Apple Music and iTunes are just marketplaces. Shouldn't they come after the labels that put the songs up there in the first place, like Stardust Records?
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Apple Sued by Estate of 'Over the Rainbow' Composer for Alleged Piracy
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I don't know, maybe 50 years (from creation, not the death of the creator). Patents usually last 20 years. Works of art are more personal in a lot of cases (obviously with the exception of expensive creations like movies), so I'd grant them a longer term than patents. But something like 75 years after the death of the creator is almost the definition of entrenched privileges.
As copyright terms have been extended during the last several decades, shouldn’t the opposite have happened?
I don’t want to crush your utopia, but this is about money, not intellectual property for gain of the composers or writers. That is why the general population have little regards for copyright laws. For most people music is easy entertainment to be consumed, and quite often are satisfied with the three chords guitar platonic love songs that’s everywhere. They only have to be unique enough so they can be attributed to a certain artist. And here is where the money part come in.
Record labels wants to ensure big return of investment of promoting an artist, not by his or hers skills and IP, but selling a package around their persona and the simple catchy simple song. You see that the advanced compositions and other works are not hidden away, they are rejected by the big labels because of the diminishing returns as the audience is too small. Now there are special labels who cater to those, but they have limited resources and will only pick up the best of the best, as the production tends to be much more expensive.
The big record labels only want to ensure that they retain their rights to anything they put out, even if it is a creation anyone could have done.
In my mind, anyone as a creative individual, you should have the right to make money of your work during their lifetime, and a few reasonable years after death, to ensure publication of unfinished or unpublished work. It should not be some perpetual unemployment benefit to inheritors, beneficiaries and estate attorneys.
Attribution should remain indefinite, but others should be allowed to perform and create derivatives without repercussions.
Unfortunately Apple is not only profiting off the recording, but also providing a venue in which the pirated material can be sold. Maybe Apple got duped here, but the store owner must perform due diligence, or be culpable. That’s one of the arguments the suit makes, that the old Tower Records would not likely have ever bought merchandise from a shady vendor who walked in off the street offering the same recordings that RCA sells for $5 less. The point being, Apple should not be doing business with these kinds of vendors. Now, Apple can turn around and sue the vendor, and they should and likely will if in fact there is a copyright violation — or if the vendor can be found (some are likely just a P.O. Box where the checks are sent). Unfortunately that’s what it boils down to because there’s no way Apple can ever police the ever expanding volume of music they offer. It’s cheaper to just deal with these lawsuits as they arise.
I will likely not be popular with this viewpoint, but I agree.
As well, I am fairly sure Apple, et. al., licensed the use of the recording with the labels, and have valid BMI, ASCAP, and such licenses for the songs as well. That should pretty much take them out of the loop. If Thief Records has no right to the music it has provided and if the music isn't properly licensed then that is not Apple's issue. By gaining the rights to the music as provided by the record companies, they should not be responsible for damages unless they have been properly notified that there is a question.
It’s not a monopoly. Everyone can listen to the music. If others are not allowed to rip off the heirs of a dead musician, that’s not a monopoly.
Answer: as long as people are willing to pay for it, money should go to the musicians and not someone ripping them off.
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That’s exactly what the DMCA is there for. You notify them if infringement and Apple takes it off the store. If Apple ignores a takedown request, they are on the hook. I assume they wouldn’t ignore a DMCA request.
How are you measuring the pitch and how do you know what it was actually recorded at?
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Ok, so you don't know what a monopoly is either. WTF?
Disagree completely. Haveing copyright last as long as it does now does not promote better music. All it does is it robs the public of its art. Copyright terms used to be reasonable, but they are not today. The arts would be richer, the public would be better off, and new artists would have more free material from which to draw inspiration if copyright terms were reduced to something sane.
I was not aware of this fact, thought that labels submit their artist catalog into Apple Music, Spotify, ... and that the unsigned artists must have the music verified first (for example, using a code). Always something new to learn
So this is about pirated copies of the songs and not covers by other artists such as the big man Israel Kamakawiwo'ole?
The last part of your post proves my point. Creativity hasn’t died BECAUSE artists have a wealth of public domain works they used to develop their own art over time. How hard is that to grasp?
Maybe people could stop steeling the intellectual property of others and solve lots of these problems.
I am assuming a DMCA request has to have some meat to it before something is taken down.
But my point was that Apple, et. al., license the performance, not the composer. It seems to me the issue Arlen's heirs should have is with the artists and/or labels, not with Apple.
My sarcasm meter is pinging here. But that really is an iconic song, up there with My Funny Valentine etc.
On to the issue: From what I'm seeing this is specifically about the release of the original recordings by persons/entities unauthorized to do so? Am I reading that correctly?
That's a pretty clear-cut case and obviously it shouldn't be happening. That's a totally different issue from covers being released under a mechanical license, a system that definitely fosters creativity as artists are able to create their own versions of songs by paying a reasonable licensing fee. I sure hope they aren't going after covers, that would indeed cripple creativity.
Shortening copyright terms to 15 years solves problems only if you are a pirate. It would be disastrous if you are the person who creates the material. In the music business, given that performers are badly screwed, copyrights for composers is about the only protection that artists have to get paid for their work. What would be the value in screwing artists to the betterment of pirates?
First of all, I don’t agree that copyright should be inherited. It was originally for 17 years. People lived shorter lives back then, so I can argue that it should have been extended over the years, to perhaps 25 years today. But now, it goes on almost forever. That’s completely against the entire idea of a copyright that expired in some reasonable period.
I disagree here.... I used to be in a band myself, so I have at least SOME clue about the music industry and musicians wanting to retain rights to their work, etc.
Nobody's saying that a work of art "stops belonging to its creator", just because you put a time limitation on copyright restrictions. If you composed the music, painted the artwork, or sculpted the sculpture -- that's just a fact that can't be taken away from you.
The problem is, copyright law was intended to simply provide some legal protection for someone creating NEW works, so they're able to get fair compensation for creating them. If you write a novel or a song or a computer program - the lion's share of profit to be made comes in a time window close to its initial release. People want to buy it because it's new and unfamiliar. That's when it would be highly damaging to have some unauthorized person come along and duplicate it by the thousands, pretending to sell it on your behalf and pocketing all the profits.
At some point, your work has already been very widely distributed to practically everyone who ever wanted a copy of it. After that? It's just one more of MANY, MANY works out there that some people may want to obtain, randomly, as time passes.
I think you should definitely retain rights to your work for as long as you're alive, but I don't agree with this idea that the rights pass on to families of the deceased, in perpetuity. They didn't create the work and 99% of the time, probably lack the skills to even do so if they had to!
I'd also say that if you still have rights to material but aren't currently making it commercially available to people? Your copyright protections should expire on it after 1-2 years of it being in that state. Especially with software, you see it happening all the time. Companies technically still own rights to some old game title but nobody has even produced the hardware it ran on for years. They're making exactly $0 off of it, but just sitting on the rights to it anyway. Enthusiasts come along and want to revisit the vintage/classic games but find they have to break the law in order to copy the code to make it work on whatever software emulator someone worked hard to making JUST so they could run that code again.
If you aren't giving people a LEGAL avenue to buy your work, then all bets should be off when people decide to "pirate" it.
Nobody's saying that a work of art "stops belonging to its creator", just because you put a time limitation on copyright restrictions. If you composed the music, painted the artwork, or sculpted the sculpture -- that's just a fact that can't be taken away from you.
The problem is, copyright law was intended to simply provide some legal protection for someone creating NEW works, so they're able to get fair compensation for creating them. If you write a novel or a song or a computer program - the lion's share of profit to be made comes in a time window close to its initial release. People want to buy it because it's new and unfamiliar. That's when it would be highly damaging to have some unauthorized person come along and duplicate it by the thousands, pretending to sell it on your behalf and pocketing all the profits.
At some point, your work has already been very widely distributed to practically everyone who ever wanted a copy of it. After that? It's just one more of MANY, MANY works out there that some people may want to obtain, randomly, as time passes.
I think you should definitely retain rights to your work for as long as you're alive, but I don't agree with this idea that the rights pass on to families of the deceased, in perpetuity. They didn't create the work and 99% of the time, probably lack the skills to even do so if they had to!
I'd also say that if you still have rights to material but aren't currently making it commercially available to people? Your copyright protections should expire on it after 1-2 years of it being in that state. Especially with software, you see it happening all the time. Companies technically still own rights to some old game title but nobody has even produced the hardware it ran on for years. They're making exactly $0 off of it, but just sitting on the rights to it anyway. Enthusiasts come along and want to revisit the vintage/classic games but find they have to break the law in order to copy the code to make it work on whatever software emulator someone worked hard to making JUST so they could run that code again.
If you aren't giving people a LEGAL avenue to buy your work, then all bets should be off when people decide to "pirate" it.
That's not at all what copyright protection does. You can still be inspired by a copyrighted work; your work can still be built on copyrighted work. We see that virtually every day, in fact. What you are describing isn't infringement.
Any creative work should compensate the original creator until their death. I disagree with inherited royalities being passed on for years to an Estate.
Once someone creates something original it is to benefit society and have the originator acknowledged for their fine work. When one dies that legacy of fine work should be shared royalty free, however the originator must be credited for any level of contribution used or made by the releasing creative artist.
If the original creator did not see fit to establish a trust fund while alive for their children and so forth, their probably wanted them to work for a living to make and create something of their own, to follow in their parent/s creative footsteps and be recognized for their contributions to a better society.
At the end of the day an artist does not create to make money, their do it to better society and for their work and skills to be acknowledge by society for good. Hence the adage, “Starving Artist”.
This sounds like people without talent are trying to reap the benefits from their dead loved ones contributions to society. The original recordings should be donated for reproduction with proceeds to assist emerging and deprived society classes to nature real talent, not make some heir suckle off their dead loved ones work. I also disagree that the middle men are making money of public domain.
I will compromise and state that 10 years after the artist has passed royalties can be sent to the estate to payout the original artists debts.
Be proud to share your dead loved ones work to society and to bring an opportunity to those who did not have one, who have the possibility to be great artists by your dead loved ones contributions.
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This comment cracked me up! Thank you for the humor. I see a desperate composer clutching his music to his chest.. "NO ONE WILL SEE THIS!"
Let's get real. A human created it. Humans create many things. Hell, I create tons of things. AND I share and give it away for free. So do my friends, they create things. Sometimes they profit and sometimes they create it for the better of humanity. The copy right system should help a person profit from their works. And that right should be protected. But I think there should be constraints put on it. Move on and create new stuff. Push your "genius" and create and inspire other humans. But I do think that copy right laws can be a bit expansive and go above their original intent (for the copy right owner to make a profit and protect that profit). I do think that only the person/company filing the should be able to hold a copy right. Individuals and company shouldn't be able to purchase copy rights outright from other individuals and companies, that goes above the intent of the copy right system. They can purchase the use of the copyright but not the original copy right. Limits and constraints on copy rights is over due. The whole "happy birthday" song debacle is an good example.
There are tons of predators that buy up tons of copyrights and then spend their lives in the court systems. That is wrong.
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Just wondering do you use torrent ? I think you forgot the word free in your “robs the public of it’s art” as far as new artists, that’s called sampling and isn’t artistic at all, just copying.Disagree completely. Haveing copyright last as long as it does now does not promote better music. All it does is it robs the public of its art. Copyright terms used to be reasonable, but they are not today. The arts would be richer, the public would be better off, and new artists would have more free material from which to draw inspiration if copyright terms were reduced to something sane.
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Say a songwriter writes and records a hit makes a ton of money over years. Should someone else be allowed to release a recording of the same song, gets lucky, make a ton of money and not pay anything to the estate, or writer if still alive? I’m guessing your argument concerns hobby level creation, not work product. I work in the industry and I agree the bulk of the income is stolen by suits, until one gets into the stratosphere of talent who can afford to control their content.
Disney wouldn't like to shorten copy rights to less than 1000 years or longer, they are the one who is making sure Micky Mouse will NEVER expire. Congress is in their back pocket on this.