I originally wrote this diary as a comment to an earlier diary by Chris Bowers regarding SOPA.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
My comment got quite lengthy so I have decided to post it as a diary. Its a breakdown of my feelings, from an artists perspective, on this legislation. Its a solution designed for the wealthy 1% of corporate content owners. But what about a solution for the 99% of artists out there who are seeing their creations STOLEN more and more? These are my thoughts......
I need to speak as someone who creates "content" (music) that is used, nearly all of the time on the internet, for free. I am not a corporation. I am an individual. An artist. A musician. This is the way I make my living. Now, truth be told, I have little or no problem with the average music lover listening to my music......even for free. Its the reality of the modern age. Even services like Spotify hide under the guise of credibility, the truth is that musicians receive a pittance for streams of their songs. Fractions of pennys. But AT LEAST its something! The major problem I have is with people using my music to make money for themselves without my permission and not compensating me for my creativity. I'll give you two concrete examples.
Last year during the NBA finals, I was shocked to hear one of my songs being used in stadium for the introductions of the teams before a game. This was not only used "in stadium" (a theatrical performance) but over TV (a "synchronization" fee or royalty plus performance mechanicals and publishing). How did the team get it? They downloaded it off YouTube..... for free. After MONTHS of my publisher playing them the video of the incident and threats of lawsuits, they finally paid after me spending countless dollars trying to simply GET PAID for my work. The explanation from the person who put the it together? They said that they figured as long as it was on YouTube, it was free for use.
Now I will give you a smaller example. I search the internet and find my songs used for peoples personal videos for various uses on YouTube. Now, while I am honored most of the time and for people who are posting family videos, etc....... GREAT. use away. But for someone who puts up a video, uses one of my songs, gets millions of hits and then gets PAID for those hits from YouTube (not to mention what YouTube makes.....), is it not reasonable for me to be asked to get a share of that, no matter how small it is? Often times, the "videos" are simply a static image of me or a cover of one of my cd's. When a person posts this, they have no interest in sharing with the world a video they have created, they only wish to share MY SONG. FOR FREE. They are stealing from me in this case.
Now, in relation to this site, I would say that this discussion is relevant to re-use of printed media and links to TV shows (news programs). Those are corporately owned entities that have legal departments that can deal with this all day. I am a musician and a composer. I have no staff. But in certain ways, I do share their interests!! But how would you suggest that I go about it?
So everyone understand how it worked in ancient times (before the internet). Let me give you a basic breakdown of how artists (musicians in this example) get paid. When your song is played "on the radio", the station turns over play lists to the publishing rights societies (ascap, bmi, sesac) and then you get paid a small mechanical fee for whenever you song is played using a sampling formula. Its very fair. You get paid maybe a penny per performance. But it adds up quickly. No matter where it is. It used to be the same..... FOR JUKEBOXES. Someone in the old days would go to each one, week to week and report which songs were being played, then it was reported to the performing rights societies and you were paid for each play!! Restaurants and public establishments that have music pay a fee to BMI and ASCAP for the ability to do so. When your song was sold by a record label, each song has a publishing value called a mechanical royalty. I believe its .13 per song. So for instance, when a label sells my song on my record, they pay me for the "master" (the performance as played on the recordings....the profit on the sale of the physical product) as well as the publishing (the writing of the song). Its this way because if someone records a song that someone else has written, the artist gets the record sales and the writer gets the publishing. (its a bit more complicated but I wont get into it......) Also, if a film or TV show uses a song, they pay what is called a "sync fee", which means they are synchronizing your music to their picture. For film, the sych fees are higher because there are no mechanical royalties paid from a "theatrical" performance. However for TV shows, the sych fees are lower, because the networks pay a mechanical publishing royalty after broadcast. In film you get paid on the front side. In TV you get paid up front and in back. If a TV show goes to DVD, often times the songs that they licensed for broadcast are replaced with sound alike songs by unknown artists because the owners of the TV shows would have to pay to original artists a significant amount of money. Here in LA, when I got my start for years, I worked in the "song replacement" racket. But no matter what the scenario is here, even for song replacement..... the composer or writer GETS PAID.
In the modern era with downloads, there is no stable way to get paid from your songs being used. The goal of this (FLAWED) legislation is to allow content owners to get paid once again for their intellectual property. Since the internet is by nature unregulated (unlike radio and all forms of broadcast and print media) its impossible to monitor content, at least it is today. So the only recourse is to bring the access providers into the equation to figure out a way to bring some fairness into the equation for the people that own intellectual property. While I dont support THIS legislation, the issue that it highlights MUST be dealt with at some point.
I really have no idea how to approach this but I do know this: there NEEDS to be fairness. Everyone needs to have some empathy for the small time composer, musician, writer, photographer, painter, etc...... that has their works used by other people (often at a profit) and they receive nothing. Since the dawn of history, artists have made a LIVING in one way or another. Our culture has a backbone of all forms of art that makes ALL of our lives better. But we are small business owners too!! That is a point in which no one can argue. Just remember that when you oppose legislation like this simply because you want to continue to use the content thats "out there" for free, you are going against corporations FOR SURE, but you are ALSO going against millions of artists around the world who are seeing their incomes get lower and lower every year, ironically as much of their work is used more and more, nearly always for free. We are all not lady gaga. she is the 1%. The 99% of artists are people who eek by a living every year doing what they love to do. They need fairness. They currently do not have it.
Put yourselves in our shoes for a second. What if you lived at the end of a long bumpy dirt road that no one drove down. And you grew a beautiful garden in your front yard, full of all of the finest fruits and veggies that the world has ever known. And you tended to your crops, studied the way these were grown and became a master of it. And as your fruits came to bear, each week you took your crops to the farmers market and you were paid for your love and passion. And people loved what you did AND were happy to pay you for your efforts, just as they would have paid a grocer. They were "fans". Then one day, they paved your long dirt road. (the internet). Now all of a sudden, people drive their cars right to your prized garden and help themselves for free to your eden. And when you ask them for payment, they say "i drove my car all the way down here. why should i pay you for something that i can simply reach out and grab myself. Its only one or two apples!! Its not hurting you! why should i meet you in the market and pay you for something that i can pick myself..... even if its right from your yard?" And if you put up a gate that disables people from coming down your driveway, they scream YOU CANT DO THAT!! YOUR FRUIT IS PUBLIC PROPERTY! IT SHOULD ALWAYS BE FREE.
When you steal songs (yes, you are stealing) you are not only giving your middle finger to the man. You are stealing from me and thousands and thousands of other creative minds who deserve to be paid for their skills and passion. Its a crime and everyone MUST be made aware of it. It may take laws but it will CERTAINLY take a change in the state of mind that exists, where people simply think that if something is "out there", its free for the taking.
10:36 PM PT: WOW. Late Friday and I'm just getting back to this. My first time on the rec list. Locked in the studio all day thinking no one would read this!! :). Love all of your comments and the discussion. Will try to comment where in response to your many great points.