wikifonia

[Jan Civil]

people who use notation now have this for free:

wikifonia

[Shad Young]

I have been working in the Open Source movement since the mid 90's.

I pretty much disagree with almost everything you say. The industry's approach is not about protecting the artists at all, its about protecting their profit margins.

Open Source protects the rights of the authors far more comprehensively than the current Copyright laws. The problem is, everybody thinks their farts are worth money. They are not. The current system is not merit based. The best artists are not the ones making the money (especially song writes and composers). It is the ones who happen to be lucky enough to have the promotional machine behind them.

Music marketed by the industry today is stale. Utter tripe. There is nothing new, or original. Nobody takes any risks. Music is formulaic, and real artists are shafted left right and center.

A recent example. Cakewalk (Roland), Ourstage and Intel recently announced a contest. This was to promote both Intel's new line of processors, and Cakewalks new line of DAWs.

When you read the fine print, duplicitously nested between two bold lines within the same paragraph that were unrelated (or loosely) to the text rule that was hidden there, it states that all songs, win or loose, become the property of the sponsors. So, even if you lost, if somebody likes the song, they can then do what they want, with ZERO consideration for the author (This is in writing).

That in my book is raping the artist, even if it is standard practice.

Radiohead proved that when people are given the right to choose, many will choose to pay. Their "In Rainbows" album was released on the internet and made a "pay what you think its worth" album (even if you paid nothing). It outsold the previous three albums combined, and made the band significantly larger earnings as the money was not being used to pay high priced executives who think they are somehow worth their million dollar salaries.

This is fact: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/magazine/16-01/ff_yorke?cu...

RIAA, MMPA, and other such groups have nothing to do with the rights of genuine content creators. They infringe upon them, and continually lobby Gov't for more and more restrictive rights to keep the money flowing into their pockets, and their pockets alone.

The internet and digital audio revolution have been far more successful at protecting the rights and earnings of artists than any traditional music corporation. If you think this is not so, check out CD Baby. Far more artists are being heard, and payed today than anytime in history.

This is a good thing for all of us. The main difference is that fewer of us will become stinking rich, but more of us may actually be able to make a living doing what we love and are good at, and help us keep profiteering middlemen who contribute nothing of value from milking us dry.

http://www.ourstage.com/lgmedia/cakewalk/Cakewalk_Anytime_Anyplace_...


Chris Alpiar said:

Also I would like to mention that while the laws allow for prosecution at the millions of dollar level, the RIAA, while yes they have been an asshat, have also made very reasonable offers to people before they went to trial. Like that lady that was recently prosecuted, whom they had researched and found that she illegally shared on P2P networks terabytes of music, wanted something like a few thousand dollars as payment to settle out of court - to make a point and not end her life. Then SHE refused and went to court and then the court set the price of her fines where it amounted to millions.
Its like you are speeding at 100mph in a school zone and you get stopped and get a chance to pay your ticket, but you get a bug up your butt to make a scene demanding that the sign that says 20mph wasnt clear and you didnt see the flashing colored lights indicating a school zone so you take it to court and your 150 dollar fine now becomes 4000 and 100 hours of community service... Of course they have to have high end limits to the fines so they could prosecute a big time black market exploiter when found, but IMO they have been relatively reasonable in the last period

[Chris Alpiar]

Your POV is valid, but only for singer/songwriters that can grow a flock to market the sale of something other than their music to. If you read my text, I dont support RIAA or NMPA or the PROs, but I strongly disagree that anarchistic freedom of no rights on zero valued music is going to save music and artists. What about the 10s of thousands of really talented and specialized people who are losing jobs and are having to give up their art, not because they suck as you would have it, but because there is no longer a place for their talents in this dried out market. And that market is directly dried out from the rampant and unchecked illegal and devaluated legal downloading of music since the Napster freefall. There is no coolness to burning the big industry peopel if its a nuclear warhead that kills everyone except the roaches. Composers do NOT win with the radiohead model, nor do anyone that works as any support role in this industry. I know some of the most amazingly talented people in the US and these guys are dropping like flies, giving up pursuing their art as a career. Former principle trombonist for the Florida Philharmonic, amazing orchestral engineer in Seattle, etc, etc and all the film composers in LA are hanging in by a thread. The jobs are being sapped with terms that are ridiculous and almost no up front fees and no backend other than the writers share of the performance royalty (which royalty will go away when nobody pays to listen to music anymore!)

I think you oversimplify the problems and in your vehement hatred of the industry players, you are believing that destroying them equates to positivity for composers. Songwriters will probably make out ok but not the composers, or as mentioned, the myriad of support roles that are going to vanish that are currently flled by brilliant people who for whatever reasons are not viable commercially as a singer/songwriter or indie band

[Simon Godden]

Why can't all the file shaing sites like 'Limewire' and 'Ares Pro' be made illegal, banned and discontinued? It's happening right in front of our noses and nobody's doing sod-all about it!