They're Not 'Orphan Works', They're 'Hostage Works'

What If There Was A Music Collection Society That Actually Understood That Free Isn't Always Bad?

from the well,-here's-a-shot dept

Mon, May 14th 2012 7:30pm — Mike Masnick

In the US we have three main music collection societies for performance rights (ASCAP, BMI and SESAC), and then SoundExchange for satellite/online streaming. However, many other countries just have a single collection society, with somewhat monopolistic tendencies. There have been efforts (mostly failed) to create more competition in Europe, mainly by encouraging the organizations to leave their local country and work across Europe. There have been precious few new entrants, however. At least one group is trying to change that -- and they're doing so by embracing the internet and the concepts of free culture. C3S, or the Cultural Commons Collecting Society is trying to enter the market in Europe in a much more culture-friendly manner:

C3S is a collaborative effort to found a new and ground-breaking European collecting society for musical creators to register their works outside of traditional schemes, released under free licences for commercial exploitation. More than just for works published under Creative Commons Licences, C3S is open for other free licences as well.

The new operation wants to encourage free distribution for non-commercial use, and a much more reasonable (and appealing) deal for both musicians and consumers. Just the fact that the organization has to make it clear that members are encouraged to make use of free licensing is an amazing step forward. Compare that to organizations like GEMA that have tried refusing to recognize Creative Commons licenses, and operations like ASCAP, who insist that Creative Commons is threat to musicians, rather than a useful tool. Who knows if C3S will go anywhere, but it's nice to see that it's at least being tried.

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Filed Under: collection society, cs3, europe
Companies: ascap, bmi, creative commons, gema, sesac

21 Comments

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Anonymous Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 7:42pm

Fight Gema and Brein?
It is good to hear that such a seemingly reasonable player is coming on the scene. But what happens when a creator wants to use them and Gema or Brein come along and insert their two Euros? Is there then a court battle? Will they have the financial wherewithal to make that fight? It appears that Gema and Brein have enough money to argue for whatever they want, which brings up the question why they didn't give that money to the creators?
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 8:12pm

so, a group who gets "free" you like, but now you are for groups collecting royalties for music to be paid everytime you hear music, so now you are for monoply rents?? so IP rights are a good thing for the holder to be be paid, since this group gets "free"???
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 8:29pm

They are movivated by money. They are greedy. They would make you pay for the air you breathe.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 8:30pm

Re:
motivated*
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yofa, 14 May 2012 @ 8:30pm

yes, i like this concept! open-source music. make your monies off live performances.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 9:38pm

Re:
Do you even read the summaries, never mind the linked sites?

The only thing being praised in the summary is the fact that "free for non-commercial use" isn't being demonized by this collection society.

I wonder what you'd manage to spout if Mike praised a collection society for "being human" by siphoning off some of its money to support, say, the orphaned children of artists who died from starvation because the record labels didn't pay them royalties.
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Anonymous Coward, 14 May 2012 @ 9:54pm

Re:
Are you so dissatisfied with El-P that you have now resolved to hijack every thread and sound like an idiot while doing so?
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Pixelation, 14 May 2012 @ 10:52pm

"What If There Was A Music Collection Society That Actually Understood That Free Isn't Always Bad?"

It would be called a comedy. Oh wait, it's already a joke.
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Alana (profile), 14 May 2012 @ 10:58pm

Re: Fight Gema and Brein?
"Creators" =/= "Copyright Holders". The latter is all they care about.
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Alana (profile), 14 May 2012 @ 11:02pm

Re:
That's what they have to do -anyway-.
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PaulT (profile), 15 May 2012 @ 12:06am

Re: Re:
No, he was doing that long before that particular thread.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2012 @ 3:08am

since when has anything not controlled by the entertainment industries or their lackeys not been a threat to artists (and the entertainment industries in particular)?
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F!, 15 May 2012 @ 3:42am

wow what a concept
Wouldn't "A Music Collection Society That Actually Understood That Free Isn't Always Bad" be interesting if it actually existed?
http://archive.org/details/audio
Oh yeah...
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F!, 15 May 2012 @ 3:53am

Re:
Not many musicians really care if someone copies their music -- As long as the person copying them credits the creator, and passes along a reasonable percentage of profits made from the music, IF any money is made from it.

CC-BY-NC I believe is the default position of most musicians. They're still free to license it commercially, but when there's no money to be made and the second party isn't claiming authorship, the creator generally is pretty happy to see it happen.

"Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" and all that. Humanity has progressed for centuries based on this. May we continue to do so.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2012 @ 5:04am

Re: Re: Re:
But he seems to have gotten worse since that particular thread.

Now PaulT, why do you justify ripping off the artists and how much money does the pirate bay give me, a professional musician? :P
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Jesse (profile), 15 May 2012 @ 7:30am

Compare that to organizations like GEMA that have tried refusing to recognize Creative Commons licenses, and operations like ASCAP, who insist that Creative Commons is threat to musicians, rather than a useful tool.

I don't know what the collection societies are so upset about. They enjoy their normal royalty rates on free music.

20 percent of $0 is....$0.
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Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2012 @ 8:11am

Who gives a shit about these collection agencies?
They are nothing but a bunch of racketeering scumbags, who've bought laws to make them legal. They bully the entire music business, and for what? Two, maybe three percent of the entire world's working musician group?
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Anonymous Coward, 15 May 2012 @ 9:27am

What If There Was A Music Collection Society That Actually Understood That Free Isn't Always Bad?

Then pigs would fly, hell would freeze over, and I'd win the lottery.
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BeeAitch (profile), 15 May 2012 @ 12:34pm

Re: Re: Re: Re:
Nothing. Your 'music' sucks.
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John, 6 Jun 2012 @ 3:16am

Legal Advice to Criminals
Before you download copyrighted music or movie on the Internet consider the civil and criminal penalty associated with the criminal activity. You may want to consider expense of attorney, court, fines and jail time before you start your life of crime. Recording industry and movie industry make more money when you steal copyrighted works than when you purchase them.

Does anyone know where to insert a CD or DVD into your iPad? Maybe someone at the recording industry or movie industry knows.

You can listen to music on the radio. You can watch movie on the television.
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PaulT (profile), 6 Jun 2012 @ 3:48am

Re: Legal Advice to Criminals
Hmmm... not sure if serious, but just in case:

"Before you download copyrighted music or movie on the Internet consider the civil and criminal penalty associated with the criminal activity."

You seem to be confused about the difference between civil and criminal offences for a start. Your "legal advice" isn't looking too solid.

"Recording industry and movie industry make more money when you steal copyrighted works than when you purchase them."

Studies show that this is true, yet they still pretend that "pirates" lose them more money than their other problems...

"Does anyone know where to insert a CD or DVD into your iPad?"

No, but I know where to put them into a computer to perform a perfectly legal format shift to watch or listen to them on the device of my choosing.

"You can listen to music on the radio. You can watch movie on the television."

Yet, strangely, I pay for neither, without committing any crime. Te companies behind them are not bankrupt. There are also companies building on their business models for the 21st century that don't seem to be doing too badly.

Why, it's almost as though business models are the problem and not those "pirates" who are being fought by the "genius" method of removing rights from innocents and reducing the value of their own content for paying consumers...
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