Are The Record Labels Using Bluebeat's Bogus Copyright Defense To Avoid Having To Give Copyrights Back To Artists?
from the oh,-those-record-labels dept
As you hopefully know, back in 1999, the RIAA had a Congressional staffer named Mitch Glazier slip four words into a totally unrelated bill on satellite retransmission of broadcast TV, literally in the middle of the night, that effectively changed the way copyrights worked on songs by major label artists. It effectively took much of the control out of the hands of the artists and handed it right to the labels. Remember that the next time the record labels claim they're representing the best interests of artists. The use of four simple words, buried deep within the bill, which no one other than the RIAA knew about (seriously, those who voted on it later said they had no idea), turned songs recorded by artists signed to record deals to works made for hire. That meant that those artists could not reclaim the copyrights to their songs later on via a "termination" right, as any other content creator could. Glazier, the staffer who slipped this into the bill, ended up going to work for the RIAA just three months after putting this text into the bill. He was apparently hired with a $500,000 salary. Not a bad payoff for changing a key component of copyright law in the middle of the night when no one's looking.Luckily, soon after this passed a few people did notice, leading to a big uproar from artists, and an eventual backtracking from Congress, who never did believe the RIAA's line that this "change" just "clarified existing law" rather than changed it entirely.
But, it's important to remember all of this when discussing termination rights for music. Back in October, we had discussed how the songs of many top musicians were quickly approaching those termination rights, and some of the major record labels stood to lose the copyrights on some of their biggest hit albums. Wired recently ran a similar article about this "ticking time bomb," and I wasn't going to post it, because I wasn't sure it added much new, until reader Mesanna pointed out one little factoid down at the bottom:
The second option is to re-record sound recordings in order to create new sound recording copyrights, which would reset the countdown clock at 35 years for copyright grant termination. Eveline characterized the labels' conversations with creators going something like, "Okay, you have the old mono masters if you want -- but these digital remasters are ours."Now, of course that sounds ridiculous, to hear that record labels can get a new copyright on just remastering a work... but, that sounds an awful lot like the argument made by Bluebeat.com, concerning its "psycho-acoustic simulation" re-recordings of famous songs, that enabled it to claim a new copyright. Now, the record labels are crying foul about this, and the vast majority of copyright law experts say that Bluebeat's claim has no chance at all. But, if that's the case, then the record labels own attempts to get new copyrights on remastered albums to avoid the termination rights might also be in jeopardy. It seems like any argument that is made against Bluebeat can soon be used against the labels as well if they really do try to claim copyright on remastered albums.
Labels already file new copyrights for remasters. For example, Sony Music filed a new copyright for the remastered version of Ben Folds Five's Whatever and Ever Amen album, and when Omega Record Group remastered a 1991 Christmas recording, the basis of its new copyright claim was "New Matter: sound recording remixed and remastered to fully utilize the sonic potential of the compact disc medium."
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Filed Under: copyright, music, remasters, termination rights, work for hire
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In the words of the immortal Bender B. Rodriguez...
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There is simply no way these guys are serious.
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Made their bed, now they can lay in it
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Re: Made their bed, now they can lay in it
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Re: Re: Made their bed, now they can lay in it
In the case of Bluebeat, a judge determined that the company was obviously "stealing" from the legitimate owners. And in the future case where a label makes the identical argument that Bluebeat made, the judge will believe that the "legitimate business interests" of the labels will need to be protected.
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Re: Re: Re: Made their bed, now they can lay in it
And this is where I start to get really close to a total meltdown. I'm used to those in power and those with money getting preferential treatment. I expect there to be shenanigans behind closed doors, because after all, our government and businesses are run by human beings, so some degree of corruption is to be expected.
But here's the thing: don't just pull down your pants and piss in my face. When these rejects are so protected that they can get away with publically gaming the system, in the face of everyone, and just say things that no one in their right mind would believe....and GET AWAY WITH IT? Well, hell, I've never been one for total anarchy, but I'm getting close to just saying let's do a total reboot on our government. Wipe the slate clean and take it back to 1776 in terms of starting it all over again. In fact, learning some of the lessons we have over the past 200 years, perhaps this time we can do it better.
FYI, this follows my reading in my local paper about a hidden 1.5 million dollar fund in Chicago being used almost solely for aldermen to hire friends and family. This 2 days after our Mayor announced he is seeking to end federal oversight of the city's hiring practices, because according to him there is no longer any patronage or nepotism.
Oh, and one aldermen's response when questioned by the paper? "Every aldermen hires their family. There's nothign new about that." And that's a direct quote.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Made their bed, now they can lay in it
DH, I agree.
When the financial apocalypse was happening a year ago, I had a similar feeling. Intellectually I knew that the bailout was needed (and better than most, I do tech support on the backend servers and networks that much of the financial data goes across). But a significant portion of me wanted go Tyler Durden: watch everything burn and the world go into chaotic spasms like a wolf eating its own entrails.
I have reached that point with copyright, patents and other intellectual property. The system is rigged and I think it is beyond repair. The only thing to do is wipe it out and start from scratch.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Made their bed, now they can lay in it
Ill be the first to sign on the dotted line and take up arms and bring it back to the beginning. Im fed up with the way these corporations run our government.
If you dont learn from history you are bound to repeat it. This is getting to the point that made our for-fathers stand up to the British rule. Though I guess its gonna be likened more to the civil war seeing as how its gonna be the broke, fed up, have not Americans against the have it all and dont care Americans.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Made their bed, now they can lay in it
Therefore, careful. Avoiding history might be just the wrong thing to do!
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Made their bed, now they can lay in it
And many more of which wouldn't have.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Made their bed, now they can lay in it
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Made their bed, now they can lay in it
For some reason the judges like to give corrupt politicians just a tiny slap on the wrist. But some random guy off the street nobody cares about is who they punish the worst to make an example. It should be the other way around.
While I cannot say that I would agree with a total reboot, I do think a great many sections could stand for a rewrite. IP laws would be a very easy one to do. Just make it an extreme minimum if at all. Trademark is the only good one I see really (and I should point out here that I am talking about its roots in preventing consumer confusion, and that is it). So I guess trademarks shouldn't even really be considered IP, since it isn't about property anyways. At least not in my book. Pretty much all IP laws would be wiped then, and the world would only be a better place. Well, except for those rich few who make their living feeding off of the artists.
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Unless they judges had been paid off, which unfortunately is not uncommon...
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Re:
The probably will see a similarity but be swayed by the music industry lawyer saying "Yes it is similar but really its completely different. Did I mention we contribute billions to the economy?"
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Logic?
Let's get statrted.
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I can see some logic
Bluebeat.com is taking a work that someone else has a copyright on and then "remastering" (or whatever the heck they decided to call it) the work. This could be derivative, but it is a bit different that the record labels remastering a work they have the copyright to and then retaining copyright on the new work while the old one can be reclaimed by the original artist.
I think it is cheap, underhanded, and should be stopped, but I see a bit of a distinction. With their ability to muddy up the waters, I can see the record labels getting by on this.
In the end, I feel bad for the artists. They are signing over their talent to these record labels and the labels do everything they can to cheat them out of any dime they are actually due. I hope most new artists see the problem is the record labels and start working out their own business models instead. It would be nice to see the labels lose their hold over all of this rich culture.
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Re: I can see some logic
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Re: I can see some logic
Certainly these situations are not completely analogous. However, in both situations Bluebeat and the labels are claiming a new copyright magically appearing out of either "psycho-acoustic simulations" or "remasterings."
The question is whether either "psycho-acoustic simulation" or "remastering" creates a new copyright?
Let's assume that Congress finally stops extending copyrights and the music of the Beatles is about to enter the public domain. Does merely increasing the bass and adjusting the mid-range give the Beatles an entirely new copyright that would last an additional X number of years?
To me whether you call it "psycho-acoustic simulation" or "remastering" you're not talking about a new copyrighted work.
However, if the labels are correct, then every time I adjust the bass while listening to the Beatles I'm creating new copyrights.
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Re: Re: I can see some logic
US copyright law specifically exempts "simulations". It makes no mention of "remasters". That's a big difference.
The question is whether either "psycho-acoustic simulation" or "remastering" creates a new copyright?
That should be two separate questions as they are two separate things.
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Re: I can see some logic
Um, no, they're weren't remastering, they were simulating. Big difference.
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Thats why I have a huge BOYCOTT the RIAA bumber sticker on my car.
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Re:
youre better off with a cool t shirt, or a tatoo
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The labels are also claiming that they own the copyright on any digital remaster they make.
Now what is preventing the original author from modifying the original analog recording by remastering it and then owning the copyright on the original work and their official version of the secondary work?
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Copyright and ownership is going to be the basis of our next revolution. Eventually people aren't going to put up with it any more.
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"Failed to adequately explain" could simply mean that the judge couldn't comprehend the math and technical details involved. That's really more of a lack of ability on the judge's part than Bluebeat's. It takes a special kind of arrogance to claim that anything you don't understand just hasn't been "adequately explained". It sounds like this judge truly believes he is the greatest genius that has ever lived.
Judge Walter then wrote, “after listening to the CD attached as Exhibit 1….the court, albeit to its musically untrained ear, was unable to detect or discern any meaningful difference between plaintiffs’ recordings and defendants’ recordings.”
So basically, since he couldn't understand the technical details, he just decided to listen to the results and make a decision based on that. The fact that he didn't note much difference between the two just shows that it was a good simulation, not that it *wasn't* a simulation. Yet, that is what the he ruled: that it *wasn't* a simulation because it sounded the same to him. That is an irrational conclusion.
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And also confirm that their "psychoacoustic simulation" stuff was just compressing to something like mp3, just like I said the last time they came up.
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There's no way....
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Are they smarter then they seem?
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Re: Are they smarter then they seem?
Meanwhile providing their opponents with a short joy moment (hurray, the RIAA is beaten in court!) and then snatching Bluebeat or forcing them out of business by some other means...
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Don't you know anything about the law? It depends upon who you are as much as what you do. In other words, the law doesn't apply the same to Sony as it does to Bluebeat. I would have thought that would be obvious to anyone.
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so riaa sells products
as i said many times its about MONEY MONEY MONEY
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No
Bluebeat attempted to claim that they were creating an entirely new sound recording from the original musical composition and were thus eligible for a completely new sound recording copyright. Anyone can do this right now, so long as they are not using the actual sounds from another sound recording (and have permission from the composition owner or follow the compulsory license provisions). I think the court, as well as most of us, didn't buy the fact that Bluebeat wasn't using the existing sound recordings to make their own sound recordings.
In the case of record labels facing an artist terminating his license grant to them, one possibility of avoiding losing the recordings is for the label to create a derivative work based on the original sound recordings. Derivative works created before termination are still effectual after termination.
The trick would be remastering or remixing the original recording just enough to create the requisite originality required for a derivative work copyright while staying close enough to the original recording to be acceptable as a substitute for the consumers.
IMHO, simply remastering a sound recording is not enough to create a new derivative work, they would have to do more to the recordings. In the real world, however, the labels could get away with this until an artist challenges them in court.
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Re: No
No quite. They claimed that they created a simulation, and the law exempts simulations. If they were claiming "entirely new sound recordings" then they wouldn't need to claim the simulation exemption, would they?
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Re: No
It's the creation of confusion of what is being copyrighted or what right have been granted. The record labels are taking existing works that they have rights to, re-doing it (digitally remastered is the term often used), and thus they gain copyright ownership of this new product. They don't get rights to the songs, they don't get ownership of the songs, just the rights to this re-recording.
What Bluebeat was trying to do was push through a loophole, take music they didn't have rights to, apply a process that can be best described as "mumbo jumbo" and attempted to claim ownership of the "new" work.
The situations have nothing in common, except for Mike's desire to stick it to the record labels and create more hatred. He's smart enough to know the difference, but also smart enough to know it would upset you if he actually explained it.
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Re: Re: No
All that dat-gum new-fangled technical stuff. It's all just a bunch of "mumbo jumbo". Like claiming we went to the moon, now that just aint possible. Of course it's fake!
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Reasons
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A potential new model for copyright
Why not rewrite copyright law to ONLY allow copyright to individuals rather than corporations and to make those rights non-transferable.
Therefore no selling, bequeathing or assigning those rights to others just individuals making money out of their creative efforts by licensing the use of their works to other individuals for a limited time.
This would mean that copyright only lasted for as long as an individual lived and so the money for the creative effort would be automatically directed towards the creators not some faceless corporation.
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Re: A potential new model for copyright
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What does "remastering" actually mean?
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Re: What does "remastering" actually mean?
Let me guess, you've never really studied information theory, right?
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They didn't want to know.
I'm no expert on Congressional protocol, but it sounds as if the system is set up to allow them to vote on things that may have been modified without their knowledge. That's by design, they could change it any time if they wanted, but the freedom from responsibility is just too good to give up. The only sensible solution is to hold them responsible for what they vote for, no excuses for "had no idea".
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The Truth Behind BlueBeat....
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