Author: Trichordist Editor

Trichordist Editor

The Lie is Falling – Dr. Price sizes the Piracy Universe | Illusion Of More

In Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Butch (Paul Newman) sits astride his horse outside the same boxcar of the same train he’s successfully robbed over and over.  Frustrated by the railroad owner’s ceaseless but futile attempts to thwart the hold-ups, Butch proclaims, “If he’d just pay me what he’s spending to make me stop robbing him, I’d stop robbing him!”  Of course it isn’t true, is it?  Neither the character nor probably the real Butch Cassidy would likely have given up the life he knew for something as boring as just money.

If you wanted to watch this classic film directed by George Roy Hill right now, you could do so on Netflix or Amazon Prime or rent it from iTunes for four bucks. None of these innovations existed just a few years ago, and those who have repeatedly insisted that they “only use pirate sites because affordable, flexible, online alternatives don’t exist” are starting to sound a little dumb.  This is especially true as of yesterday, with the release of a new report by Dr. David Price of London-based NetNames, entitled Sizing the piracy universe.

READ THE FULL POST AT THE ILLUSION OF MORE:
http://illusionofmore.com/piracy_universe/

by Trichordist Editor

Xbox Music : Microsoft to Pay The Most of Any Music Streaming Service?

This could get interesting. Digital Music News reports “The Xbox Music streaming service is venturing into iOS and Android platforms, as well as free internet streaming, with newly adorned with apps and features. The Web service will provide on-demand access to 30 million songs, with an ad-free subscription or ad-supported free use.”

What makes this even more interesting is that Microsoft appears to be paying more than any other streaming service that we know of  (we don’t know what Itunes Radio is paying yet).

Faza at The Cynical Musician wrote this:

A Quickie: XBox Music Royalties

Since this is streaming money, there’s not a lot of it, but the rate is absolutely astounding: the latest statement pegs a stream at 3.6 cents. Yep, you read that right: several cents a pop. Traditionally, I’ll do a quick stream-to-download calculation which works out at 18 XBox Music streams to one iTunes download (both numbers for songs to which we own the entirety of rights, making CD Baby the only middle-man – they take a commission of 9% I believe).

It’s a sign of the times when we get excited by a per stream rate of 3.6 cents…

by Trichordist Editor

Search Engines = G.P.S. for Online Piracy | Vox Indie

More great work from VoxIndie!

I don’t need a study to prove that search engines are an integral force in fueling online piracy, but since the piracy debate is awash in dueling studies I’ll happily chime in on the subject again.

Last week Google published a report–a characteristically self-congratulatory piece of fluff–declaring themselves to be a leader  in the fight against piracy and that took great pains to deny the significance of “search” in maintaining the online pirate economy.  The report repeated claims made in a recent study (published by a consortium of tech giants including Google) that it’s poor SEO techniques that are the problem–not search engines.

READ THE FULL POST AT VOX INDIE:

by Trichordist Editor

UnSound : New Film Explores Artists Rights in The Digital Age (Video Clip)

From the forthcoming documentary Unsound: Bad Religion guitarist and Epitaph Records founder Brett Gurewitz talks about how large tech corporations make millions of dollars selling advertising- essentially making people the product, without them even realizing. The promise of free or cheap music is often used to draw eyeballs to websites, apps, and social networking platforms, allowing corporations to make large amounts of money from advertising. The public is generally unaware and happy to have free/cheap music, corporations make tons of money from advertising, but how is the musician benefiting from this?

LEARN MORE HERE:
https://www.facebook.com/unsoundthemovie

Unsound uncovers the dramatic collapse of the music industry and its impact on musicians and creators of all kinds trying to survive in the ‘age of free’.

by Trichordist Editor

Announcing The Content Creators Coalition | Brooklyn NYC Meeting Sept 24th

A new Artists Rights collective is forming by Artists & Creators, for Artists & Creators.

There is a group meeting in Brooklyn on Sept. 24th.

Sign up here to get more details about the CCC and request meeting information:
http://contentcreatorscoalition.org

WHO WE ARE
A dedicated group of artists, creators, and stakeholders are forming a new and unprecedented coalition. This coalition will allow the people who create the content that powers the web — recording artists, songwriters, journalists, filmmakers, producers, photographers, visual artists, and performers — to join together and exercise their collective voice in shaping the future of their industries.

If you are a professional artist, manager, or creator of what is often described as ‘content’, please join us. Sign up on our email list and we will contact you soon with details on how you can get involved.

WHY WE ARE ORGANIZING
Creators of all content have the right to a collective voice. We are joining together to represent the interests of participating creators in order to reshape our industries into fair and sustainable environments.

HOW WE FUNCTION
We are presently developing the legal, organizational, and technical infrastructure to create a unique organization for creators: one that harnesses the advantages of a representational and participatory structure and provides a platform for members to suggest actions, provide feedback, and vote directly in coalition campaigns.

CCC MISSION STATEMENT
We believe that individual artists cannot be expected to negotiate with corporations the economic size of nation-states. As professional creators of cultural content we join together to aggregate our power and to represent our interests in discussions and decisions that not only impact our ability to thrive from our work but, also enrich society with the benefits of a flourishing creative economy.

by Trichordist Editor

Carefully Co-writing without Creative Commons

We will be exploring and explaining more about the misrepresentations of Creative Commons in upcoming posts. Until then this excellent overview from Music Tech Policy is a great read and essential starting place for songwriters. Don’t get fooled into surrendering your rights!

Music Technology Policy

Co-writing with your producer, friends, band mates or [other] professional songwriters is a good thing. But remember–you’re creating a piece of property when you write a song (or record a master for that matter, but that will be the subject of another post). This time that property is intellectual property. Like any other form of property, intellectual property has certain rules of the road that can have some twists, turns and dangerous shoals. You wouldn’t build a house with a partner if you didn’t understand the legal issues of co-owning real estate, and neither should you create a piece of intellectual property with someone without knowing at least a bit about intellectual property law, and particularly the law of copyright.

The other thing you should be clear about is that when you record a song, there are two separate and distinct copyrights in play (no pun intended): the sound recording…

View original post 1,921 more words

by Trichordist Editor

Copyright and Control | The Cynical Musician

Faza at The Cynical Musician explores the question of control in copyright.

Copyright “skeptics”, like TechMike, tend to focus on the language of the “Copyright Clause” and construct elaborate theories about what “promoting the progress of science and the useful arts” really means. While they’re at it, they may wish to also consult the dictionary with regards to the meaning of the word “secure”2 and how it isn’t a synonym for “grant” – though that is besides the point here. Giovanetti rightly points out that promoting progress is the goal of the Copyright Clause and doesn’t actually say much about the means (that’s done in the other bit, about securing exclusive rights). What I wish to do today is to examine how the control aspect of copyright helps promote progress and why it is important.

READ THE FULL POST AT THE CYNICAL MUSICIAN:
http://thecynicalmusician.com/2013/09/copyright-and-control/

by Trichordist Editor

Lessig Mixes it Up | The Illusion Of More

David Newhoff at The Illusion Of More challenges Lawrence Lessig’s “Laws That Choke Creativity.”

So, as a legal layman but active observer of these things, it seems to me Mr. Lessig’s presentation, though charming, contains at least two fallacious premises.  The first is that the positive aspects of remix culture are actually threatened by the copyright system; and the second is that remix culture is universally positive.  I don’t know of any cases in which rights holders are stopping “the kids” from singing the songs of the day on YouTube.  But there are plenty of cases in which adults are profiting from remixing culture in ways that benefit neither fans nor creators. While it’s almost rote these days to call everyone a shill, I don’t think this is very helpful. I prefer to assume intelligent people mean what they say and believe in their positions, and Lawrence Lessig is certainly an intelligent man.  Of course, that might be why his ideas are ultimately so dangerous.

READ THE FULL POST AT THE ILLUSION OF MORE:
http://illusionofmore.com/mixing_lessig/

by Trichordist Editor

Five Things Congress Could Do for Music Creators That Wouldn’t Cost Taxpayers a Dime – Complete Series

Chris Castle suggests “Five Things Congress Can Do For Creators…” in three different areas in this series. Essential reading for all musicians and songwriters for an understanding of the forces and legislation that shape your ability to make a living.

1) Five Things Congress Could Do For Music Creators That Wouldn’t Cost the Taxpayer a Dime Part 1:
Pre-72 Sound Recordings

Many of us in the music business know that songwriters and recording artists are financially worse off under the “new boss” than they were under the “old boss.” We have watched older artists “die on the bandstand” because the royalty or residual income they had counted on to support them in their retirement began evaporating with the arrival of the Internet in their lives. We have watched younger artists and songwriters essentially give up on the idea of doing anything but breaking even — maybe, if they are lucky — on sound recordings. And there is a growing realization that being in cut out bin, or as it’s known online the “long tail”…well, is not ideal. So what is to be done?

READ THE FULL POST HERE:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-castle/five-things-congress-coul_b_3658643.html

2) Five Things Congress Could Do for Music Creators That Wouldn’t Cost the Taxpayer a Dime Part 2:
Update the Compulsory License for Songwriters

One might ask why do we need a compulsory license for songs? At a time when the dominant big tech companies drive around the world snorting up private data and taking pictures of your house, have scant attention paid to them when they gobble up companies to increase their market dominance or even monopoly, and employ an unprecedented number of lobbyists to influence governments around the world, why are we still worried about compulsory licenses for songs? To protect the public from the anticompetitive ambitions of songwriters?

READ THE FULL POST HERE:
http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2013/08/29/five-things-congress-could-do-for-music-creators-that-wouldnt-cost-the-taxpayer-a-dime-part-2-update-the-compulsory-license-for-songwriters/

3) Five Things Congress Could Do for Music Creators That Wouldn’t Cost the Taxpayer a Dime Part 3:
Create an Audit Right for Songwriters

Chairman Goodlatte has said he intends to update the Copyright Act to bring it into line with the digital age. The Congress already allowed audits for the compulsory license for sound recordings and the webcasting royalty established under Section 114. This mechanism that Congress created in the recent past is working quite well.

Chairman Goodlatte could borrow heavily from the audit rights for the Section 114 compulsory license for sound recordings, and allow songwriters to conduct group audits under Section 115 to avoid a multiplicity of audits.

READ THE FULL POST HERE:
http://musictechpolicy.wordpress.com/2013/09/03/five-things-congress-could-do-for-music-creators-that-wouldnt-cost-the-taxpayer-a-dime-part-3-create-an-audit-right-for-songwriters/

by Trichordist Editor