Comment on this weblog
You must be logged in to the O'Reilly Network to post a comment.

Showing messages 1 through 19 of 19.

• ASCAP
  2004-08-14 17:17:59  Music [Reply | View]
  
  
  I have done a lot of writing on ASCAP and the music industry. I write because thus far they've stolen
  
  more than $100,000.00 from me, Terry James. I am an ASCAP member. I wrote two songs, paid for
  
  their entire production, and they were placed in the movie "Home Alone" without my consent.
  
  "Be With You" and "You're Old Enough."
  
  You don't find them in the credits because they were stolen and Hollywood doesn't advertise their acts of
  
  theft or Copyright Infringement. Fox Films, John Hughes, Chris Columbus and others know this is true,
  
  and unfortunately for them they fully documented it.
  
  ASCAP is currently out of control. The Writer Members have no say nor any voice at ASCAP. They are
  
  intentionally kept from corresponding with each other. All for the benefit of the publishers.
  
  The details of this constitute a book and perhaps a volume of books. ASCAP actions rise to the level of
  
  Racketeering under the R.I.C.O. law, and various other laws pertaining to Copyright Infringement,
  
  Embezzlement, Money Laundering, and Mail Fraud. The F.B.I. will find a larger pool of criminals at
  
  ASCAP than they ever found at Enron, using the same "Big Six" crooked accounting firms and the same
  
  fraudulent "Creative Accounting" to fatten their bottom line.
  
  Bergman and the other rich and famous board members know about this fraud and actively engage in
  
  keeping it from the authorities.
  
  Betrayal is the worst form of treason. And ASCAP betrays its Writer Members every day.
  
  I'm about to file lawsuit against them an open an investigation that will make Enron look like a charitable
  
  institution. In federal court, for Criminal Copyright Infringement by the rich and famous, not downloaders,
  
  who ASCAP's RIAA board and members seem too overzealous in deflecting their own illegal activities.
  
  I want to say this to downloaders: No record company, nor ASCAP, nor BMI, nor any other music
  
  industry participant has a license for the reproduction of music on the Internet. It's very simple: because
  
  each clause of a contract must specifically state which right under Copyright Law the Author is granting,
  
  without a specific clause stating usage on the Internet, there is no contract for this right.
  
  Which means, ASCAP and the RIAA do not have standing on Internet singlecast, broadcast, or multicast
  
  of musical works; this covers downloading.
  
  Their whole copyright infringement case log regarding the Internet thereby becomes null and void. They
  
  must have the permission of the original Author, not just the copyright holder who is most often a label
  
  with a specific contract, to participate in Copyright actions regarding relevant musical works.
  
  I never gave them that right.
  
  No Writer Member ever gave them that right.
  
  And all rights not stipulated in contract remain with the Original Author, who also has the right to revoke
  
  any license at his sole discretion.
  
  The defense to downloading is that those suing don't have the right to enforce a non-existent contractual
  
  clause to begin with.
  
  And "perpetual" clauses and "any new technology or form of reproduction" are non-sequitar in that a right
  
  cannot exist if the medium does not exist. These are merely the attempts of the publishers to steal rights
  
  which they don't even know exist.
  
  Because they have not bargained fairly for such rights, they do not exist.
  
  Every contract ever written with songwriters therefore can and must be renegotiated.
  
  
  
  One of the editors of a website, Levine, said that copyright law was written to protect publishers and
  
  authors.
  
  Copyright Law was, in fact, written to punish publishers who steal from the Authors. There are two words
  
  in the U.S. Constitution in Article I Section 8 Clause 8, "Authors" and "Inventors" and no where is the
  
  word "publisher" found.
  
  Publishers were originally printers of manuscripts. They were equitable in that they split the profits with
  
  the Authors 50/50.
  
  When radio, movies, and records came along, all of that changed. None of these paid royalties, or
  
  anything, to the Authors. Thus, Copyright Law was codified, again, to protect the Authors, not the
  
  publishers.
  
  ASCAP was originally founded to collect from Hollywood the royalties they refused to pay.
  
  ASCAP later went crooked giving the publishers control of ASCAP.
  
  Publishers are the record companies which are the labels which are the movie companies.
  
  Which is Hollywood.
  
  Every time the Authors tried to get paid, it was Hollywood and New York that stopped them, not the
  
  consumers. The M.P.A.A. [now the M.P.A because the former was broken up as a monopoly which still
  
  what the M.P.A. is], R.I.A.A., Harr Fox, N.M.P.A., ASCAP and BMI are one and the group of Hollywood
  
  and New York board of directors. And that is exactly how they control the industry, just like the five
  
  familes of the mafia.
  
  As an Author and an artist, I side with Janis Ian and the people who want to download music. It benefits
  
  the Author and artist in 500% increase in sales. But Hollywood and New York don't want this because
  
  then they couldn't control who could make hit records and CD's.
  
  And Hollywood goes back to Beverly Hills, while New York goes back to places like New Rochelle,
  
  Rochester, and Westchester. Producers and Directors totally unwilling to pay for music. Instead, they
  
  give away $100,000,000.00 to actors like Keanu Reeves, while Robert Redford just looks the other way
  
  while Hollywood turns Sundance into the new Warner Bros. backlot.
  
  The above refers to synch rights. Years ago, you got paid for every copy of a movie sold. Today, you
  
  don't. And that's because the directors, producers, and stars now get your musical synch rights, not you,
  
  the Author.
  
  So, we're back to where we were before the Continental Congress wrote the U.S. Constitution and even
  
  Senator Leahy is either too stupid or too blind or too paid off by ASCAP to change it.
  
  The publishers, i.e., Hollywood and New York film industry, just blatantly use music stolen from Authors
  
  and because they own and control all of the agencies like ASCAP and BMI, nothing can stop it but
  
  another Senate Hearing on Hollywood and Beverly Hills corruption in the music industry.
  
  So don't ever say that Copyright Law was written to protect publishers, it wasn't. It was written to
  
  discipline publishers.
  
  
  
  Just try to find anything on ASCAP or BMI as being indicted for copyright infringement. You can't even
  
  find a negative about ASCAP, which says an aweful lot about their clout in the corporate owned search
  
  engines.
  
  But you will find that they were held as monopolies from 1941 until 2002 under the Consent Decree,
  
  brought by the FTC.
  
  Worse, ASCAP and BMI, along with the others, are racketeers [RICO], moneylaunders, embezzlers, and
  
  the biggest organized crime syndicate involved in Copyright Infringement in history. The make Vito
  
  Corleone look like the Pope!

• CDBaby/terryjames
  2004-01-18 15:15:15  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  One last thing, I worked with Joe Hutchinson on ESPOL and the MCP which
  begat C, C+, perl, java, etc.
  
  I have a lot more to my credit than just music.
  
  Terry James
  Dr.
  of the Philadelphia BBS
  progenitor of your Internet
  Taught by J. Presper Eckert and John Mauchley
  Corrector of Tim Berners-Lee
  
  How can I be both a Recording Artist and a major computer design
  engineer?
  
  It's simple, I did the computer thing as a second job to pay for the
  music thing which I love to do much, much, much more.
  
  Terry James
  
  P.S.: I made the computers work when Joe End, Fred Reynard [MIT], J.
  Presper Eckert, and John Mauchley couldn't!

• Copyright Infringement
  2004-01-18 14:43:10  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Hi, I am Terry James, a Recording Artist.
  
  What that means is I play and write songs, mostly on guitar, but piano
  as well as a lot of other instruments, and I sing, in front of a lot
  of audiences, as well as make records and tapes and/or CD's.
  
  I help to write definitions of what Copyright Infringement is because
  it is me that these infringers are stealing from, but you're right,
  it's not 'just' stealing, it's much worse.
  
  If it were just stealing I could go out and buy another great idea with
  a few bucks, but that's not what goes into creating a master recording.
  I can't go out and buy back all of the years of hard work, stage shows,
  schlepping from one puke-smelling bar to another, facing one fathead
  barowner to the next with their deviate preferences for abberational,
  sometimes necrophyllic, and nearly always homosexual appetites for lust,
  money, and the destruction of those trying to develope their artistic
  talents.
  
  While those who have no talent may go to work for Disney and Spears,
  Madonna, and the Karaoke Singers united to work for the RIAA, we band
  members and people born with talent and a gift don't get to sleep with
  the likes of old killing songsharks like Specter and Meatballsloaf and
  get spots on schlock TV. We have to do it the hard way, have a second
  job, pay for all of the studio time, the tape, the pressings, the press,
  the publicity (oh yes, these alleged journalists are the FIRST to want
  a bribe!) and all that just to get the music to people who may like it.
  
  Then there are the jealous and envious no-talents who will holler "You
  suck!" to everyone who comes on stage during an open mike or audition,
  or whathaveyou trying to get a booking and a following just to find the
  people who will eventually love what they are singing about and saying.
  These no-talents are easy to spot, they're the guys who can't do a damn
  thing without getting drunk and stoned first.
  
  And when we're done, some record company football team dropout loser who
  finally got into business school to sell used cars, turned record
  producer or worse, "publisher," wants all of the royalties, income, and
  the credit for having created the music!
  
  Well, bud, the freakin RIAA, the MPAA, the NARAS, Harry Fox, ASCAP, BMI,
  and that about covers the Grammies, the Oscars, all the actors and
  actresses with millions of bucks, the gay and lesbian songstresses and
  songsters [or is that songsters and songstresses?] with absolutely no
  talent or creativity whatsoever name something like "Shit Jam Ice" as
  song of the year for having absolutely zero musical content.
  
  Much like the Star getting the Pullitzer Prize for Investigative
  Journalism.
  
  Copyright Infringement is when you steal from creator of the artwork and
  do not give him credit while making money, friends, winning influence,
  and gaining profit from something you had nothing to do with. And that
  is what the whole goddamn industry does, including the bigshot names who
  couldn't write a song if it walked up and kicked them in their lesbian
  french kissing teeth.
  
  I don't care if a few kids download songs, not even a million; I do care
  when ASCAP steals over $600,000,000.00 and the F.B.I. is told to look the
  other way and Obstruction Of Justice occurs. It pisses me off when the
  F.B.I. lies to me, and then gets pissed because Martha Stewart lied to
  them. It pisses me off when George W. Bush makes a deal to capture
  Saddam Hussein for him and then doesn't pay what he agreed to pay. And
  it pisses me off, as a Copyright Owner, when the rich and famous, the
  Paul Williams, the Jimmy Webb's, the Madonna's and the Backstreet Terds
  steal my songs and don't pay me for them.
  
  Terry James
  ALL LIES IN TRUTH
  CDBaby.com
  
  CyberSngs@Netscape.net

• authors should hold copyright
  2002-12-18 06:12:31  mentata [Reply | View]
  
  
  The premise of this article is a clear indication to me that the author of a work, not some corporate sponser, should hold copyright.
  
  The music industry is complaining of piracy, not copyright infringement. They are "losing money" because people are duplicating their products, not because anybody is claiming the artistry of the works to be their own. Many of the artists were actually pleased by the existence of Napster, because it gave them exposure. It would've been different if people were pulling their songs down and shopping them as demos of their own work (copyright infringement by *my* definition), but people respected the musicians.
  
  After years of escalating abuse from a corrupt industry, consumers have little respect for the RIAA. Is there any reason a CD should cost as much as a DVD? Has the music gotten better? Is it fair for companies like Sony to keep all rights to a song for longer than a writer gets for his/her words? No. It's otherwise because of strong, well-funded lobbying efforts, not justice.
  
  Radio is a bad example of progress. Any benefits from compulsory licensing were diminished by payola, a disgusting practice created by the recording industry (which they now protest because it costs them too much). Now the RIAA is going after independent internet broadcasters to regain control of the airwaves. Long live music piracy; I have no sympathy.
  
  An artist should produce because they are compelled to, and share because they want to. They should get credit (copyright), and if they can sell what they make, good for them. But the rhapsodists, those that pretend to own somebody else's work and gain disproportionate benefit from it, can be thrown out of the Republic for all I care.
• authors should hold copyright
  2004-01-18 15:09:27  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Oh, this is a great addendum to the idjut who thinks I create because
  I'm compelled to.
  
  No, buttholio, I write and create because I want to make money from it,
  that is, I want to make a living by doing it and not have to work for
  minimum wage, get it, stupid?
  
  Four syllable words like "replicators" is a crock. People who replace
  the word "create" with the word "replicate" belong in Orlando, dancing on
  stage for Mickey Eisner, under the auspices of the once great, but now
  dead and buried Walt Disney.
  
  Uncle Walt was a great guy; Mickey Eisner and his ilk are a bunch of
  stealing " . . . . " and the people who perform in Disneyworld are more
  like trained monkeys than talents.
  
  Talent is born, not taught on an Orlando stage.
  
  "An artist should produce because they are compelled to" this is the
  unthought-out babblings of an Orwell-ignorant 3rd grade dropout, or, a
  graduate of a Georgia college (same difference, same SAT scores!)
  
  "They should get credit (copyright), and if they can
  sell what they make"
  
  - no, Bimbo, I pay $30.00 to register the songs exclusively as the sole
  Copyright Owner, look me up, http://www.copyright.gov/records/cohm.html
  by typing in "James, Terry" in the Search box. That's why I get paid for
  creating things, not because I "may" be able to sell what I create.
  
  Let's see, in addition to working many 18 hour plus a day jobs, seven
  days a week, 52 weeks a year, I hold three college degrees, speak four
  languages, am a top computer design engineer, including having designed
  the computer you're typing on [but of course, you'll deny that, you have
  to because no one can possess that much talent and intelligence, right,
  Babu?] and have a unique genetic code which seems to have kept me out of
  the hospital all of my life and slowed the aging process by at least 200
  percent.
  
  I try to help every mom and dad who the RIAA is picking on because it is
  actually the RIAA that is the copyright infringer and I am preparing a
  law brief asking for their arrest [oh yeah, by the F.B.I. no less!] and
  have well over three inches of evidence against them. And the RIAA,
  sweethearts, is not some nameless entity, it is the publishers who work
  for the likes of Madonna, Bowie, Speers [or however she spells her name,
  the English spell it the way I do], Specter, and all the C&W, Rap and
  Crap artists, et ux. It is not a bunch of guys in business suits who are
  agents in "The Matrix," but well hidden celebrities out to make trouble
  for independent and up and coming true talents [which the aforementioned
  are definitely not, having bought or outright stolen most of the
  material, songs, and alleged creations they hold copyrights on].
  
  As they are so prone to say in the business, if you don't like what I say
  about you 'donna, Sue Me!
  
  Terry James
  http://www.cdbaby.com/terryjames
  or, I own Musics.com Musics.net and Musics.org
  or you can find me on ASCAP
  and The Philadelphia Poets' Society
  and, a helluva lot of other places where true art grows!
  
  I want to make noise so you will stop to listen to the music!
  
  Terry James
  CyberSngs@Netscape.net
  

• the benefit to mankind would be substantial
  2002-12-17 12:36:50  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  Assuming that you and your replicator are not spirited away by some mysterious force of industry and government, the benefits that your replicator will bring to mankind would be can not be overstated.
  
  But the masses cry "In a world with matter replicators who would create the content.." Why of course, anyone who wanted it.
  
  In a world with matter replicators content would be created in one of two ways: 1) content would be comissioned (think Sistine Chapel) or 2) content would be created for the sake of the content itself.
  
  Composers would be commissioned to write works of music by orchestras. Musicians and orchestras would be paid for live performances. And yes an orhcestra or a musician might even sell recordings, but realistically these recordings would not be produced as a source of income, but rather as a means of marketing. The content of the recordings are placed in the public domain. The content of the recording can be distributed around the globe, this only serves to increae the popularity of this musician, and thus the popularity of their live performance, which is how they make their living. The cost of creating and producing the recording can be recouped through the sale of the original recording.
  
  I, for one do not wish to have my taxes spent enforcing artificial scarcity in order to preserve the business models of others. Those whose business models are built around artificial scarcity may employ whatever method they choose to enforce their artifical scarcity (think encryption), but they must not impose upon the taxpayer to enforce their artificial scarcity when those methods fail.

• I've invented a matter replicator
  2002-12-15 19:22:15  grepsedawk [Reply | View]
  
  
  With apologies to Star Trek...
  
  I've invented a matter replicator. I can make an exact duplicate of any physical object in a matter of seconds and for free (it recombines hydrogen molecules out of water). I also open-sourced the specs for the matter replicator so anyone can make one of their own.
  
  I have a large collection of O'Reilly books and a lot of poor geeky friends who want these books. Out of the kindness of my heart I replicated my entire collection of O'Reilly books for my friends. Hundreds of copies of "Running Linux 4th Edition" "Mac OS X: The Missing Manual".
  
  I even went so far as to hook my matter replicator up to the Internet, and give the IP address out to the Slashdot community. Would you believe that in a matter of two months over 200,000 people replicated my collection of books? Thanks to me O'Reilly has reached a very widespread audience of people who now love their tech pubs but know they don't have to pay for them. I'm still waiting for that phone call from Tim thanking me for my service.
  
  Maybe not the best analogy in the world, but I'm just trying to make a point. What is any industry going to do when pratically overnight people are able to get the fruits of their labor for free?
  
  Sure, a forward thinking music publisher would have saw the advent of P2P, digital music, etc, and found a business model for it. But, it's not that easy. Even if Napster didn't have legal problems, nobody was entirely certain what their Step 4 was going to be before Step 5: Profit!
  
  It's not like you can even count on people saying to themselves, "Wow, it sure is nice to get music files for free, but something just doesn't seem right about this. How are the artists getting paid? Should I be burning a copy of my Sting CD to share with my friend Tim even though I know both of us will be listening to it at the exact time on two different devices? That doesn't seem right, so I'm not going to do it. Even if everyone else. I'm also not going to pirate copies of Windows XP anymore."
  
  I believe I understand what you're saying Tim. There is a market out there for the publisher that can get the digital music into the customer's hand in a way that allows him to listen to it on multiple devices. But markets take time to develop, and what do the publishers do in the meantime?
• I've invented a matter replicator
  2002-12-16 15:51:18  Tim O'Reilly [Reply | View]
  
  
  I put my thoughts about "what to do", and why middlemen would be necessary even in the event of matter replicators, in the article entitled Piracy is Progressive Taxation. Hey -- all that content on the web is free, so why do we need Google, Yahoo! and the like (not to mention CNet, Wired, and the O'Reilly Network).... Publishing is not an artifact of physical distribution, but of the mathematics of attention.
• I've invented a matter replicator
  2002-12-16 18:13:11  grepsedawk [Reply | View]
  
  
  Hmmm, I'm not certain this post is an answer to the matter I raised. It seems more to answer my post "Whither go the publishers" in the article you mention.
  
  I was trying to put the advent of copying music in terms that would hit closer to home for you personally and your business.
  
  Thinking of your business, could you afford to wait while you figured out Step 4 before Step 5: Profit! while thousands of potential customers are enjoying the fruits of your labor for free? Perhaps it is too personal of a question in a public forum.
  
  Believe it or not, I'm actually with you. I'm one of those people who has created his own notion of "fair use" and how it applies to music I've downloaded over the Internet. My method was that I would hear a song on TV, remember a lyric line, google it, find out the song and artist, visit Napster, get a copy, listen to it, and go buy the album if I liked it enough, leave it or delete it if I didn't. I bought more music the spring of 2000 than I did my entire life. Did I do anything wrong? Not in my mind. But, I know my mind and intent. Do the music producers and publishers know the intent of millions of college students? Can they afford to wait and find out? Are they being fair to their stockholders to not try to stop it? Are they being fair to their stockholders to not figure out Step 4 in this new distribution medium?
• I've invented a matter replicator
  2005-01-24 10:11:47  GinEric [Reply | View]
  
  
  If you happen to meet my producer and publisher, and their lawyers, please punch them in the mouth for me. That seems to be the only way to get the truth out of these types.
  
• I've invented a matter replicator
  2002-12-16 01:27:22  simon_hibbs [Reply | View]
  
  
  Why resort to absurd matter replicator analogies, when there are truck loads of far more relevent historical analogies available. You are writing as though music sharing was a completely new class of problem (and therefore needs new measures to regulate or eliminate it), when in fact it's merely a re-run of an old, old problem.
  
  Exactly the same problem was faced by sheet music publishers when photocopiers became common, a common sense solution was found. The music industry has already faced the same situation with tape recorders, there was no need to panic. The film industry should have learned their lesson over VCRs, but quite obviously they're just too mindless to do so.
  
  The fact is there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever that music copying by consumers has harmed recording industry profits. in fact their profits rose significantly during the Napster years, and have declined since the demise of the service. Hardly compelling evidence of their claims.
  
  Nobody is saying that mass copying and organised redistribution of copyrighted works isn't a problem, just that harrassing consumers and removing traditional fair use behaviour hasn't solved similar problems in the past and is unlikely to do so now. Please address the point being made, and not a different point that's easier for you to attack.
  
  Simon Hibbs
  
• I've invented a matter replicator
  2005-01-24 10:32:18  GinEric [Reply | View]
  
  
  Surprise!
  
  Sheet music and lyrics will now also be encoded for tracking. The same type of codes as ISRC can, and soon will, be employed by Internet Websites to track the use of their Copyrighted content.
  
  By the way, sheet music publishers suffered most from the advent of radio, not Xerox. The sheet music publishers were at least fair, splitting the profits 50/50. Radio, in the beginning, under an Italian and three Russian Generals "the Brothers Sarnoff and Mr. Paley, aka, ABC, NBC, and CBS, all under Marconi's, Edison's, Bell's control via the MPA and other illegal organizations, did not pay for music. Why? They were cheap! Skinflints! And none of these inventors can actually claim the devices they said they invented! In short, they were really good con men.
  
  Unlike the American print publisher. Who, having a tradition of American Heritage [unlike the foreignors above] and Fairness, paid the author half of the profits for the right to publish them.
  
  The Sarnoff's, Paley's, Marconi's, Edison's, and Bell's are gone, thank God, and maybe now we can fix that other crooked office, the U.S. Patent Office.
  
  Meanwhile, around the early 1900's, movies and radio started up. By 1927 both the movies and the radio were stealing not only from songwriters, but also from some of the old movie companies in New York City and the East Coast. The whole idea of setting up movie lots in Hollywood was to bootleg film and music and not pay any royalties to the people who had created them on the East Coast. Nor to pay for the use of patented equipment.
  
  Television came along, LP's, cassettes, even CD's and DVD's and Hollywood is still stealing from the creators of music, stories, whatever they can get.
  
  But it all goes back to the early movie lots of Hollywood and their desire not to pay artists. The sheet music publisher was the last honest publisher this country knew of.
  
  Had the movie industry dealt fairly, none of the writers would be complaining. However, not just songwriters, but people like Moses [Charleton Heston] have had to take on these Hollywood and Beverly Hills moguls for their acts of theft. SAG and the Directors Guild have had a hell of a time fighting the crooked lawyers of Los Angeles, New York City, and Nashville. These are the same types that hired Pinkertons to put down strikes by shooting and killing people. They are no less scum than that. Most of the movie moguls are Organized Crime Syndicate Members. That is were most of the dirty money gets laundered, through the untouchables in Beverly Hills and Hollywood. Some, like Meyer Lansky, preferred Miami over Hollywood, but the current ranking Russian Jewish Mafia that controls the movie industry prefers the pomposity of richness which they never knew in their native U.S.S.R.
  
  Think I'm joking or I don't know what I'm talking about? Look up their dossiers under the Freedom of Information Act.
  
  Am I trying to start a war? Yes I am.
  
  Mr. Claymore, who doesn't live too far from me, needs to sell some hardware, doesn't he?
  
• I've invented a matter replicator
  2002-12-16 18:06:26  grepsedawk [Reply | View]
  
  
  I used the matter replicator analogy for two reasons. 1) I am not overly familiar with past precedents. I'm not a student of such things. 2) The essential difference between copies of digital works (software, music, movies) and physical works (books, computers, and automobiles) is that exact duplicates can be made of the former and practically no cost, but the latter requires investment of raw material, engineering skills, machinery, etc. The matter replicator puts the two on an equal footing. Thus putting a publisher like O'Reilly in the same realm as BMG or Sony.
  
  Since you bring it up, sheet music, tape recordings, and vcrs are not the same as what is currently happening in the music space. 1) Exact duplicates cannot be made of these items. 2) They aren't necessarily cheap, a tape and a VHS tape still cost more than a blank CD or digital transfer. 3) They require equipment that can be expensive if you want to make copies in mass. 4) The global connection that allowed for a worldwide market for these items was either slow (mail order catalog) or none existant.
  
  The fact that exact copies can be made of a song, for pratically no money, then shared with a global community, again, for no money, puts copyright infringement of music works in a different place than your examples. It is similar, but it is an order of magnitude greater.
  
  A better example would be software copying. However, we know that warez sites are illegal, and we know that the Business Software Alliance (BSA), can get Federal Marshalls to raid your computer if it is suspected of using illegal software. I'm talking about a company that doesn't even know that a user installed their personal copy of Adobe Photoshop on a work machine to view the occasional eps file; not about a company that is making it their business to copy Windows XP and sell it to people through eBay. If this use of Adobe Photoshop is copyright infringement, how much more so the entire ripped CD of Sting's latest album available via Kazaa?
  
  You're right, there is no evidence that music copying by consumers has harmed recording industry profits. However, your claim that their profits rose during the Napster years implies a causal relation between copyright infringement and music sales that cannot be proven.
  
  Your final paragraph gets to the heart of what I tried say, perhaps to obliquely. What is fair use? Tim asked a dozen questions about what is fair use of a music cd. Most of them are quibbling and ignore a person's inherent gut feeling of, "Would I like what I am doing unto this other if it were done unto me." Thus my matter replicator analogy, an attempt to give Tim a chance to answer fair use in a way that could affect his business. While Tim is willing to give fair use of music a chance to get legs and develop, mature and find a market, would he be so willing to do the same if fair use meant his books were being shared freely in the very market he wanted to sell to?
  
  Ultimately, I feel that there is a change happening. That music distribution is going to adapt to a model preferred by customers, and this model is appearing to be online distribution, possibly P2P, not just B2P. But, I know that the current form of sharing, as done by most people, is not fair use. It is copyright infringement, it is illegal, and customers should not use illegal methods to force an industry to change. That's a kind of corporate terrorism.
  
  
• I've invented a matter replicator
  2005-01-24 11:40:49  GinEric [Reply | View]
  
  
  Please do a favor, the BSA is the Boy Scouts of America, not the business alliance [does that sound like the RIAA to you? It does to me]. Tell the business alliance to change their name, the Boy Scouts of America had it first.
  
  On the subject of software piracy: as a songwriter I long ago advised programmers of what was coming, and asked them to join us. We, as songwriters, have really set all of the precedences and made the laws for Copyright. Don't give credit to congressmen and senators, they were merely carrying out our will, often with much resistance, which ended up in the courts, where we had to fix the crooked clauses they put into the bills and legislation.
  
  We know who was paying them, the movie industry [R.I.A.A.] and its movie stars, producers, and directors; through bogus campaign contributions, in return for favors like "sleeping at the White House." Clinton had a lot of female singers, actresses, and movie producers "sleep over." Usually in the Lincoln room [I always wondered why that room in particular].
  
  From "Designing Women" to Ms. Ethridge, deals were made in the Lincoln bedroom for Music Industry R.I.A.A. legislation; it's on tape, the U.S. Secret Service knows this is the truth, don't bother trying to argue against it. They are there, just like Nixon's tapes.
  
  It costs you quite a bit to copy a song. If you have a decent computer [$1,000.00] with a CDR [$150.00] and/or a DVDR [$300.00], then you add the cost of each CD, about $1.00
  
  At a penny a page, I could print a book on my computer just as easily, for about a dollar. So the comparison of music and video vs. print doesn't hold up.
  
  I have, in fact, printed books, of my own of course, on my computer. I think Steven King does the same and then goes to a big printer to make mass copies at around the same cost, about $1.00 per copy.
  
  CD's and DVD's cost the music and moviemakers about the same thing, in the end, $1.00 each. It's the magic number in the entertainment industry.
  
  You make it for a buck, and sell it for $10.00
  
  That's also standard industry practice, of all industry, make ten times the profit. Even computer manufacturers. It's what they don't teach in business school, and it's as old as business itself.
  
  Now, where does the money go?
  
  First, half has to go to the distributor and retailer, or, if you charge $20.00 for a CD or DVD, you get half, $10.00, and the distributor usually takes 10% [the magic $1.00} while the retialer, like Walmart, makes the other $9.00
  
  This way, Walmart can do closeout sales, and empty their stock shelves by selling at near cost. Some older stuff the get for less, cutouts, maybe $2.00 or $3.00 each as the record company clears out its stock, and they can sell these at the retailer as low as $2.99 and still make a profit! Or $3.99 for the $3.00 cost one.
  
  This is about business; these people don't lose money, believe it, they are in business to make money, not lose it, and they know how from about 7,000 years of experience, not just a statistically zero value of four years at Harvard.
  
  At the top of the food chain, belive it or not, is the songwriter, the author. He controls all of it, if his lawyers are sharks, he is killer whale, if they are Predators, he is Arnold Schwartzenegger.
  
  Most new songwriters are also performers and they accept a measly two and one-half cents per song per copy sold. Established artists, like Michael Jackson, can command may that magic $1.00 per album. But until the Internet and downloading, none could ever get $1.00 per song.
  
  And if the author bypasses all of the record companies, labels, distributors, and retailers, he can either start his own site and collect the full amount, or he can use another site and pay them some fee. Steven Jobs' fee is too high already and he's beginning to resemble his movie industry buddies at 40 or 50 cents per song. I had advised Derek Sivers of CDBaby.com to be wary of Mr. Jobs and good ole acid head Steve proved me right; he's just another con on the con.
  
  Jobs reneged on his deal, as he always does; he's a good thief that always make money for his clients, like Heimy Rothstein of "The Godfater."
  If you doubt this, go see the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley." Which a factual movie about how the big software guys made their billions, by stealing.
  
  So the circle has come full turn and now the software programmers, developers, and Website companies are beginning to realise that it is they who will soon be Copyright Infringed. Steal a little image here, a little paragraph of code their, some forms, etc., and the Website owner has paid to set up and finance some fly-by-night website that is is using his copyrighted site to develope their own without paying a website designer.
  
  As for the software, it gets hacked everyday.
  
  Like music downloading, bootleg software downloading and sharing is everywhere. They're in the same boat as the creators of music have been in for hundreds of years.
  
  So how do you get fairly compensated for your creations?
  
  Changes in the medium. Just as in music. Subcarrier and hidden ISRC type keys encoded into the work itself.
  
  This can not only be detected by humans, it can be detected at the speed of light by computers, especially the computer from which you are downloading.
  
  You can make this so intricate as to sideband encode it into a single text font, like those old spy movie dots on a stamp that turned out to be microfilm.
  
  And, any computer contacting your computer can discover that you have a copy of a copyrighted work, and whether or not it is a legal copy. It can also track how many times you broadcast this copy by offering it for download. The code gets stripped out by the routers on the Internet, and sent via a co-router to the reporting database network.
  
  It doesn't matter where it gets routed, because network, satellite, palm jobbies, wireless, they are all routed and the copyright tracking sidebands are routed to the creators source database and reported as a broadcast, because that is what it is, a broadcast. The nanosecond you put it on the Internet, you are broadcasting.
  
  Currently, many lyric sites and other sites are offering free lyric downloads. This will come to an end. This is nothing less than publishing of the music words, which are lyrics, and which constitute 50% of the song in general. No, lyrics, like programs and books, are not free. Nor is a module of Microsoft Windows Source code.
  
  Fair Use use to apply to a person "buying" the first copy in the form of a manuscript, sheet music, or a record. It still stands. Usage thereafter that is allowed is a reasonable copy for personal use, storage in case the original breaks, and maybe to listen to on a differnet medium, such as a cassette or CD while driving in your car. It never meant lending your buddy a copy [as if anyone ever actually lends a CDR, they trade or barter them for profit, even it that profit is only a social grace, you still get paid back with other favors and therefore you have profitted].
  
  And is sure as hell never meant putting it on a website where everyone could download a copy for free. That idea and tact is so full of holes it wreaks of rats and rotten cheese.
  
  Free music? Free "your butt!" Why don't you give that away?
  
  As for the other side of the coin, children and teenagers downloading, even college students and adults, is actually Fair Use if they have to download it to listen to it to see if they like it. It's like walking into Tower Records and listening in a private booth or something to see if you like a new CD by some artist. I, as an author and performing artist, see absolutely nothing wrong with "test listening" a song.
  
  But I am not the R.I.A.A., the Saoran of the Music Industry, which should be destroyed, along with it's "golden" rings to save Middle Earth and the Age of Men.
  
  The R.I.A.A. has no "author" members. It is a fact that you cannot join the R.I.A.A. if you are a songwriter. Did you know that?
  
  The R.I.A.A. is the same old street cons that existed in Rome and Jerusalem to sell you false weighted gold. They are street people wearing suits and carrying letters of introduction from the kings and nobles of the universities and other businesses. There are no songwriters nor any true authors in the R.I.A.A. They are not only the guy hanging on a cross besides Christ, the offensive one and not the one who admitted his guilt, they are also the ones that put Him there!
  
  A person cannot get any lower than a member of the R.I.A.A. In Someone's famous words, "they shall crawl on their bellies throughout the Earth." And crawl they do, into every creak and cranny of the author's pocketbook.
  
  And now, they've spread to other people's pocketbooks. If you had a matter replicator, or a software program, they would steal without hesitation.
  
  Know who you're dealing with here. These people are surrounded by major drug dealers, organized crime, crooked accountants, and more. They are the ones living high off the hog on the backs of others. They are the people at a social gathering that can't wait to get their digs into you and expose your every secret, strip you of your dignity, and steal what they can from the resulting corpse. They are ghouls in every sense of the word because, yes, they do, indeed, steal from the dead.
  
  So, now that you know who you're dealing with at the R.I.A.A., treat them according, as Caesar would, hold these enemies closer than your friends, and as the Duke of Milan would, demand from them the pound of flesh that each Shylock at the R.I.A.A. owes to their King.
  
  If you want to make money from your software or your music, stay away from them and try working with Authors only. And make sure that the author has bonafide credentials and is not a member of one of these crooked organizations.
  
  As I said, the Age of the Internet has deprecated the former things, and they are all past, the new millenium is the age of the end of the distributor/marketer/retailer chain and the Internet is the medium now.
  
  The author is now the creator, distributor, marketer, and retailer of his product and no longer needs any of the uncreatives. Let them die off, don't feed them any longer. A starved parasite is a dead parasite. And the Internet is the R.I.A.A. vermin's Insecticide and Exterminator.
  
  Tell those who work for the R.I.A.A. to start looking for a job because the one they have will soon be "outsourced" by the owners, the Authors who created their jobs in the first place.
  
  
• I've invented a matter replicator
  2002-12-17 11:42:17  Tim O'Reilly [Reply | View]
  
  
  I still feel that you haven't read my article.
  
  1. I agree that what many people are doing on P2P networks is copyright infringement. There are many fair uses, but there are also infringing uses. However, the fact that the two shade into each other means that we must grapple strenuously with the issue, rather than simply trying to fit new wine into old bottles.
  
  2. Matter replicator or not, perfect copies or not, I argue that p2p file sharing will *never* replace publishing, because physical distribution is not what defines the role of the publisher. (Heck, if physical distribution was the critical factor, would virtually every major publisher have outsourced most of it?) Software is indeed a good analogy. Physical distribution of software is now a fairly small part of the market, yet software publishers haven't gone away. Infringing copies of software have been available for decades, and yet Microsoft has amassed a $40 billion hoard. Web content is freely copyable, yet Yahoo! and Google and AOL and MSN have emerged as major "distributors" of that content, and folks like yourself post on the O'Reilly Network as well as on your own site.
  
  3. While we don't have a matter replicator yet, many O'Reilly books ARE available in online form, and I do grapple daily with issues of copyright infringement. I am not at all happy to see people selling CDs containing copies of our books on eBay, or hosting them on websites in Romania or Russia--we have a couple of people who spend a fair amount of time dealing with infringing copies. But nonetheless, I argue that fear of file sharing is overblown--and in fact, that shoplifting of physical goods is a larger threat to IP holders than file sharing, because it has only downside, and due to the mechanics of attention distribution, sometimes a critical downside.
  
  My point is that the fear-mongering about the death of the music industry obscures the real issues, which are to understand what are the fair uses, how people can best get paid, and how to get on with the business of building the future.
  
  
• I've invented a matter replicator
  2003-12-02 04:09:46  anonymous2 [Reply | View]
  
  
  no you havent because i did it first silly man
• Re: I've invented a matter replicator
  2002-12-15 19:37:52  jasontm [Reply | View]
  
  
  Humm.. well, here's my idea for what they could do (and i target this more to the RIAA and the MPAA than publishers like O'reilly, because i have no idea how much cash Tim is sitting on..) in the meantime..
  
  They could use that massive mound of cash that they have collected over the years of ripping off customers. Yeah, maybe you don't, but i consider selling a CD with 1 or 2 good songs, the remaining being crap, a rip off. It's not like they're going to go out of business 6 months after people stop buying CDs, and even then it's abserd to think that people will just stop en mass. So what if that pile of cash gets a bit smaller while they adjust to changing times?
  
  It's too bad they'd rather spend that pile of cash on lawyers, instead of some bright people to help them adjust..

• The bigger picture..
  2002-12-13 13:01:40  jasontm [Reply | View]
  
  
  Isn't it fun to debate the moral and legal issues concerning these things? i find it amusing to watch both sides. but sometimes i think the real problem is ignored for the little things.
  
  Ask yourself, will anyone ever be able to prevent me from loaning my music (or movies, etc..) to a friend? No.
  
  Has that sort of sharing (assisted by modern digital technology or not) ever been the downfall of an industry? No.
  
  Is it practical to attempt to find a way to police an entire planet? Billions of individuals. No. And if Disney and Co. get their way it will come down to that at some point in the future.
  
  What's the real issue then? Humanity. Culture.
  
  Only a fool hangs on to the past. A wise man learns from the past, remembers the past, but that's all.
  
  At some point the people in charge of 'intellectual property' need to realize, as a whole, that nothing is forever. Move on to new things.
  
  It is pointless to attempt to assure the perpetual control of any idea. Be that idea a song, a movie, a book, etc.
  
  I agree with the Constitution on matters of copyright. I will fully support the right of the artist to prosper from his/her works. But only for a time. After that, it belongs to society and any attempt to prevent that only detracts from the potential for new works of art.
  
  Sure, modern technologies make it easy to 'infringe'. But at some point you must trust humanity to do the right thing. Guns make it easy to kill. Horrible, but true. But people, as a whole, don't use that ability because it's wrong. I'm not a child, i am fully capable of using powerful technologies in an appropriate manner. Maybe you should inform the RIAA and friends that we are not all children, we don't need to be looked after on a micromanagement level.
  
  Mickey Mouse belongs to America now. Sorry Disney, Inc., but you have to play nice, look beyond the fear of losing a few dollars. Enrich Humanity. There will be more good art with which you can pay your bills and make your shareholders happy.
  
  The boundaries will always be grey. That can't be helped or changed.
  
  The real threat is to society. To art. To diversity. It's a threat against America.
  
  Waxing on about the grey areas is interesting, certainly. But let's not forget the bigger issue. The fight to preserve freedom.
  
  Do me a favor Mr. O'reilly, send each media executive (and any politicians who need it as well) a copy of the book '1984'. With instructions to actually read the book.
  
  This is also good general business advice. Any company stupid enough to stand still and not embrace change will always get run over. So, as the Air Force motto goes.. It's time to kick the tires and light the fires..
  
  :)
• The bigger picture..
  2005-01-24 09:55:35  GinEric [Reply | View]
  
  
  I haven't answered this thread since I started the whole thing some time ago.
  
  Since then, I have been pretty much trolled by some geeks on dslreports.com, like Chuck Norris [yes, him], who has a hard time believing that I worked for AT&T and Merril Lynch on their websites. I've done a lot more than that and I don't care if someone who is only going to end where we all are believes it or not.
  
  But while I'm here, I want to make a difference and leave my mark.
  
  I'm different. I don't follow the paths of others, I blaze my own. I also don't let others risk their lives by jumping out of an airplane for me in my movies. I do my own stunts. So I can say "Yes, I did that and no one else did it for me."
  
  Especially when the poor guy jumping out of the airplane is getting paid maybe $50,000.00 while I'm getting $13,000.000.00 per movie.
  
  It's the same thing in Copyright. I've learned that no one else is going to defend your works and your right to earn a living from them. Especially not the big stars and hotshot producers in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and New York City. They are uncreatives who live off the blood of the creators. Leeches and parasites, often becoming Parisites.
  
  As for the encoding, I stood firmly against it because it was yet another attempt by the R.I.A.A. to increase the costs to the artist and prevent many from pressing CD's and DVD's. The Cost of encoding and the fact that encoding secret keys will make your CD or DVD "not play," which is what the movie and music industry want of independent projects. Thank God the bimboes in Hollywood turned down the All Oscar Taker "The Lord Of The Rings." Which really shows just how stupid these uncreative producers and directors are. They turn down great music every day, opting instead for the showing of teenage girls with less and less clothing, aka, Brittany and co.
  
  Why? Because they own her.
  
  How many times have you heard some singer/performer cry about being ripped off? They don't have the brains to write a song, then they get mad when they don't get paid for it. Either that, or, like Patsy Cline, they just steal the copyright from someone like Willie Nelson.
  
  And Elmer Berstein is no exception. "Ghostbusters" theme was stolen from Huey Lewis, twice!
  
  What makes anyone think that people like ASCAP's lawyer Koenigsberg, is anything less than a Copyright Infringer and a common crook? He authored the clauses that allow ASCAP to steal writers' royalties and had the gall to put it in the Berne Convention. This is fact, not myth or conjecture. ASCAP's lame rules, Section 2.8.3 allow for ASCAP to steal from any author. And they do it everyday. To the benefit, always, of the publisher members, aka, the R.I.A.A. who are the publishers.
  
  Meanwhile, ASCAP's employees are off on multimillion dollar Hollywood and New York City parties, at the writers' expense, to hand out lame awards to the rich and famous, like Neil Young who no more needs an award than Bill Gates needs money.
  
  Neil, by the way, is rich, pissed off at the world, a complete recluse, and consequently a donothinger, like nearly all the rich and famous stars. Their latest fiasco is to have taken over the Sundance Film Festival and, once again, blackballed the up and coming indpendent film makers, actors, actresses, directors, songwriters, cast and crew. These are the egomaniacs who own and control the R.I.A.A. and these are the very people who have ordered the R.I.A.A. to lock up 13 year olds who innocently download a song. Then, they extort $50,000.00 from the child's parents. They are a disgrace to the world or art and the biggest of anti-creator ego-tripping uncreatives.
  
  I do remember how Neil, and Steven, and Graham, David, were so out of tune at Woodstock that they should have been booed off the stage.
  
  But they had Billy Graham's R.I.A.A. and the music industry behind them, didn't they? It took them four more years to learn to play in key. By then, everyone had forgotten how horrible they were at Woodstock.
  
  As far as some comments, the guy who wants "commissioned" artwork is straight out of Leninist and Stalinist Russia - a completely stupid communist idea. He probably doesn't even know he's towing the sickle and hammer line.
  
  To the comment on how long for a copyright, it's the life of the author plus 70 years. And that is barely fair. We have children and grandchildren too, we'd like to help them get ahead in life. You don't holler about millionaire doctors and lawyers, stop hollering about the few songwriters who actually make money from their music.
  
  On the encoding, again, the ISRC had a good idea, to tag every song with its own unique code for tracking all broadcasts, on all mediums, everywhere. This is a good idea and will cramp ASCAP and BMI's style of crooked sample surveys which they can, and have, slanted for their friends and other pets that walk the streets of New York and Hollywood. But the ISRC made a mistake of allowing the R.I.A.A. to issue these numbers. They should be independently issued, or better yet, issued only by the authors.
  
  Talking about the Air Force, as a performer, I was trained by the United States Air Force, and the other branches, in hand to hand combat, like karate, jiu-jitsu, kung fu, and the like. I had to use every bit of this self defencse in getting out of many bars because either the owner didn't want to pay and was going to stab one of the performers, or some redneck thought you were singing to his wife "toothless."
  
  We've had guns, knives, all sorts of tire irons and baseball bats pulled on us, usually by someone waiting outside the bar or nightclub who wanted to steal our pay and/or our equipment.
  
  And that's why I get paid for the songs I write, I'm a veteran of the American Wars.
  
  You know the line, "Out here in the fields, I fought for my meals, . . ." or did you think Daltry was singing about some fairy tale? David Bowie was jumped in London, early on, because he was a performer and some bonehead was jealous.
  
  Chuck may have done a lot of nice karate chops in his movies, but like I said, I do my own work. I did my karate chops on the real streets, here and abroad. Perhaps that's why I take an attitude about all of this. Everyone was not out to admire us, enough were there to try and kill one of us that we really felt we earned our pay. So Copyright is a right earned by battle and warfare, not simply because someone puts a few notes and some words on a paper or disk. We write and sing about our lives, which reflect many others' lives, toil, tragedy, love, hate, all of the things that others find hard to express. Because expressing oneself is politically uncorrect today. But the true artist says what he fells and damn the torpedoes. Fakirs, like some songsharks we know, only say what people want to hear. They know who they are, no need to point out the fakes in the music business. And if we're willing to war over a performance payment, how much more are we willing to declare war and fight one for the very right to control our music?
  
  The root of all freedom is the Freedom of Expression. Without this first freedom, all others fall. And the right granted by many wars and much bloodshed is the right to say "The R.I.A.A. are thieves, crooks, and Copyright Infringers and need to be investigated by the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Congress, and the F.B.I.
  
  After all, how much of the funding of terrorist activities has come from publishers at ASCAP and BMI?