Music Piracy = Old Dogs and New Tricks

This is gross.  If you are not familiar with Helium, it is an online knowledge base and writer's hub that allows users to chime in with their opinions on a number of topics.  I happened across the piracy topic and cant say that I am surprised by the voter's outcome.  I'm not sure how our society decided that just because things are easier to share and get for free that they should be free.  This  will continue to perplex me.  If you want to chime in and let your opinion be heard, go here and vote!  The only way to solve this problem is to keep educating people.

Ok- Story time:  Recently this discussion happened at my house.  I will use an alias to protect the guilty party.

Sammy Steal's Alot: Hey Emily...  I love that song

Emily:  Yeah it is pretty cool.  Randall got it off of eMusic.

Sammy Steals Alot:  Oh awesome.  Can you burn it for me?  Or copy it onto my ipod?

Emily: Um...NO.

Sammy Steals Alot: Why Not?

Emily: Um... you DO realize how my husband makes a living don't you?  You do realize that the music industry is hemorrhaging from illegal online and offline file sharing don't you?   You do realize this is how these people put food on their tables don't you??

Sammy Steals Alot: Uh... oh.  Sorry.

I am pretty sure this kind of conversation happens in many families.  The only difference is we don't "share" music... not even with blood relatives... and I would bet most do.  Sad.

“It’s totally cool if I only use 00:30 seconds- that’s not infringement”

This is a phrase I hear all too often.  For some reason, this has been ingrained into our heads throughout the years...  The idea that doing something wrong is fine if you do less of something that is wrong is preposterous to me.  That is like thinking that speeding in your car is OK if you only go 10 miles over the limit rather than 15... speeding is speeding and copyright infringement is copyright infringement. The proper legal term for this is "de minimis" use.  Or in the long form latin, "de minimis non curat lex" -meaning the law does not care about trivial things.  This is in fact a common defense to a law suit (much like it's more overused big brother Fair Use).  This is not a RIGHT... but a DEFENSE.  There is a big difference in these two words.

De Minimis VS  Infringement

photocopying a cartoon and putting it on the fridge = de minimis

photocopying a cartoon and placing it in an advertisement or displaying it publicly even in a very trivial way= infringement

So how does this apply to musical recordings...?  The fact is, the de minimis rule does NOT apply to sound recordings.  As decided by the Sixth Circuit court of appeals in Bridgeport Music Inc. VS Dimension Films.  The use of any part of a sound recording in sampling or otherwise is infringement.  Whether you agree or not, this is in fact the law now.

For more information on this and other topics in copyright infringement check out this page

Bottom line is-  if you are going to use music in any length, way , or form-  Pay the owner of the intellectual property.

Piracy as it affects "serious" songwriters and composers

Recently after reading the blog of my friend, John Mackey (one of the most talented young composers for band I have ever known) I learned of the plight that so many composers and songwriters go through facing internet piracy.  So often, because of the size and bulldog tactics of the R.I.A.A. we think of piracy only in terms of lost CD sales and missing download revenue.  There is an entirely different side of the coin.  The writers and composers of the music contained therein are also missing their monies derived from these sales... this is a quite unfortunate by-product of the loss of recorded music sales.  Even more disturbing though is the growth of sheet music "sharing" sites that facilitate the piracy of their actual written work.  Not being a composer or publisher myself, this is an area of the business I hadn't thought of in terms of piracy, but it deserves equal ground with the chest pounding and lawsuit wielding recorded music battle for legal downloads and sales. John mentioned a composer he likes named Jason Robert Brown.  I personally had not heard of him, but that rarely means much in the musical world.  After going to Jason's blog, I find a most fascinating account of his back and forth with an infringer!  Imagine that, rather than suing her... he spoke to her... tried to educate her... (some people are beyond education).  This was a really unique approach to dealing with piracy.  tackling it one person at a time.  Imagine if Metallica had called on a few pirates back in 2002... WOW what a news story that would have been...  anyways I digress.  I continued reading the rest of this back and forth and becomes quickly apparent that she might be beyond education... the point though is he reached out to her and a number of other infringers and simply explained that he makes a living off of his music and politely asked them to stop sharing... and many of them did!!!!   Reading his story also led me to his wife's blog.  She is fighting the same fight as a composer and from what I can tell has been a bit more outspoken on the subject.  I think this is GREAT.  More composers need to get involved in "the good fight".  I have said for years but educating the general public is the key to thwarting this habit of stealing our intellectual property.

To do my part, I have done some searching and below is a list of LEGAL / PAID download sites to acquire sheet music.  Do your part.

www.FreehandMusic.com

www.jwpepper.com

www.musicnotes.com

www.load.cd

What is Sound Exchange?

Very good question.  Most of us know Sound Exchange is the digital PRO created to deal with royalties generated over the internet and through digital music devices, however it is still quite vague to a vast majority of the musicians and writers what EXACTLY Sound Exchange does. Thanks to Youtube, these questions can now be answered in 2:26 .

Enjoy