MetaFilter posts tagged with Music and copyright

Sandra Burt gets some Satisfaction.

flapjax at midnite — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 21:19:17 -0800

"It's ridiculous. What's the world coming to when Big Brother wants to charge you for singing a wee tune?", Sandra Burt said. So, Big Brother thought about it a bit, and decided, well, maybe she's right.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum

Artw — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:13:08 -0800

Home taping didn’t kill music, says Ben Goldacre - but where did all the money go?

Is it because I'm an auto-pirate?

acb — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 03:26:51 -0800

In the 1980s, songwriter, artist and cultural critic Momus recorded a number of albums for the legendary indie label Creation Records, combining influences as diverse as Jacques Brel, Serge Gainsbourg, Pet Shop Boys-style synthpop and Balearic acid-house. These have largely languished in Sony Music's vaults over the past few years, occasionally fetching hefty prices on eBay. Now, Momus has taken the step to commit auto-piracy and release his Creation albums online, for free; over December, he will post MP3s of all six albums to his LiveJournal blog, each with freshly written liner notes. The first one, 1987's The Poison Boyfriend, is here. Momus explains his decision: "Six Momus albums -- the ones I recorded for Alan McGee's Creation label between 1987 and 1993 -- are out of print. Creation doesn't exist any more, and in theory Sony owns the rights to these albums, but isn't doing anything with them and probably never will. In the meantime, only Russian pirates are profiting, charging punters for illegal downloads. "So, during the rest of December, I've decided to release mp3s of my six Creation albums here on Click Opera, for free. Think of it as a sort of Creation Advent Calendar, with a new old Momus album every couple of days. If you're the sort of person who likes to donate to the artist when you download, do it here. But it's not really necessary; these albums paid for themselves long ago. Think of this as a Christmas present. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum!"

Coldplagiarism?

starman — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 07:34:20 -0800

Guitarist Joe Satriani sues Coldplay over Viva La Vida (audio). Satriani's version: If I Could Fly (audio).

"I don't value music made from sampling."

uaudio — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:32:15 -0800

Mashup artist Gregg Gillis, aka Girl Talk, is another artist to try the 'pay whatever you want' Internet release model. However, his 55-minute album consists of over 300 samples from other artists, with many current and past hits. No stranger to current controversies in copyright, Gillis also appeared in the documentary Good Copy Bad Copy. Previously. Gillis: "First of all, there's a lot of current pop and hip-hop sampled on the album, and I wanted to get it out there as soon as possible [and] as soon as it hits the internet, anyone who reads the internet can get it for free if they want to. So why not tap in and let them actually take a step back and think about it, and maybe offer some money?" Also, the album is pretty incredible. I sent it to a few friends who don't really like hip hop or the mashup scene and they are amazed by the seamless sampling and the musical range of what's sampled.

Why doesn’t the IFPI dare to stand up for its own history?

mr.marx — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:47:04 -0800

What the IFPI tries to conceal about its origins in fascist Italy IFPI is the global version of the RIAA

Edward Samuel's Illustrated History of Copyright

carter — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:49:00 -0800

Edward Samuel's Illustrated History of Copyright A fascinating illustrated historical tour, looking at how different technologies have shaped how we think about copyright and intellectual property.

Canadian Songwriters propose $5 licence fee for P2P

tranquileye — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 11:17:57 -0800

A proposal for the monetization of the file sharing of music from the Songwriters and Recording Artists of Canada. "Most Canadians are aware that the Internet and mobile phone networks have become major sources of music. What they may not know is that songwriters and performers typically receive no compensation of any kind when their music is shared or illegally downloaded... We believe the time has come to put in place a reasonable and unobtrusive system of compensation for creators of music in regard to this popular and growing use of their work."

Cash rules everything around me

Blazecock Pileon — Sat, 05 Jan 2008 00:29:49 -0800

CASH is the Coalition of Artists & Stake Holders, a project conceived and initiated by musician Kristin Hersh. CASH is "read-write" — more than consumption; a collaborative online effort — helping make music ownership more of an interactive affair facilitated through Creative Commons licensing.

War on Drugs, War on Terror, War on Leaks

Coherence Panda — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 08:55:09 -0800

Steal this album. "In the dying days of the music business as we once knew it, record labels are waging war on leaks—only to discover that many of the saboteurs come from within the industry itself." It's easy to arrest a geek or lay draconian fines on a single mom; what happens when their witchhunt leads to their own offices? Animal Collective won't always be around to get the culprits off the hook.

Sorry again about not buying a CD or whatever.

bowline — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 20:32:21 -0800

Dear Rockers. Guilt ridden music lovers get to feel better about themselves.

Storming the Pink Palace

awesomebrad — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 06:27:39 -0800

Oink .busted

Anti-RIAA clearinghouse

Dr. Wu — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 19:21:08 -0800

An impressive array of anti-RIAA articles, mostly from people within the music industry.

The Indie Band Survival Guide

Ira.metafilter — Sun, 25 Feb 2007 18:34:05 -0800

The Indie Band Survival Guide: A fantastic, free, 101 pages collection of useful information for musicians - covers topics such as recording, copyright, major label contracts, commercial radio, promoting your music, band websites, distribution, filesharing and live shows.

The problem with music, redux.

goodnewsfortheinsane — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 14:16:20 -0800

While Courtney pulled an Albini, Jeff handed out the bread. Are the peasants acting like emperors, or do they still want something shiny, aluminum, plastic, and digital? Debacle or cage, something's got to give (pdf). Alternatively, you can just roll your own.

DJ Drama - artists' friend, RIAA foe

caddis — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 07:25:01 -0800

Make a mixtape highlighting a young artist, have that artist proclaim his delight about the project on the CD, reignite that artist's career, repeat, then, the RIAA has you arrested for counterfieting. The RIAA continues its vain struggle to understand the new music economy. In the meantime, at least one company gets it, offering DRM-free CD downloads of obscure titles.

Button, Button, Who's Got the Button (So We Can Put Them in Jail)?

jonp72 — Sat, 13 Jan 2007 13:28:16 -0800

Permission to Innovate? How the Record Industry Is Like 17th-Century French Buttonmakers A corporate consultant blog makes a weird but compelling argument that the RIAA and MPAA are forcibly imposing a draconian 17th-century business model on the 21st century.

New music, new business model

gregor-e — Thu, 17 Aug 2006 20:57:15 -0800

Wish you could have bought shares of Pearl Jam before they were famous? Fans sponsor bands in $10 'parts'. Once 5000 parts have been pledged, the band gets a proper studio recording. Tracks are made available free. CD's are sold. Money goes to the band and to the 'believers' who sponsored them. Might work. Probably better than this model.

"Suing our fans is destructive and hypocritical"

Johnny Assay — Fri, 05 May 2006 12:00:44 -0800

Canadian musicians protest file-sharing lawsuits. The Barenaked Ladies, Broken Social Scene, Sloan, Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, and many other Canadian artists have formed a coalition to protest the hard line taken by the recording industry against file-sharers, and call for copyright reform. Is there a better way to protect intellectual property rights than suing file-sharers?

Still crazy after all these years

Protocols of the Elders of Awesome — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 14:12:29 -0800

The RIAA would like to remind you that copying purchased music to your iPod is illegal without first gaining permission from the copyright holder. Thank you.

Columbia Law School Music Plagiarism Project

Saucy Intruder — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:32:13 -0800

The Columbia Law School Music Plagiarism Project is a repository of the music industry's most famous copyright infringement cases of the past 100 years. Each case contains links to samples of the original song and the alleged infringer, and there's even a song list for easy browsing. (My favorite: Gilbert O'Sullivan v. Biz Markie).

Raiding the 20th Century, 2005

mathowie — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 09:43:33 -0800

If you liked the Kleptones and other posts about mashups, you might have caught "raiding the 20th century" in early 2004. Well, DJ Food has completely updated it for 2005 and now clocks in at a full 59 minutes of monster mashup mix madness. Download the mp3 here and enjoy the eclectic sonic landscape.

Stand up for your rights-- but wait, what are they?

taursir — Sun, 02 Oct 2005 01:13:02 -0800

A new, controversial law making its way through the Finnish parliament is confusing, but its implementation may infringe on already existing Finnish laws of free speech. With decisions set to be made later this week, a demonstration has already been planned for Tuesday. On the other hand, some sources seem to be saying that this new law should present no major issue. Thus, it seems like there's a small amount of confusing legal voodoo going on: while the law wouldn't make it illegal to copy music to MP3 players, it would mean that "the breaking of copy protection for the copying of the content of a sound or video recording for personal use would be prohibited." It looks like no one knows exactly what they want out of this law, or how to interpret it. DMCA, anyone?

...or memorex?

skallas — Wed, 03 Aug 2005 20:55:16 -0800

FHM rips off Music Thing blog. Compare and contrast. Fair use or a plain old fashioned rip-off? You make the call. Seriously, how common is this kind of thing and is the net producing content to be repackaged and sold commercially without proper permission?

Legitimate MP3 downloads!

smiffy — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 09:54:55 -0800

Legitimate MP3 downloads! If you like the big beat duo The Chemical Brothers, I'm sure you'll be impressed by these two excellent remixes: Flip The Switch & Believe EP. Primal Scream's deep house masterpiece is given similarly impressive treatment in Screamixadelica. Maybe you prefer the punkier electronica of The Prodigy; check out Always Outsiders, Never Outdone. BTW don't forget to donate to the nominated charities on each site if you decide to keep the tracks.

On slightly more dodgy ground, copyright-wise, are the remixes and mashups from tone396, lionel vinyl, fakeID & Go Home Productions (these are clearly only a handful of artists, but in my opinion are some of the best) - I wonder how, or even if you can, apply copyright laws to some of these kinds of hybrid productions.