ASCAP War On Free Culture Escalates 335
Posted
by
kdawson
from the so's-yer-old-man dept.
from the so's-yer-old-man dept.
An anonymous reader writes "After ASCAP declared war on free culture and Creative Commons responded on the incident, the war of words is escalating. Drew Wilson of ZeroPaid has been following this story closely. The EFF responded to the ASCAP letter, saying 'we don't think that ASCAP characterized EFF and its work accurately. We believe that artists should be compensated for their work, and one proposal we have for that is Voluntary Collective Licensing.' The response from the EFF came with a study and a letter written by one irate ASCAP member who donated to the EFF and to Public Knowledge as a result of the ASCAP letter. Public Knowledge also responded to the letter, saying, 'It's obvious that the characterization of Public Knowledge is false. Public Knowledge advocates for balanced copyright and an open Internet the empowers creators and the public. What we oppose are overreaching policies proposed by large corporate copyright holders that punish lawful users of technology and copyrighted works.' Now the National Music Publishers Association has weighed in to support ASCAP, saying that organizations like Public Knowledge and the EFF 'have an extremist radical anti-copyright agenda,' according to a transcript of a speech posted on Billboard. Public Knowledge has dismissed those allegations, saying 'anybody who has spent more than five minutes on our website or talking to our staff knows that these things are not true.'"
The EFF is just a tool of the hardware guys (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Buffer Copies? (Score:3, Funny)
everybody has a right to their opinion. the ASCAP believes that the invisible pink unicorn are real, even though nobody is seeing or hearing them. or are you one of those who thinks if a tree falls in the woods it makes no sound unless there's someone there to hear it?
you, sir, are the perfect example of a radical extreme terrorist! the way you say "invisible pink unicorn" makes me think that you don't even like unicorns, so you are obviously a very bad man.
the dollar bill says "In God we trust". and everybody pays for dollar bills. why shouldn't you pay for the invisible unicorn copies?
In fact, I will propose that they start asking for royalties from people who think about songs. I mean... the church says you are not allowed to think about adultery, so it's obvious that thinking matters, and you should pay for it.
Two Words (Score:3, Funny)
Untapped revenue. All your sound waves (and their reflections) are belong to us!
Re:Buffer Copies? (Score:3, Funny)
You'd better just hope that you don't listen to your music someplace that has an echo or you'll really need to pay. And if you watch a video on your smartphone in one of those store dressing rooms with mirrors on opposing walls (creating an "infinite" array of reflections) you'll go bankrupt pretty quickly.
Re:John Perry Barlow (Score:4, Funny)
Yes, and that's why Metallica are sell-outs and their music has been all down hill since they kicked out Dave Mustaine
Re:Radical extremists? (Score:3, Funny)
It's practically impossible for you to create your own content without infringing on some copyright that we already own (since we own a copyright on practically anything that has been created or will be created), we are therefore protecting you from yourself by prohibiting you from giving away things for free. If you're a composer, you cannot create music without using at least one two-note sequence that we've already copyrighted. Very similar for books. We clearly have a copyright to the phrase "he said." And movies? Forget it. all the plots have been done already. We own them all. Pay up. It's only fair.
We're happy to negotiate a fair, royalty-based copyright license so you can release your derivative works. But to release your works for free is clearly not fair to us and not fair to our consumers. I mean your audience. We know you are an honest artist and will cooperate in our efforts to enrich the lives of every one of our members. I mean society as a whole.