Trading collections

[mousethief]

And since the artists are dead, it's okeh to cheat their children, grandchildren and whatever estates/trusts remain because *you're* proud to be a jerk.

(not you, il glenn)

Kalman

[julius]

A lot of the labels that release jazz are honest, fair-minded small companies that treat their musicians decently. Scott Hamilton, for example, has released DOZENS of albums for Concord over the years, because Concord is one of the best jazz labels to work for. He has rewarded them with his loyalty.

I think good companies deserve our respect, fiscally and emotionally. This respect can take the form of letters of praise or obeying their desires for legal transfer of their music.

I have never written a letter to a record company, but I do enjoy buying CDs, used or new. I think most of you that I've gone on record shopping trips with can vouch for that.

I admit not everybody can afford to buy CDs. But back when I was growing up, if you couldn't afford something, you made do without. If you really wanted/needed it (the distinction is so fine), you gave up something else to get it.

[Shanabanana]

But back when I was growing up, if you couldn't afford something, you made do without. If you really wanted/needed it (the distinction is so fine), you gave up something else to get it.

Did you seriously just say "Back in my day..." you old geezer?

[Roy]

Most record deals involve only the record label and the composer getting any residual money. Musicans get paid an up front fee and they make the same amount of money no matter how many records are sold. off course they would get more money to cut another record if their first one was popular. Any label from Europe over 50 years does not have to abide by any copyright law which now means the composer and the original record company is now cut out of the loop, only the new label gets the money. In the USA copyright laws are longer. Hence why Chronoloigcal classics and other Eurpoean labels are able to mass produce reprinted music. It's the same law as for books. I think the US copyright law is 100 years. Any book printed before that can be re-printed without having to give the original printer anything.

You may ask how I know this. I just read an article in the Chicago Sun-times a couple of months ago talking about how the split is different for songs on internet radio where musicans actually do get a small split. 50% split of 7 cents per song per 100 listeners. And the record companies were having problems finding where to send the money too, because in many cases they had been out of contact with musicans for years. And that's if they even knew who all the musicans were in the first place.

So unless you are buying an American CD or European CD with the song made in the past 50 years you are not really supporting any musician, or their family. I'm sick of hearing this arguement of support the artist from people who buy used CD's and european labels over 50 years because you too are cheating the composer and if used the record label also, and the other musicians besides the composer have never profited no matter how you bought it.

That's why when I can I prefer to buy new CDs directly from the artist.

I used to get really upset when some Chicago swing DJ's down loaded thousands and thousands of songs from Napster completely legal at the time. And I would go out and buy everything. I felt I had a disadvantage. Now I have so much music it doesn't really matter.

I just thought of something, if it's legal for european labels to ignore US copyright laws after 50 years and sell said songs in the USA. Is it legal to swap that same music in Eurpoe that is over 50 years old?

[Roy]

I guess swapping is legal in Canada, so if you have to do it run north of the border.

For some, Canada rocks: Swapping music online legal
Click here for complete article ($2.95)
Author: Doug Alexander Peter Ford Christian Science Monitor
Date: April 4, 2004
Publication: Chicago Sun-Times
Page: 20
Word Count: 460
Excerpt:
VANCOUVER, British Columbia, and PARIS -- Want a free copy of Janet Jackson's newest album? Or the latest song by Sarah McLachlan? If you're in Canada, just go to the Internet.

Music lovers north of the border can swap songs online without fear of breaking the law, thanks to a Canadian court decision last week.

A Federal Court judge ruled Wednesday that downloading songs for personal use or having files available on a computer connected to the Internet doesn't...

[julius]

As Reuben pointed out earlier, it's not just the artists. Everybody associated with producing an album (including, ultimately, the label that releases it) deserves the compensation that they are entitled to.

It is tempting to think "well, everyone else is trading illegally, and I'm paying, so why should I continue to pay?". Everyone has their own response to that. Nobody is going to change their behavior because of what is said here. But the issue is never as narrow as it seems.

[julius]

Did you seriously just say "Back in my day..." you old geezer?

Being old rocks. I even have a super pimpin chick magnet car.

[GemZombie]

Did you seriously just say "Back in my day..." you old geezer?

Being old rocks. I even have a super pimpin chick magnet car.

Can someone say midlife crisis?

I just traded in my BMW Z3 for more-my-age BMW 3 series. I had my "midlife crisis" car when I was 26... trying to get it out of the way early

Now back to your regularly schedule music piracy discussion.

[123go]

Idealy all recording industry archivest, re-mastering technichians, ect would work for the World Cultural Archive and Library. Then ALL music (by the now deceased) could be archived, accesed, and downloaded at will!

[TacomaTony]

Several years ago I was at a dance in a much smaller scene than my home scene, Seattle. I brought a small set of my music with me and asked for several requests over the course of the evening. The local DJ kept asking me to play more requests so I figured he liked the songs I had with me.
The next night, I noticed just as I arrived at the dance I heard him play 2 songs I had asked him to play the night before. He had ripped every one of the CD's I had given him straight to his hard drive. He had his computer set up to do it automatically each time a new CD was inserted.
It really pissed me off.
I don't think swapping an entire collection is very bad karma.
Tacoma Tony

[Campus Five]

Whether you think swapping tunes is good or bad, clearly ripping your stuff w/o your consent is low.

(It should be noted that I'm in law school, in my property class right now, and we're actually dealing with issues very much like this - Moore v. Regents of the University of California, 51 Cal. 3d 120, (1990). A cancer patient had his spleen removed as a part of treatment, and the doctors kept his spleen and developed a cell line with it with out his knowledge, making them a crap load of money. The Cal. Supreme Cout found for the Doctors on appeal.)

[SweetLowdown]

Whether you think swapping tunes is good or bad, clearly ripping your stuff w/o your consent is low.

Yeah, this same scenario has happened to me a couple of times with some local college-aged DJ's . . . kind of heinous, especially because one of the CD's that got copied was a local hot jazz ensemble's new album and the reason that I requested the DJ to play it (aside from the fact that his music was driving me to suicidal boredom) was because I wanted to help promote a band that lives and performs and records right in their neck of the woods, maybe encourage some people to go out and see them in person.

I have a mixed view of copyright issues. On one hand, nobody (particularly DJ's of any stripe) should be getting any significant portion of their music from downloads or trades, or just outright burning other people's stuff without permission.

On the other hand . . . when I had about a thousand CD's stolen from a storage locker about 4 years ago (I had stored all of my music when I moved to Italy to work for several months), for all of that money I spent on those albums . . technically I was SOL. Legally, the only recourse I had, aside from the cops finding the bugger who did it and getting my stuff back (which never happened) was to buy it over. This was before the days when I was at all technologically savvy and I hadn't ripped backup copies of anything, I never even made a list of all of the albums (my own stupidity, yes). In subsequent years I have purchased new copies of many of the albums that were lost, but I have also gotten some of it from other DJ's who offered it freely after they heard what happened. Now, technically that was wholly illegal and thoroughly despisable according to most of the opinions here, but I can tell you that I sleep okay at night knowing that I regained some of that music from friends who were also avid collectors and paid money for those albums, too.

I have spent, well, I dread to think how much I have spent, on my CD and record collection over the years, and I also purchase MP3's from itunes. I will occasionally make a mix CD for another DJ or accept one (though more often now I give written suggestions). If I like what I hear, I go out and buy a copy, or the itune, and I generally expect the same from the few people to whom I have given music. I sleep okay with that, too. The occassions when I have found myself filled with rightous anger at someone for copyright violations are usually when I have tossed someone who is obviously not a collector some a mix CD comprised of rare stuff that took me some serious time, money and searching to acquire and then they go play it to death somewhere, BS like they know all about it and never buy a single album as a result, preferring instead to download the rest on Limewire.

And the again, for as little love as I have for those sorts, I don't have much for the recording industry either. . . there is a reason why a lot of early recording artists (particularly in the blues) died practically destitute even though a fortune had been made on their recordings by record companies. It is still the case that many jazz and blues artists don't walk away with even a fraction of the profit from their albums unless they record on their own private labels and distribute themselves. This is the same industry that has suggested (I'm not kidding) a sort of self-destructing CD which only plays a fixed number of times, say 100, and then it is no longer playable, you'd have to buy a new one. They say this would cut down on copying and used CD sales. None of this, of course, is an excuse for stealing large amounts of music, but it is to say that the major labels are not out there fighting for the guy who sits down to remaster a collection of 78's, or indie artists and the fans who love them, they are devising the incomes necessary to buy themselves that 3rd summer house in Santa Barbara. One cannot conflate the best interest of the artists and their legacies with those of the recording industry, and so our responsibility as lovers of music is a little complicated. It is those with no sense of that responsibility at all that we should be concerned with.

--Kelly

[trend]

I am new on this board, but I have a philosophical question that could help me understand you better:

Lets say that the RIAA have lost in court, and file swapping for personal use became legal, and under some circumstances DJing in a swing venue as long as venue broadcast fees were paid was legal as well.

Would you then change your opinions about swapping and copying songs or would you still stick to your opinions and strive to force them on others, even though their behavour is legal if not morally compatible with yours? (for example, abortions are legal, but some seek to force others from performing them because they think they are highly immoral).

[Toon Town Dave]

First, just to clarify what's going on with the RIAA.

Copyright law is already on their side. The cases we are hearing about are not about whether the copyright law should be enforced but who should be policing the pirates. A liberalization of the copyright law itself is unlikely.

Now, if the record companies freed (as in speech, not beer) their intellectual property for peer sharing, the I would have no problem bartering pieces of my music collection for stuff I don't have.

[JSAlmonte]

I think this has already been addressed earlier in the thread. It's not really a moral question for people interested in jazz more than 40 or 50 years old. It's in our interests to buy music and encourage others to do so, because it gives record companies the incentive to release new "old" material, invest resources to remaster recordings and flip the bill for historians to provide some context.