We live in a crazy world
We live in a crazy world
Posted Nov 26, 2024 19:01 UTC (Tue) by khim (subscriber, #9252)Parent article: Arch Linux finally starts licensing PKGBUILDs
We live in a world where Deep Purple needs to pay royalties if they perform their own songs.
I haven't contributed scripts to Arch Linux, but I have done that for some other distros… and I would really be annoyed if someone would ask me to indemnify them against such stupidity if they would use something I wrote 20 years ago.
I have lived in different countries, worked for different companies, I simply have no idea if I have the right to give permissions WRT these.
But if someone would ask me if I object to relicensing? Nope, I wouldn't. I simply don't care, but I couldn't prevent such cases and I don't want to pay out of my own pocket for someone's else stupidity.
That's why asking and getting no objecting is the best they can really hope for.
Posted Nov 26, 2024 21:10 UTC (Tue)
by jbschirtzinger (guest, #174780)
[Link]
Posted Nov 27, 2024 10:16 UTC (Wed)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (9 responses)
Nope. The band doesn't need to pay royalties to play their own songs – whoever is putting on the concert (presumably not the band itself) needs to pay royalties to the band, via a copyright collection agency. What the cited story leaves out is that – unless Deep Purple themselves are in the business of organising their own concerts in Russia, which sounds unlikely – the local concert promoter, who is the one on the hook for the royalties, apparently didn't dot all the i's and cross all the t's. Why Deep Purple get fined for this is anyone's guess (but hey, this is Russia, and probably somebody thought that Deep Purple = Deep Pockets).
The way copyright collection agencies work, a band contracts the management of their royalties out to the collection agency. The advantage for the band is that they don't need to deal with individual requests (which would otherwise be required by copyright law) to play their songs on the radio, have them performed by cover bands, etc., and of course also the royalties due to the band when the band performs its own material at a concert. The contract with the collection agency usually stipulates that royalties are due for any performance (including by the band itself) and that the band isn't supposed to make side deals that leave the collection agency out of the loop. And the collection agencies cooperate internationally to ensure that local concert organisers can talk to the collection agency in their country even though the band – if it is a big international touring outfit like Deep Purple – works with a collection agency in a completely different country. Finally, since professional musicians tend to subscribe to collection agencies, and since there is usually one collection agency per country, there is a presumption that that collection agency is in charge of all the interesting music that is around; the burden of proof is on concert organisers if they want to claim that, e.g., no royalties to the collection agency are due for a folk-music concert where the band (who is not affiliated with the collection agency) only plays its own arrangements of traditional tunes from the public domain. So, no surprise that the Russian copyright collection agency gets to levy royalties on the Deep Purple concert even if Deep Purple have never heard from them before – after all, clearing royalty payments for a concert in Russia isn't their problem, it's that of the Russian guys who have asked them to come and play.
Copyright collection agencies are, of course, not in any way mandatory but they are quite useful if you're a band (especially a big and famous band like Deep Purple whose music is played all over the world) – not least because concert venues, radio stations, bars, etc. like to have a single institution to talk to in order to manage their royalty obligations. Your friendly neighbourhood FM radio broadcaster is sure as hell not going to negotiate the right to play “Smoke on the Water” on the air with Deep Purple directly, which would be a time-consuming and expensive hassle for both the radio station and Deep Purple('s lawyers); they prefer to pay a monthly lump sum to the collection agency so they can air whatever songs – from the repertoire managed by the collection agency, which as we said covers approximately “everything” – they please.
Posted Nov 27, 2024 11:17 UTC (Wed)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (8 responses)
That's distinction without a difference. Band have already received a compensation, band have done the work and band have never passed their rights to said copyright collection agency… why should it be involved in that crazyness at all? Said NGO is supposed to collect royalties in cases where collection of said royalties is problematic… but how come that public execution of songs by their principal authors involve any royalties at all? If the initiator of that crazyness would have been collection agency that band actually signed agreements with it could have been justified. But nope, that's not what have happened. And, similarly, clearing the mess around copyright for scripts I wrote 20 years ago is not my problem either. I wrote and shared them in good faith, if there are suddenly, some crazy collection agencies somewhere who have the right to collect money in my name (even if I have never heard about their existence) – then it's not my mess. That's the issue: in Russia they are mandatory. They don't even try to contact anyone before sending you to court. They are build on the presumption that everyone in the world is supposed to contact them and if someone doesn't – it's on them. It's not the collector's agency work to prove that I passed my rights to them, but mine. Deep Purple are just most famous example of that crazyness. The collector agency in question even collect royalties in the name of dead USSR authors who died before said agency was created! These authors physically could sign any agreements with any collector agency, they died before that system was established! And that's why I couldn't idemnify you about my scripts written 20 years ago. These were simpler times and collector agencies haven't tried to collect money in my name back then. Today they do that and I have no idea if they would try to do that using my measly script or not. They most I can promise is that I wouldn't try to sue anyone, but in a world where a dead author have be raised from the grave to visit the court and prove that he (or she) haven't passed the rights to some agency I couldn't claim, in good conscience, that someone else wouldn't sue you, in my name.
Posted Nov 27, 2024 11:56 UTC (Wed)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
The US tried to pass an internet streaming law that would DEMAND you pay copyright fees in order to stream your own copyrighted works ...
Germany has a law that allows lawyers to sue on your behalf without you knowing anything about it ...
This craziness isn't restricted to Russia ...
Cheers,
Posted Nov 27, 2024 12:52 UTC (Wed)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (6 responses)
I don't know a lot about Russian law, but what I meant is that certainly here in Germany, using a collection agency is very much not mandatory if you're a content creator. The downside, of course, is that without being affiliated with the collection agency, you will probably get less exposure (and money) because radio stations, CD manufacturers, etc. who must obey the relevant laws won't touch your stuff with a long pole – they don't need the hassle, and through their contract with the collection agency they already have everything they need to keep the air waves filled, so ignoring your stuff is no skin off their nose. If Bob's Bar & Grill puts on your CD for the entertainment of its customers and doesn't read the fine print, you won't get any of the monthly royalties check they send to the collection agency because you don't participate when that money is distributed. (Of course Bob's Bar & Grill shouldn't be playing your copyrighted CD without asking you first, but have fun suing Bob over it.) If you can live with that, then dealing with the collection agency is by no means required.
OTOH, if you're someone using presumably-copyrighted content, then getting out of having to deal with the relevant collection agency is way more difficult, due to the presumption that the collection agency is in charge of everything of commercial interest: It is on you to prove that you're not using anything managed by the collection agency, which can be tricky as the collection agency doesn't condescend to publish a definitive database of what they have – because, why would they? In the age of CC-licensed content this is becoming more complicated but so far the legislation around copyright collection agencies has not caught up. Even now, though, selling music outside the regime of the copyright collection agency is a legitimate business which finds eager customers among people who operate, e.g., elevators and call center queues.
It's not a problem at all for the collection agency to levy royalties on behalf of foreign content creators or content creators who haven't been dead long enough for their works to pass into the public domain – because they can. The collection agency will happily levy royalties even for the performance of public-domain material because as we said, it is a concert organiser's job to maneuvre themselves out of that and if they won't, then the collection agency will for sure not object to having its bills paid. (The collection agency doesn't care in the least what exactly is played at a concert – the royalties they collect are typically based on the size of the venue, the number of attendees, and the price of the tickets, not the material performed.)
People have been wondering, off and on, whether a system of copyright collection agencies for software along the lines of those established for music or written works would make sense. Every computer user would have to pay a set mandatory fee and, in exchange, would be allowed to use the software managed by the collection agency without having to deal with software makers directly. All the fees would go into a pot and would eventually be distributed to the software authors based on the size and popularity of their contribution (so that, e.g., Microsoft would get a very large share of the pot because their software is on 90% of people's computers and people use it all the time). The problem of “software piracy” would go away, and big companies would no longer have to be afraid of expensive software license audits. This of course has a whole boatload of problems, including but not limited to how you figure out who is using what software without infringing on everyone's privacy, or how one ensures adequate compensation for people who write highly complicated and specialised (thus, expensive to make) software that only a few people actually use. Also, there is a lot of useful software around right now that people don't need to pay for at all, and a presumption, à la music copyright, that everyone must pay the mandatory fee because the software collection agency is already in charge of everything that is interesting therefore won't fly. Finally, software companies generally reserve the right to set the fees they extort from users as they please and would probably not welcome a scheme where the money they get is just a share of a big pot over which they have no direct influence.
Posted Nov 27, 2024 13:02 UTC (Wed)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (2 responses)
In the UK at least, I presume they HAVE to care - having dealt with them you MUST send them a list of all the works (presumably under copyright) you have played, and they then distribute based on that list.
> so that, e.g., Microsoft would get a very large share of the pot because their software is on 90% of people's computers and people use it all the time
There is plenty of evidence - even based on the playlists that the agents collect - that the big people get more than their fair share, and the little people end up paying the majority of the agency's costs ...
> Also, there is a lot of useful software around right now that people don't need to pay for at all, and a presumption, à la music copyright, that everyone must pay the mandatory fee because the software collection agency is already in charge of everything that is interesting therefore won't fly.
Witness the Italian copyright enforcement people being taken to court for lying, when they paid for adverts saying "Copying CDs is illegal". Most if not all of Europe has a legal obligation to make sure adverts don't overstep the bounds - eg the UK's "Legal, Decent, Honest and Truthful". It was one of Europe's Free Software groups that sued, I believe, and the copyright agency pretty much crumbled on the spot without a leg to stand on.
Cheers,
Posted Nov 27, 2024 13:53 UTC (Wed)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link] (1 responses)
Many of the adverts the copyright-holder lobby puts out are based more on wishful thinking than actual law. For example, they will claim with great confidence and authority that downloading movies from the Internet is illegal, but the fact is that people don't generally get sued for downloading movies. If they're getting sued at all they get sued for uploading movies whose copyright they don't own, which is something that takes much more intent (unless you're using BitTorrent without knowing how that works) and is usually way easier to make stick.
What is technically not allowed according to the law, certainly here in Germany, is downloading movies “from obviously illegal sources”, but it is difficult for a layperson to figure out whether a site is “obviously illegal” if it looks very convincing and has a slick and professional UI that is, if anything, nicer than the official offerings. It's not as if such sites have a big banner at the top saying OBVIOUSLY ILLEGAL MOVIE SOURCE.
Posted Nov 27, 2024 14:00 UTC (Wed)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
So basically they're saying the whole streaming industry is a fraud?
In the UK, if they didn't plaster their claims with disclaimers left right and centre, they'd be in big trouble with the advert regulator. Who has the power (and they've used it) to ban them from ANY advertising without running it past the regulator first. They've only used it once or twice ...
> If they're getting sued at all they get sued for uploading movies whose copyright they don't own
Unless they're MGM, or Columbia, or Fox 2000, or Sony ... remember when they were regularly getting DMCA takedowns from themselves? <rofl> ...
Cheers,
Posted Nov 27, 2024 14:11 UTC (Wed)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (2 responses)
Translation from English to English: said agencies are not caring about copyright protection of artistic works one jot (because how can you protect someone's interest if you don't even know if he is involved in what you are doing or not?) but are purely an extortion, racket business that exist solely to fill some people pockets. They sign an agreements with people who don't need their services (because anyone who if famous enough to squeeze significant royalties from they guys don't need these money) and then pressure people who may benefit to giva up their rights. That's very well-known phenomenon that existed as an ugly side-show to the recording industry and which was tolerated before broadband made distribution of music essentially free. Why it should even exist today is entirely non-clear, but nonetheless, it persists. Of course it would! Sure, it would hurt the society and would make lives of everyone except these collectors worse, but it could bring enough money to pay to the legislators and then it would become a reality. Which is approximately 99% or 99.9% of all the software that exists. Sure, puny excel spreadsheet with a few knobs is not as glamorous as Excel itself, but if you count number of such spreadsheets, then, together they dwarf all the software that we have ever heard about by huge margin. But that's still not a reason to create something like that – and I'm not gonna try to do anything about that, especially if that would happen in a country that I don't plat to ever visit. Worse: since “protectors of my rights” don't deign it important to even notify me that they are “protecting my rights” I couldn't promise to someone that s/he wouldn't sued by said “protectors” without my knowledge.
Posted Nov 27, 2024 14:54 UTC (Wed)
by anselm (subscriber, #2796)
[Link]
Copyright collection agencies do solve an important problem: Without them, users of copyrighted content would have to talk licensing with creators of that content on a one-to-one basis, and that obviously doesn't scale well. Imagine running a radio station, or for that matter playing background music in a bar, if you had to obtain an individual license from every single composer, lyricist, arranger, and musician involved with every single song you play. Compared to that, having to deal with just one collection agency looks fairly reasonable and enticing, certainly from a practical POV.
There are very many things to criticise concerning the way copyright collection agencies are established in law, and how they go about their business. In fairness, a lot of their practices are probably not even deliberate attempts at extortion but simply holdovers from a previous time where they did sorta-kinda make sense (again from a practical POV). Some reform would certainly be nice. However, unless we abolish the basic premise of copyright (the “right” of a creator to control when, how, and by whom their works are “copied”) altogether, collection agencies as a practical solution to an obvious problem won't be going away anytime soon.
Posted Nov 27, 2024 14:56 UTC (Wed)
by jzb (editor, #7867)
[Link]
We live in a crazy world
We live in a crazy world
We live in a world where Deep Purple needs to pay royalties if they perform their own songs.
> The band doesn't need to pay royalties to play their own songs – whoever is putting on the concert (presumably not the band itself) needs to pay royalties to the band, via a copyright collection agency.
We live in a crazy world
We live in a crazy world
Wol
We live in a crazy world
That's the issue: in Russia they are mandatory.
We live in a crazy world
Wol
We live in a crazy world
Witness the Italian copyright enforcement people being taken to court for lying, when they paid for adverts saying "Copying CDs is illegal".
We live in a crazy world
Wol
> The collection agency doesn't care in the least what exactly is played at a concert – the royalties they collect are typically based on the size of the venue, the number of attendees, and the price of the tickets, not the material performed.
We live in a crazy world
We live in a crazy world
Why it should even exist today is entirely non-clear, but nonetheless, it persists.
We live in a crazy world