Singer's Ex-Boyfriend Demands Royalties For Inspiring Songs About Their Relationship & Breakup
from the entitlement-society dept
This is from a few weeks ago, but just getting around to it. The latest example of ridiculous entitlement in an age of people claiming "ownership" to all sorts of things they have no ownership over, is that the popular singer Adele says that her ex-boyfriend has been demanding a cut of the royalties from her massively successful debut album, 19, because he apparently "inspired" many of the songs on the album about how awful their relationship and breakup apparently were. She apparently told him to get lost, stating:"Well, you made my life hell, so I lived it and now I deserve it."Of course, it would be amusing to see this (nameless) guy try to make a publicity rights claim out of it, though I couldn't see it getting very far. Still, in this day and age, when people seem to think they have an intellectual property right over anything that tangentially relates to them, I wouldn't be surprised if it actually reached that stage.
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Filed Under: adele, entitlement, ownership, royalties
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Thanks for clearing that up for us.
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Thing is, I was sarcastic and you're serious.
You actually believe that the problem is IP rather than the the fact that the guy is simply a world class bonehead.
That's through the looking glass, bro.
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That doesn't make any sense. How exactly is IP itself any different now than 20 or 50 years ago?
Masnick scours the internet looking for stories on idiotic IP lawsuits, and because you guys reside in his echo chamber, you think that it infers some sort of trend.
It doesn't. People have always brought dumb lawsuits and always will.
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Um...
Does this make it different?
Or this?
Or how about this?
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To pretend that the so-called tenets of IP could actually remain fundamentally the same when applied in a completely different medium with completely different paradigms, subject to a completely different reality, is why you'll think there's nothing wrong with IP today.
The DMCA applied rules for copy protection that didn't exist in the analog world. You could legally back up a VHS tape, even if there was a manufacturer designed element that attempted to prevent copying. The DMCA introduced anti-circumvention rules, taking the right to circumvent the protections on your own purchases away from consumers.
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That doesn't change what is considered IP.
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It's becoming increasingly clear that you don't know what you're talking about.
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Now T-Mobile thinks it owns the color magenta. Facebook thinks it owns any domain name with "face" or "book" in it. Starbucks thinks it owns green circle logos. Apple thinks it owns anything its ever done, even if there is prior art.
If you think nothing has changed, you haven't been paying attention or else you're head is stuck in the 20th Century (or somewhere else) intentionally.
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HAHAHAHAHA!
Amazing... Do you get a weekly newspaper delivered by horse or something? Do you have any idea the speed at which information flows nowadays? 20 years is a HUGE whoop in terms of media and information. I think this explains why your perspective on this stuff is so out of whack: you are a time traveller from the 1870s.
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... *shakes head slowly*
It does not take a genius to figure out the architecture of the real world don't apply in cyberspace.
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At least now I have an idea of who the subject may have been for the first "moron" in a hurry test.
How much of an idiot do you have to be to ask an asinine question like "How exactly is IP itself any different now than 20 or 50 years ago?"?
Get back under your bridge AC' troll!
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It is the problem. The belief that you can own an infinitely copyable and infinitely transferable idea is crazy.
Abstract ideas (patents) and expressions (copyright) do not deserve monopoly protection from the government. Evidence shows that those protections are not necessary for the advancement of science or art, nor do they in practice compensate the actual artist or inventor. All they appear to do is create massive inefficient bureaucracies of middlemen and lawyers.
Just because something has been done one way for (only) the past 200 years does not mean it must be done that way.
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It appears you like to state your opinions as facts, despite the evidence being nowhere remotely in your favor.
If I could play by your rules, I could say that you're 350 pounds, wear broken glasses and live in your mom's basement.
Self created reality is so awesome...
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1. Your band sucks.
OUTCOME: You console yourself briefly by picking fights with people on the internet while working a string of meaningless office jobs and bemoaning the 'poor taste' of record company scouts who refuse to sign you. You watch as a succession of your bandmates become marginally successful, failing to realize that the contracts get a little worse each time. Eventually, because [insert supreme being/natural process] has a sense of humor, one of your early songs gets stolen blatantly by a major label artist, but no one takes you seriously when you say it's yours.
2. You're a record company scout/agent/marketroid.
OUTCOME: You become increasingly convinced that your way of life is under threat by pirates and vow to prevent them from operating despite every other human on the planet telling you it's not possible. You cling for dear life to the particular configuration of shell companies and corporate governance structures that cuts your paycheck. Because of this, your job increasingly consists of explaining emerging technology to executives who still show the aftereffects of spending the entire 80s on coke. You end up playing Wormtongue to their disgraced Sauruman, feeding on the meager rents you can still collect for your 'property' from equally shell-shocked luddites. Eventually your bosses retire, leaving you with their entire portfolio and an odd sense of disorientation: It's music. It's good music. Why aren't people giving me money?
3. You're being paid to troll.
This seems unlikely, and I actually can't see an outcome. I just have questions: How much does it pay? Do they let you work from home? Do you have regular hours, or is it an on call situation? What do you tell your friends you do for a living? Do you download albums on Bittorrent? Do they ask that before they hire you? Who is 'they'? Do you have a quota? Do you ever write your own anticopyright articles to 'refute?' Do you enjoy it?
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The evidence for IP being good for society is about as good as the evidence that 95+ year copy protection lengths are somehow good for society. There is no evidence, these laws were written by big corporations for big corporations.
I can provide evidence (and there is plenty more evidence) that IP is bad.
You still haven't, and can't, provide one iota of evidence to support your position. It doesn't exist.
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Indeed, when big corporations make the self created reality that their position isn't delusional and expect anyone to take them seriously.
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Thing is, I was sarcastic and you're serious.
Am I supposed to congratulate you on reading and understanding what I wrote and its intended meaning?
Oh wait, you are a Techdirt troll, so that actually is kind of impressive. Congratulations! Keep it up and soon enough you'll graduate from reading comprehension to logic and reason, and then one day if you're lucky, average intelligence.
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IP will eat itself
Oh, that's droll.
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Perhaps this was his plan all along, inspire money-making album, but he just didn't plan well enough.
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2) inspire someone to write an album based on it
3) ???
4) PROFIT!!!
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How Dave Coulier could inspire anyone to write that is beyond me.
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I kinda hope he does.
Watching the internet community pounce all over this guy like a pride of lions on a wounded gazelle would be entertaining to say the least. Probably be better then the Judith Griggs/Cooks Source thing.
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ignore him, it's the most destructive thing you can do to him.
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Write a book!
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entitlement
More and more people feel they are just entitled to benefits, money, etc. A great personification of ones selfish nature.
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Bucks
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Who's next?
Her claim for damages should be amazing, considering she directly inspired a great many tracks on Eminem's albums, not to mention her untimely death during the runtime of his debut album. This would mean a Wrongful Death suit on top of any claims to royalties for inspiring a homicide, a song about the homicide and a third song about how the homicide wasn't real but this other guy thought it was and killed his girlfriend and they both (Em/Stan) got taken in by an urban legend about a Phil Collins' tune, so the estate of Phil Collins may also be in legal hot water.
(Note: If Phil Collins is still alive, I offer my sincerest apologies to both him and his fans.)
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Re: Who's next?
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In a related development
Expect Bin Laden's family to ask for a cut of the royalties from the (inevitable) movie about his demise.
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Re: In a related development
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It's so hilarious
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Like your post
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Useful
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