SOUND ON SOUND

[CS70]

I'm not talking about the definition of copyright, I'm talking about the purpose - different things.

Fair 'nuf. I was responding to wireman's super-simple challenge, noting it wasn't very challenging. :)

The political question - to go back to the thread - is which interests should be given priority: the individual author rights on their work (as the current copyright law does) or a supposedly greater interest by the non-authors community to use and distribute that work.

This is not an unusual question - it's essentially the reason for all politics. . In our western society - property and ownership and the benefits of it have (like it or not) a very special, central role.

It could be that art and media should be treated differently from a car or a house, I don't know. There are certainly a number of fields where ownership and property and market forces are emphatically not the right tool: public health, infrastructure, security etc.

But for art the current copyright law establishes a (to me) reasonable principle compromise: a limited period of full rights ownership by the author, so that he/she has an incentive to produce and to enjoy the economic returns of his work, followed by public domain availability for all the rest of time.

I'm not sure the existence or not of a specific technology should change this principle. It seems to me like a fair compromise already.

That a specific technology (say the Internet) makes initially harder to enforce the principle is certain: but - technically - the cat is not at all out the sack. The capabilities of the current western world computing infrastructure (which is growing exponentially every day) are mind-boggling and we have reached a point where - if the political will is there - there would be no problem in intercepting the vast majority of violations. This was not true a few years back.

Think of a what a Melodyne can do now. That kind of analysis would have been pure science fiction just a few years ago. There's more power in an iphone than in all computing power combined of the first 40 years of computers existence. My first computer was a ZX81 with 1K RAM, and look where we are now. Few people outside the IT business realize the computing power every even small company (including service providers) have at their fingertips. It is a matter of will.

[Matt Houghton]

I still stand by the fact that AFAIK laws are not examined on a regular basis to see if they do or still do the job they were originally framed for.

Not in the sort of way that you're thinking of. But essentially that's what the cross-party Parliamentary Select Committees (one of few things Thatcher introduced that I agreed with!) are supposed to do — scrutinise government policy. Which, by necessity means looking at the proposed policy (or lack of it) in relation to the status quo (which exists in part due to existing laws). Now, these are all MPs obviously, but (a) some of them have directly relevant experience in their field; and (b) they accept and invite evidence from all sorts of people and bodies, including scientists, practitioners, and industry/community representatives. And they draw up reports and call ministers to account in light of them. So in a sense they are constantly examining and challenging government policy. It's perhaps not how you'd design a law-making machine from scratch, but it is something at least!

IMO the biggest problem with that system is that it tends to respond to policy and issues... rather than anticipating them. And when there's not a big enough noise, or it's not clear who is suffering as a result, it means that issues which desperately need addressing are often overlooked. Like... the broken business model in music (and film, and books, and... well, you get the picture... 'creative' industries).

[Gone To Lunch]

Thus far, I can discern one policy suggestion to take to the Labour Party policy consultation, which is to re-introduce and indeed prioritise music education into the curriculum with sustained adequate funding. Which I too think is a great policy idea.

Any more for any more ?

[Matt Houghton]

Thus far, I can discern one policy suggestion...

Really? I've just gone over the whole thread and have seen several very worthwhile suggestions!

[wireman]

If you own a score in a book and you need a single-sheet version, you're gonna need to buy one.

"fair use" is not the right of producing copies of a work because your purchased one physical instance.

The single-sheet versions don't exist in many cases.

So a couple of choices for out-of-copyright-protection classical pieces.

• Purchase a nice book or just the piece you want and hope it is not some modern printted scan. Then put up with it, multiple copies of it (if practical). Or copy it illegally.
• Download it from IMSLP and print it yoursef.

What to choose?...

[wireman]

(Concerning format shifting).

I have been looking for a reference online but failed to find it. I seem to recall a period where music publishers were going to extreme efforts to find people who were sharing music and prosecuting them (fair enough except for the cases where they aimed heavyweight lawyers against the innocent).

But I'm sure at the time an industry spokesman said that they would never prosecure someone for format shifting for personal use.

But I can't find a reference to that online.

This makes it much harder to get the cat back in the bag, irrespective of the legal to-and-fro.

And now presumably a prosecution has to prove a copy was not made during the time the before the law was overturned in order to get a realistic chance of winning a case.

[CS70]

The single-sheet versions don't exist in many cases.

Hm, and?

[CS70]

Thus far, I can discern one policy suggestion to take to the Labour Party policy consultation, which is to re-introduce and indeed prioritise music education into the curriculum with sustained adequate funding. Which I too think is a great policy idea.

Any more for any more ?

For example, making service provides responsible of copyright violations occurring thru their infrastructure or their platforms.

[blinddrew]

Thus far, I can discern one policy suggestion to take to the Labour Party policy consultation, which is to re-introduce and indeed prioritise music education into the curriculum with sustained adequate funding. Which I too think is a great policy idea.

Any more for any more ?

For example, making service provides responsible of copyright violations occurring thru their infrastructure or their platforms.

But this is frequently something that needs to be determined by the courts, not by an algorithm. For all the advances in AI and machine learning, automated routines are still terrible at context. Hence the constant stream of bad takedowns across all the major platforms.

[CS70]

But this is frequently something that needs to be determined by the courts, not by an algorithm. For all the advances in AI and machine learning, automated routines are still terrible at context. Hence the constant stream of bad takedowns across all the major platforms.

My suspicious is that there are far more bad uploads than bad takendowns ;-)

Like it or not, algorithms have been very, very good in recognizing digital content for quite a while. It's not a crazy hard problem to crack and the math has been there for a long time. What has been missing was the crunching power to do it in quantity, but now we're quite in the ballpark.

[blinddrew]

But this is frequently something that needs to be determined by the courts, not by an algorithm. For all the advances in AI and machine learning, automated routines are still terrible at context. Hence the constant stream of bad takedowns across all the major platforms.

My suspicious is that there are far more bad uploads than bad takendowns ;-)

Like it or not, algorithms have been very, very good in recognizing digital content for quite a while. It's not a crazy hard problem to crack and the math has been there for a long time. What has been missing was the crunching power to do it in quantity, but now we're quite in the ballpark.

Recognition isn't the problem, as you say, the routines are very good at that. It's the context that's the problem, and that's the bit that defines the legality / acceptability or otherwise. And personally I have a problem with any policy the current levels of collateral damage. YMMV.
But we're drifting off topic again, ;)

[Gone To Lunch]

“UK Music is an industry-funded body established in October 2008 to represent the collective interests of the recorded, published and live arms of the British music industry. 
Through collective representation UK Music promotes the interests of record labels and music publishers (major and independent), songwriters, composers, lyricists, musicians, managers, producers, promoters, venues and collection societies.
Through member engagement we ensure a collective voice across the sector is identified.  Through lobbying we ensure that voice is heard.  
UK Music exists to guide policy makers towards decision-making in the best interests of our sector and the best collective interests of our membership, now and for the future.”

Here are some policy consultation papers from their Policy and Campaigns section. They are the sort of thing I want the Labour Party to inform development of their nascent cultural policy :

Briefing on Intermediaries, Aggregators, Safe Harbour and Transfer of Value
https://www.ukmusic.org/assets/general
/intermediaries_aggregators_safeharbour_transferofvalue.pdf

Section 73 of the CDPA consultation
https://www.ukmusic.org/assets/general/ ... KMusic.pdf

Safe Harbours and Intermediaries
https://www.ukmusic.org/assets/general/ ... 9_1_15.pdf

Collective Rights Management Directive
https://www.ukmusic.org/assets/general/ ... AL2015.pdf

[Gone To Lunch]

Briefing on Intermediaries, Aggregators, Safe Harbour and Transfer of Value
https://www.ukmusic.org/assets/general
/intermediaries_aggregators_safeharbour_transferofvalue.pdf

Here is the now corrected link

Briefing on Intermediaries, Aggregators, Safe Harbour and Transfer of Value
https://www.ukmusic.org/assets/general/intermediaries_aggregators_safeharbour_transferofvalue.pdf

[Gone To Lunch]

The labour party policy consultation will close on June 24th.

I have now submitted the following :

"I am concerned to note there is no mention of the music industry, intellectual property rights or performance arts in the policy document : ‘Environment, Energy and Culture: A greener Britain’.

Our world class music production industry is now mostly a cottage industry, in which production costs are loaded on to the composer, writer, producer and performer.

Payment streams are under the auspices of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988).

The UK has a world class music industry that is currently under threat from in four ways :

1. The giant internet corporations who generate income by facilitating ‘free’ illegal downloading;

2. The giant internet corporations who only pay tiny tiny amounts (eg $0.000n per unit) for music streams from mainstream sites like spotify, google etc;

3. TV companies and the BBC who seek to confiscate creator rights that determine payment.

4. Internet services that insist on unpaid blanket permission contracts.

There are thus many issues that require immediate attention.

(Note that high performance fees only apply to a tiny minority of established artists who are household names.)

I propose therefore that the party leadership should formally acknowledge and accept as policy the UK Music Manifesto recently produced by the industry umbrella body UK Music , available here : https://www.ukmusic.org/policy/uk-music-manifesto/"

If you don't ask you don't get.

[Hugh Robjohns]

:clap: :thumbup:

[ManFromGlass]

BBC asking for creator rights?
Whoa, I thought we had it rough in Canada where a certain arms length but Govt funded film agency asks for publishing rights or you don't get the composing job. I've never heard of our CBC asking for any assignment of rights.

[Gone To Lunch]

BBC asking for creator rights?

This is gossip from a BASCA workshop/event a little while ago.

But basically, it seems that BBC execs are now insisting, or maybe trying to insist, that they get the publishing, or else they won't use your music.

And of course BASCA are keen to oppose this.

It is not my area so I await more informed opinion from those in the know.

[Gone To Lunch]

Seems appropriate for this thread ?

From the MU re music education :

https://www.musiciansunion.org.uk/Home/News/2018/Jun/Musicians-Union-Calls-For-Music-Education-Overhau

[blinddrew]

You do realise that all these calls for further legislation of the internet, especially regarding pre-filtering (i.e. article 13 of the copyright reform going through the EU at the moment) and the stripping/reduction of safe harbours are only going to strengthen the embedded players hold on the market because no start-up competitor (which might want to pay much better rates) is going to be able to afford the man-power to police it or the liability cover to handle the inevitable lawsuits. We're in the process of stripping any aspect of competition from the market as well as putting everyday internet users and small platforms at risk.
We're also effectively allowing the likes of Google, Facebook et al to become censors of what we can and can't see on the internet, because their algorithms will determine what goes up and what gets blocked - not national or EU courts. I really don't think we'll be grateful for this in a few years' time. :(