Piracy Fight Shuts Down Music Blogs

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  • Rockadelic said:
    ODub......how about we film you teaching your class for a year, then package it on video and provide it to schools across the country to teach their students with without you getting any compensation?

    You signing up for that??

    What if by doing so. He now becomes a recognized authority on the subject he teaches. And so now he gets paid 10 X what he used to when he teaches?

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    sabadabada said:
    Rockadelic said:
    ODub......how about we film you teaching your class for a year, then package it on video and provide it to schools across the country to teach their students with without you getting any compensation?

    You signing up for that??

    What if by doing so. He now becomes a recognized authority on the subject he teaches. And so now he gets paid 10 X what he used to when he teaches?

    No dude....technology will allow us to simply "download" his knowledge and teaching skills for free.

    Maybe he can set up a website and try to charge people for what they can already get for free.

  • Rockadelic said:
    sabadabada said:
    Rockadelic said:
    ODub......how about we film you teaching your class for a year, then package it on video and provide it to schools across the country to teach their students with without you getting any compensation?

    You signing up for that??

    What if by doing so. He now becomes a recognized authority on the subject he teaches. And so now he gets paid 10 X what he used to when he teaches?

    No dude....technology will allow us to simply "download" his knowledge and teaching skills for free.

    Maybe he can set up a website and try to charge people for what they can already get for free.

    No. As much as it pains me to say it, SportCasual is right, that only content and the creation of new content will sustain a profit. Look at the cable companies right now. My problem with the situation in the article, is that the artist "leaked" the material in order to gain an audience by availing himself of the service offered by a popular website, and then attempted to revoke the license, wich, even if within his right, was done in as heavy handed a manner as I can imagine. But the present administration needs that industry money for 2012 so I guess the DOJ will just do what it's told.

  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    Rockadelic said:
    ODub......how about we film you teaching your class for a year, then package it on video and provide it to schools across the country to teach their students without you getting any compensation?

    You signing up for that??

    It's quite common for lecture note companies to have students copy down your lectures then resell them in future courses. This is also in a legal grey area - each school has different rules on this - but I can tell you this much: if I tried to sell my own lecture notes to my own students, I'd be inviting a serious shit storm on my head from school administrators. In that respect, I don't really "own" my intellectual labor, at least not in this situation.

    Looking into the future (and I'm answering your question in a lot more detail than you probably wanted), this may change though, especially as more universities begin to turn to online teaching as a way to lower costs and raise revenue. But again, even in that situation, my content is not my own. Unless the model radically changes, I wouldn't be able to create an online course for my home campus and then turn around and sell it to another campus. If my campus administrators wanted to do that, they'd have to get my permission (and theoretically, dole out some compensation) but I'm not a free agent, able to market my intellectual wares to an open market.

    Therefore, what exactly is my investment here in preventing people from distributing my lectures for free? I'm not really getting paid to "produce" a lecture as a unit-ized product (even though I do get paid to teach). Until we've arrived at such a model (which could happen, certainly), this is a moot point.

    The better analog would be if someone bootlegged a book I wrote and distributed it for free. In principle, I might take issue with that, but in reality? Academic books have limited distribution/circulation, in 99.9% of the cases, there's no "profit" to be made regardless, and as a scholar, I'm more invested in having my work circulated than I am in seeing returns on a publication that I know won't make money regardless.

    Furthermore, in my line of work, the more my ideas are distributed tends to be better for me (unless I'm writing missives about "Little Eichmanns" dying in the WTC). I'm not paid to produce ideas in a direct, marketable way. I'm paid to do research and teach, neither of which can be unit-ized or replicated by others in a similar fashion as a cultural product, such as music.

    All of which is to say: you can't compare the music industry and academia.
    Or the music industry and the produce industry for that matter either.

  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    Rockadelic said:
    sabadabada said:
    Rockadelic said:
    ODub......how about we film you teaching your class for a year, then package it on video and provide it to schools across the country to teach their students with without you getting any compensation?

    You signing up for that??

    What if by doing so. He now becomes a recognized authority on the subject he teaches. And so now he gets paid 10 X what he used to when he teaches?

    No dude....technology will allow us to simply "download" his knowledge and teaching skills for free.

    Maybe he can set up a website and try to charge people for what they can already get for free.
    e]

    Rich: this doesn't make any sense at all. For the sake of argument, let's say this was a reality.

    Who does it benefit? No student could use a downloaded lecture as a way to claim they've taken the class. It could help as a study guide or, at best, allow them to skip coming to my class but I'm not paid for attendance, neither is the university. And if the student wants to get a degree, they still have to sign up for classes and pay tuition/fees. Downloadable lectures won't change the basics of business within higher ed.

    Who does it harm? It's not me, certainly. As I said in the previous post, this is NOT content that I could have monetized anyways. So someone distributing it for free doesn't harm my economic self-interest. But, if it gets my name out there, I can monetize my visibility in other ways (speaking engagements, writing gigs, etc.)

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    mannybolone said:
    Rockadelic said:
    ODub......how about we film you teaching your class for a year, then package it on video and provide it to schools across the country to teach their students without you getting any compensation?

    You signing up for that??

    It's quite common for lecture note companies to have students copy down your lectures then resell them in future courses. This is also in a legal grey area - each school has different rules on this - but I can tell you this much: if I tried to sell my own lecture notes to my own students, I'd be inviting a serious shit storm on my head from school administrators. In that respect, I don't really "own" my intellectual labor, at least not in this situation.

    Looking into the future (and I'm answering your question in a lot more detail than you probably wanted), this may change though, especially as more universities begin to turn to online teaching as a way to lower costs and raise revenue. But again, even in that situation, my content is not my own. Unless the model radically changes, I wouldn't be able to create an online course for my home campus and then turn around and sell it to another campus. If my campus administrators wanted to do that, they'd have to get my permission (and theoretically, dole out some compensation) but I'm not a free agent, able to market my intellectual wares to an open market.

    Therefore, what exactly is my investment here in preventing people from distributing my lectures for free? I'm not really getting paid to "produce" a lecture as a unit-ized product (even though I do get paid to teach). Until we've arrived at such a model (which could happen, certainly), this is a moot point.

    The better analog would be if someone bootlegged a book I wrote and distributed it for free. In principle, I might take issue with that, but in reality? Academic books have limited distribution/circulation, in 99.9% of the cases, there's no "profit" to be made regardless, and as a scholar, I'm more invested in having my work circulated than I am in seeing returns on a publication that I know won't make money regardless.

    Furthermore, in my line of work, the more my ideas are distributed tends to be better for me (unless I'm writing missives about "Little Eichmanns" dying in the WTC). I'm not paid to produce ideas in a direct, marketable way. I'm paid to do research and teach, neither of which can be unit-ized or replicated by others in a similar fashion as a cultural product, such as music.

    All of which is to say: you can't compare the music industry and academia.
    Or the music industry and the produce industry for that matter either.

    So in reality, since your school "owns" your intellectual property they can use your videoed lectures free of charge and even distribute it if they are so inclined.....and if by virtue of having these videos they no longer needed you, they could let you go and you would have no recourse as you would simply be a "victim of technology"??

    But what if other schools "bootlegged" them and used them to teach their students....certainly your school would take action to stop it since they are the rightful owners.

  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    4YearGraduate said:
    File sharing has impacted my record sales astronomically, I know this firsthand both from numbers and talking to kids at the merch table.

    I don't doubt this but in your case, it makes sense since, as an independent artist, your record sales and profit margin are (I'm presuming) in closer alignment with one another.

    Curious: have you ever asked a music site to take down your material? And if not, why not?

  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    Rockadelic said:


    So in reality, since your school "owns" your intellectual property they can use your videoed lectures free of charge and even distribute it if they are so inclined.....and if by virtue of having these videos they no longer needed you, they could let you go and you would have no recourse as you would simply be a "victim of technology"??

    But what if other schools "bootlegged" them and used them to teach their students....certainly your school would take action to stop it since they are the rightful owners.

    Well, I'm not clear who actually owns my intellectual property and whether lectures would qualify as "property" in the conventional sense. That's what I mean by a legal grey area - many of the rules that govern the questions you're asking don't have clear or obvious answers.

    So, for example, I'm pretty sure my contract with the university would forbid me to take on a visiting professorship at a different university without clearing it with them first.

    However, I can deliver the equivalent of a guest lecture anywhere and anytime I want. Including for pay. In fact, I could probably deliver a series of guest lectures for another university without running afoul with my home campus. But I can't TEACH another course at another university without permission. (At least, I don't think I can). That's because a "course" is something that is unit-ized in ways that a lecture or series of lectures are not.

    Therefore, if another university tried to package my videotaped lectures and then offer that as a "course" to their students, sure, either myself or my home campus would likely have the legal right to intervene and put a stop to it.

    But I'm not debating the legal right of copyright holders to enforce their copyright. That's their right, literally. The issue at hand in this thread is, in the music industry, 1) are they applying those rights in a consistent and logical manner? and 2) shouldn't people stop making music available for download as to stop copyright holders from having to enforce their rights?

    Your analogy doesn't speak to either of those questions since, as I have noted, they're not comparable industries.

  • mannybolone said:
    Rockadelic said:
    ODub......how about we film you teaching your class for a year, then package it on video and provide it to schools across the country to teach their students without you getting any compensation?

    You signing up for that??

    It's quite common for lecture note companies to have students copy down your lectures then resell them in future courses. This is also in a legal grey area - each school has different rules on this - but I can tell you this much: if I tried to sell my own lecture notes to my own students, I'd be inviting a serious shit storm on my head from school administrators. In that respect, I don't really "own" my intellectual labor, at least not in this situation.

    Looking into the future (and I'm answering your question in a lot more detail than you probably wanted), this may change though, especially as more universities begin to turn to online teaching as a way to lower costs and raise revenue. But again, even in that situation, my content is not my own. Unless the model radically changes, I wouldn't be able to create an online course for my home campus and then turn around and sell it to another campus. If my campus administrators wanted to do that, they'd have to get my permission (and theoretically, dole out some compensation) but I'm not a free agent, able to market my intellectual wares to an open market.

    Therefore, what exactly is my investment here in preventing people from distributing my lectures for free? I'm not really getting paid to "produce" a lecture as a unit-ized product (even though I do get paid to teach). Until we've arrived at such a model (which could happen, certainly), this is a moot point.

    The better analog would be if someone bootlegged a book I wrote and distributed it for free. In principle, I might take issue with that, but in reality? Academic books have limited distribution/circulation, in 99.9% of the cases, there's no "profit" to be made regardless, and as a scholar, I'm more invested in having my work circulated than I am in seeing returns on a publication that I know won't make money regardless.

    Furthermore, in my line of work, the more my ideas are distributed tends to be better for me (unless I'm writing missives about "Little Eichmanns" dying in the WTC). I'm not paid to produce ideas in a direct, marketable way. I'm paid to do research and teach, neither of which can be unit-ized or replicated by others in a similar fashion as a cultural product, such as music.

    All of which is to say: you can't compare the music industry and academia.
    Or the music industry and the produce industry for that matter either.


    Your particular situation at your university is not a rule of law, it's a result of your specific contract. If I was the lawyer working for the university, I'd write the contract to basically say "whatever Odub does is owned by the school". If I were your lawyer, it would say "Odub is licensing his services, on a limited basis, to the school...." Copyright law protects the holder, so if your current contract didn't give the school the right to your work, the comparison to the music industry would be more apt. I just paid $150 to watch a continuing legal education lecture on expert witnesses to partially satisfy the state bar requirements. Tomorrow, I have to attend a live lecture (also offered via the web) that costs $350 in either format. There is absolutely a value to copy-written lectures.

    Music on the web is different...the value is as an art that can be appreciated over and over again. Posting copy-written music on a blog is illegal, but if your not offering it for a download, I don't see the harm, in fact, I think it helps promote the artist's work.

  • Pfft. Your firm doesn't pay for that shit.

  • sabadabada said:
    Pfft. Your firm doesn't pay for that shit.

    sorry, it should say "my firm just paid ____". same point.

  • keithvanhorn said:
    Music on the web is different...the value is as an art that can be appreciated over and over again. Posting copy-written music on a blog is illegal, but if your not offering it for a download, I don't see the harm, in fact, I think it helps promote the artist's work.

    Is this distinction still relevant?

    Anything you can listen to can be easily downloaded at this point.

  • mannybolonemannybolone Los Angeles, CA 15,025 Posts
    Keith:

    Good points. In any case, the contract I signed doesn't currently empower either myself or my school to monetize my lectures. That's why I said it's a moot point; Rich is raising an analogy that simply doesn't apply to my reality. Nor can I imagine how such a reality would look like since, as a member of a sociology department, I don't really see anyone paying $350 to attend a web lecture by any of our faculty.

    Here's what I don't understand from the latter part of your post though: at what point is there a line crossed? So you think streaming music is fine but not songs available for download? What if the downloads are at less-than-CD quality? And how you compensate for software programs that allow you to capture sound from any streaming source?

    So far, I feel like you've painted with a broad brush but I think there's something different between making entire albums available for DL at 320 or higher vs. making single songs available for download at 128. Onsmash, if I'm not mistaken, was probably doing the latter, not the former.

  • mannybolone said:


    Here's what I don't understand from the latter part of your post though: at what point is there a line crossed? So you think streaming music is fine but not songs available for download? What if the downloads are at less-than-CD quality? And how you compensate for software programs that allow you to capture sound from any streaming source?

    So far, I feel like you've painted with a broad brush but I think there's something different between making entire albums available for DL at 320 or higher vs. making single songs available for download at 128. Onsmash, if I'm not mistaken, was probably doing the latter, not the former.

    It's all illegal, but on a moral level, I'm speaking to the argument that sharing an artist's music can help promote the artist and his work. This is true, so if we take the law out of the equation, how do we balance the promotion of an artist's music v. the interest in seeing an artist make as much money as possible. The simple solution would be offer the music, but not for download. If people really like the music, it's not like they are going to keep coming back to your blog to listen to a song. They will likely either seek out the music for free download somewhere else or purchase it. It's true that there may be capturing software, but to date, there is nothing that will do it in a proper way (without sacrificing quality).

    I don't see why offering a song at 128kbs is even remotely reasonable. Not everyone is a dj or an audiophile.

  • keithvanhorn said:
    so if we take the law out of the equation,

    YO! Ut-upshay.

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
    Rockadelic said:
    ODub......how about we film you teaching your class for a year, then package it on video and provide it to schools across the country to teach their students without you getting any compensation?

    You signing up for that??

    Umm, schools are already doing that... For years now

  • mannybolone said:
    4YearGraduate said:
    File sharing has impacted my record sales astronomically, I know this firsthand both from numbers and talking to kids at the merch table.

    I don't doubt this but in your case, it makes sense since, as an independent artist, your record sales and profit margin are (I'm presuming) in closer alignment with one another.

    Curious: have you ever asked a music site to take down your material? And if not, why not?

    Hell yes, we have a service that does this and they charge $1 a takedown of illegal album upload. When carried away dropped we owed them $400 the first week. Mostly kazakstan torrent sites and the like. I'm willing to give bloggers a little leeway but putting up the whole album is in bad taste IMO. YouTube is the real problem, albums uploaded all out order with no power to take down or control.

    I wrote a song about this, the crux is that fans are now the curators of peoples catalogs. This would be a 10 pager if I went in on the nuts and bolts of how fucked up this current situation is for Indy artists, and then I would have to listen to a bunch of non artists tell me how rad the Internet is for exposure and that you can make up all te extra money on the road. No thanks.

  • 4YearGraduate said:
    YouTube is the real problem, albums uploaded all out order with no power to take down or control.

    ???

    You can have songs taken off of youtube if you are the copyright holder.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    4YearGraduate said:
    File sharing has impacted my record sales astronomically, I know this firsthand both from numbers and talking to kids at the merch table.

    But previous to that, the implosion of Tower records, gas prices, and print media did too.

    So, basically, things suck but we trudge on because the funny thing about artists is that they will create even if someone isnt paying them.

    So, yeah.

    ^This.

  • RockadelicRockadelic Out Digging 13,993 Posts
    4YearGraduate said:

    the crux is that fans are now the curators of peoples catalogs. This would be a 10 pager if I went in on the nuts and bolts of how fucked up this current situation is for Indy artists, and then I would have to listen to a bunch of non artists tell me how rad the Internet is for exposure and that you can make up all te extra money on the road. No thanks.

    ^^^^This^^^^

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
    4YearGraduate said:

    I wrote a song about this, the crux is that fans are now the curators of peoples catalogs. This would be a 10 pager if I went in on the nuts and bolts of how fucked up this current situation is for Indy artists, and then I would have to listen to a bunch of non artists tell me how rad the Internet is for exposure and that you can make up all te extra money on the road. No thanks.

    I'm actually interested in that convo. If only because it can show both sides to an argument and open people up to idea's & information many don't know. From all sides.

    Tho, I'm not interested in any one side trying to control the conversation. I understand that, that does in fact happen. And I can understand why you might not want to have to keep defending your position over and over. But it's good to hear the under side of things.

    But then, I'm not an artist. Just a guy who sold music for most of his life.

  • LaserWolfLaserWolf Portland Oregon 11,517 Posts
    I have a neighbor who is a full time working juggler.

    Hates youtube because of how bad amateur vids of his performances are.


    A potential client is as likely not to hire him as to hire him after watching this video of his legs, with some dolt talking over his punch lines.

    PS: Watch it any way, guy is amazing.

  • DOR said:
    4YearGraduate said:

    I wrote a song about this, the crux is that fans are now the curators of peoples catalogs. This would be a 10 pager if I went in on the nuts and bolts of how fucked up this current situation is for Indy artists, and then I would have to listen to a bunch of non artists tell me how rad the Internet is for exposure and that you can make up all te extra money on the road. No thanks.

    I'm actually interested in that convo. If only because it can show both sides to an argument and open people up to idea's & information many don't know. From all sides.

    Tho, I'm not interested in any one side trying to control the conversation. I understand that, that does in fact happen. And I can understand why you might not want to have to keep defending your position over and over. But it's good to hear the under side of things.

    But then, I'm not an artist. Just a guy who sold music for most of his life.

    Well, below is pretty much everything i have to say about it. I wrote this while holding my newborn son in one arm wondering just what the fuck i was going to do with my life. I mean, i work the table at shows on the road and kids have no idea what album songs came from or where the fall, what year they came out, etc. And they love some stuff so great, I'm not mad at that because i suppose the bottom line is they heard it and they came out to the show. But the reality is I don't know how many shows Kool and The Gang did in 1974, i really don't care. All I care about are the albums they made and the physical legacy they left behind. And as such, if artists have to stay on the road, disconnected from reality, family and life, then the art will suffer - so to that end the "exposure is great, touring is where the pay off is" argument I hear and see over and over again on the net is a fallacy.

    DivShare File - 18 All Good Things.mp3

    the point of this is only to provide personal anecdote and suggest that the situation is very very grey and complicated.


  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
    "Joined Jul '05 and has posted 2158 times.
    Loc: I know alot about things no one cares about"

    I can't remember anytime you've posted on the strut that I've read, where I wasn't somewhat to very interested in what you put down...


    But thx for the words above. I appreciate what you wrote.

  • DOR said:
    "Joined Jul '05 and has posted 2158 times.
    Loc: I know alot about things no one cares about"

    I can't remember anytime you've posted on the strut that I've read, where I wasn't somewhat to very interested in what you put down...


    But thx for the words above. I appreciate what you wrote.

    thanks man, i'm reuploading the track because i dont want people to have to download it to listen in the forum.

    ahhhh, the irony.

  • LaserWolf said:
    I have a neighbor who is a full time working juggler.

    Hates youtube because of how bad amateur vids of his performances are.


    A potential client is as likely not to hire him as to hire him after watching this video of his legs, with some dolt talking over his punch lines.

    PS: Watch it any way, guy is amazing.

    amazing post, start to finish. truth, humor dropped in equal measure. im srs.

  • DORDOR Two Ron Toe 9,903 Posts
    Rockadelic said:
    ODub......how about we film you teaching your class for a year, then package it on video and provide it to schools across the country to teach their students without you getting any compensation?

    You signing up for that??

    I'm working on getting my MIT degree right this minute.


  • 4YearGraduate said:
    mannybolone said:
    4YearGraduate said:
    File sharing has impacted my record sales astronomically, I know this firsthand both from numbers and talking to kids at the merch table.

    I don't doubt this but in your case, it makes sense since, as an independent artist, your record sales and profit margin are (I'm presuming) in closer alignment with one another.

    Curious: have you ever asked a music site to take down your material? And if not, why not?

    Hell yes, we have a service that does this and they charge $1 a takedown of illegal album upload. When carried away dropped we owed them $400 the first week. Mostly kazakstan torrent sites and the like. I'm willing to give bloggers a little leeway but putting up the whole album is in bad taste IMO. YouTube is the real problem, albums uploaded all out order with no power to take down or control.

    I wrote a song about this, the crux is that fans are now the curators of peoples catalogs. This would be a 10 pager if I went in on the nuts and bolts of how fucked up this current situation is for Indy artists, and then I would have to listen to a bunch of non artists tell me how rad the Internet is for exposure and that you can make up all te extra money on the road. No thanks.

    PRS in the UK are licensing Youtube now. Terms of the deal were not disclosed so I am guessing it'll be a pittance, but if you are with ASCAP or BMI you want to be seeing where they are at with negotiations. As I say at present these sort of deals are a pittance, almost just a marker of the principle that these services should be licensed, and the artists and labels at least see something back from their work thats driving traffic to youtube and putting money in googles coffers
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