use would exist, nothing without payment. Pay through the nose, then give up your nose.

One thing that webcasters forget as victims of this policy, they could put a stop to it fast. Just stop webcasting music. When the public starts complaining to Congress to do something about it, perhaps the RIAA can be controlled by reason and not avarice.

Victimizers often forget that if they destroy the victim, their victimization ceases and they have no source left from which to suck.

Unfortunately, the so-called musical performance artists contribute to this victimization by profiting from the RIAA's activities, whether vicariously or otherwise. You can't take your profits with a clear conscience when the agency collecting for you is known to be set on destroying the source of those profits.

Musicians can create music without an audience, but do they really want that?

Just some thoughts.

BRIAN LEE CORBER, CORBERLAW@AOL.COM, Panorama City, California 91412-4656, 818-786-7133.

the end of your privacy as you know it....

I HEAR TWO INTERESTING THINGS ABOUT MICROSOFT TODAY:

FIRST: THEY HAVE COME UP WITH A NEW "WATERMARKING" TECHNOLOGY TO EMBED IN MUSIC FILES BEING TRANSMITTED AROUND THE NET. THE PURPOSE OF THE NEW TECH IS TO EMBED A CODE IN THE FILE TO TRACK THE CONSUMERS WHO DOWNLOAD OR STREAM THAT FILE. THAT WAY THEY CAN TRACK IF YOU, THE CONSUMER UNLAWFULLY DISTRIBUTE THAT MUSIC FILE.

SEE THIS ARTICLE ON CENTENINOPLE:

We've discussed watermarks before, the little invisible pieces of data, which can be embedded into content for security purposes. And Microsoft may have just laid claim to the best one out there.

HERE'S THE LINK:

http://www.contentinople.com/author.asp?section_id=429&doc_id=133768


SECOND; MICROSOFT IS SURREPTICIOUSLY "UPDATING" CERTAIN WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEMS LIKE VISTA AND XP. MS JUST UPLOADS, SILENTLY, FILES TO YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM WITHOUT TELLING YOU AND EVEN IF YOU HAVE IT SET TO "NOT UPDATE AUTOMATICALLY."

THIS FROM ZD NET:

Microsoft updating Windows without permission Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: Is your Vista or XP system set to not automatically update? Doesn't matter. Microsoft is fiddling with your system files -- without asking or telling you. Now that's one slippery slope.

HERE'S THE LINK:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?cat=55&tag=nl.e539

RIAA BOILERPLATE COMPLAINT TOSSED OUT

A SAN DIEGO FEDERAL JUDGE HAS THROWN OUT THE RIAA'S STANDARD BOILERPLATE COMPLAINT.

MORE ON THIS CAN BE FOUND AT

http://origin.arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070910-judge-deals-blow-to-riaas-boilerplate-copyright-infringement-complaints.html

CAN ASCAP'S STANDARD BOILERPLATE COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT COMPLAINT BE FAR BEHIND?

A UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT DECISION IN:

BELL ATLANTIC CORP. ET AL. v. TWOMBLY ET AL. might be worth a look.

Myths about Copyrights in Music

Briefly: Dispelling Some Myths About Copyrights In Music
By Brian Corber - 07/31/2007 - 04:41 PM MDT


Many of you who write music may have questions about the business side of things.

You’ve probably heard the term “PRO” bandied about. In the music biz, it’s not a short reference to the degree of talent of a musician or other music creator.

So, what’s a PRO? It’s a performance rights organization. It administers part of the copyright in music. Music is a different kettle of fish from other kinds of creative endeavors. When you write a novel, you submit it to a book publisher, who then prints up a lot of copies and sells them in stores or on-line. Royalties payable for the novel are administered and paid to you, the novelist, by your publisher as a general rule.

A movie, as another example can have many aspects of it which generate royalties or payments, however, there is, as to the movie as a whole, only one copyright and the royalties paid attributable to that copyright are usually administered by the distributor of the film or their assignee. From there the money can go to a number of payees depending on individual contracts or master contracts (like with the Screen Actors Guild or other such organization), and ultimately, in theory at least, the money reaches the individual artist (like an actor in a film).

With music, when you create music you also create a copyright embedded within. However, under the law, you cannot protect that copyright unless you register it with the Registrar of Copyrights in D.C.; at least under the U.S. Copyright Law. This is the first thing people don’t understand: yes, the copyright comes into being along with the original creative work, but you cannot protect it legally without registration with D.C. Why? The law says so.

How do you protect copyrights? In the final analysis, you sue people if they infringe (or stomp) on your music and its embedded copyright. And you can only file that lawsuit in a United States District Court. Why? Again, the law says so. And if you do file a lawsuit you have to put it right there clear as day right in the “allegations” of the lawsuit that you registered a copyright in the work in question with the Registrar and “here’s the registration number and the registration date.” Why? Again, the rules for filing lawsuits in federal court say so. On top of that, there’s a rule that says you have to give notice of your copyright infringement lawsuit to the U.S. Copyright Office. Okay, that’s copyright law in a nutshell.

So what is it that PROs do? Well, look at the copyright in your music like a multi-layer cream pie. And you can slice and dice that pie any way you want.

PROs administer a piece of the pie called the performance royalty. That’s only a piece, not the whole pie. And what do they do with that? They sell a license (a right contained in that slice of pie to something like a broadcaster: a radio broadcast station or network, TV or cable broadcast network or station or now, a webcaster with a website on the world wide web; what they’re really selling is a “do not get sued” card when that broadcaster broadcasts (or in some way, “uses”) your music to the public.

Here’s the trick: if there’s no registration of the copyright with D.C., you (the copyright owner) cannot sue the broadcaster anyway for infringement (i.e.: broadcasting your music without your consent). So, one of the great illusions about how PROs operate: not all of the musical selections they administer in their repertories have been registered with D.C. So, this is rather sneaky: the PRO is selling something to a broadcaster it doesn’t have. But, everybody seems to go along with it anyway because everyone assumes that if the PRO says it’s in its repertory, then all assume that the PRO has all the rights necessary to effect the license.

So, that is, in a nutshell how copyright dovetails with how PROs work.

Do PROs administer all of the copyright? No, only a specific slice of the copyright pie. There is another big slice called a “mechanical” which is usually the rights you have in a sound recording made of the music you created. That royalty is usually administered by the record label on which the recording was made, or its assignee, which could be the Harry Fox Agency for the United States. Mechanical royalties are the kinds of royalties made when a copy of the music on a sound recording is sold, usually at retail, either in the form of a physical disc of some kind, physical tape of some kind, or, these days, by way of a download of the music over the internet from a provider to a consumer.

This is all a rather simplistic explanation, but essentially this is how the copyright pie is split.

It becomes more complex when you’re looking at the international distribution or broadcasting of music since some countries, like France, have something called a broadcast-mechanical which is a little bit of a performance royalty and a little bit of a mechanical royalty. Here’s how that can work: broadcaster plays your music over its network. Broadcaster pays a license fee to SACEM (the French equivalent to ASCAP). SACEM splits it up. The performance royalty ultimately payable to you is, finally, after a time period, paid over by SACEM to your PRO here in the USA. Let’s say, ASCAP. ASCAP doesn’t get any part of the mechanical. ASCAP doesn’t even know, so I’ve been told, what the gross amount of the royalty paid by the broadcaster was. ASCAP gets a net payment from SACEM, takes its cut off the top and then pays you the rest, theoretically.

Where does the mechanical go? SACEM pays that directly to the “sub-publisher” of the music in France who represents the USA domestic publisher of the music and that sub-pub pays the mechanical to the USA pub. And here’s a kicker: the USA pub pockets the money and doesn’t report it to anyone else--like you.

No wonder your head swims when someone wants to discuss the business side of the music business.

And things are going to get more complex. Those who perform music get a piece of the action when a webcaster webcasts music (the webcaster pays a royalty to SoundExchange which then supposedly pays artists but SeX doesn’t represent artists, it represents its constituent labels, the big record labels). Music performers now want a piece of the action on revenue from radio broadcasts of music.

Now, my head is swimming and I’m exhausted.

Anyway, that’s it for now. More in the future.