A Modest Proposal
Came across this tongue-in-cheek proposal for “eternal copyright” discussing the “benefits”, implications, etc. The real purpose, of course, is to showcase how ridiculous the current copyright laws are.
You’ll find it at NEWSgrist.
Supreme Court Restores Copyright to Foreign Works
A good article, by Is That Legal, explaining the Supreme Court decision in Golan v. Holder, that congress has the right to restore copyright protection to foreign works that were previously in the public domain.
Read the article here.
How Copyright Extension is Harming Classical Music
The EU decided to retroactively extend copyright from 50 to 75 years, with no evidence that this was needed or useful. There has been very little discussion of the harm this causes, and what discussion there has been has focused on the world of rock and pop music. But it has an even more negative impact on classical music, especially old recordings of classical music.
See the theguardian article: the festival bubble and the music copyright extension.
more web site problems
Well I’m not having much luck. Today, I lost a router.
The short version is, as a result, the website was down for at least 4 hours that I’m sure of, maybe longer. I think I’ve got things cobbled together and everything appears to be working again, but this is sort of a temporary solution to keep me up and running. I’m going to have to give a long term solution some thought.
New bill makes unauthorized streaming a felony
Late last week, Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and John Cornyn (R-TX) introduced a bill that would make the unauthorized streaming of copyrighted material a felony.
Under current law, “reproducing” and “distributing” copyrighted works are felony charges and covered under peer-to-peer transfers and Web downloads. But streaming has been considered “public performance” rather than “distribution” – and holding a public performance without a proper license is not a felony. This bill, S. 978, adds “public performance” to the list of felonies.
Online streamers can now face up to 5 years in prison and a fine in cases where:
- They show 10 or more “public performances” by electronic means in any 180-day period and
- The total retail value of those performances tops $2500 or the cost of licensing such performances is greater than $5000
William and Kate and harmony
So this is a post about William and Kate’s wedding you aren’t likely to see anywhere else.
If you saw William and Kate’s wedding (and who didn’t?) you heard some very nice music.
One piece you heard was John Rutter’s “This is the Day”, written especially for the service.
Fairly traditional, but with some nice little twists that made it just a bit different, just a bit more contemporary. Just what was it that gave it that slightly modern flavor?
First, let’s look at a standard final chord progression (click on the scores to listen):
The first bar doesn’t matter. The idea is that some key is already established, in this case, Ab Major. The bracketed part is what is important. Also, the chord symbols are simplified, I’m only indicating the root motion and the basic chord quality. So the above is pretty standard fair, found in a lot of hymns and songs.
A slightly stronger version sounds like this:
The other day, I was listening to British composer Malcolm Williamson. Here’s what he did in one of his anthems:
Really nice. He’s dipping into Ab minor for a moment here. The V, Eb Major, is shared; it exists in both Ab harmonic minor and Ab Major and sort of bridges between the two.
Notice the root motion: a Major 2nd up ( iv -> V), followed by the traditional 5th down ( V -> I). That’s one of the ways you can tell it’s not my work. I tend to reverse those two motions, avoiding the traditional motion at the end. Like this:
So the 5th downward comes first ( iv -> bVII ), then the Major 2nd up ( bVII -> I ). The dip into Ab minor is firmly established as natural minor by the bVII, then the reversal back to major at the end (no ‘bridge’ needed!).
So now we’re ready to talk about John Rutter’s “This is the Day”. Of course, I haven’t seen the score, but I think I heard the essential harmonies correctly. At the end, a lesser composer would have written:
Again, the cadences in question are in brackets. Above, we have all 5th-down root motion: ii – V – I. Perfectly fine, but traditional enough to border on the trite. Below is what Rutter actually did:
All Major-second-up root motion. Makes a big difference doesn’t it? This is one of my favorite cadences. I use it all the time, and it works in many contexts. Traditional, yet modern at the same time.
So now you know.
RIAA: LimeWire owes $75 trillion
The music industry thinks LimeWire should pay $75 trillion in damages for their copyright infringement claim. The judge in the case, Judge Kimba Wood, has called this request “absurd”.
The current US GDP is about 14 trillion, less than 1/5th the damages requested. In fact, the GDP of the entire world is somewhere between $59 and $62 trillion in US dollars. So the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) is, to quote Judge Wood, “suggesting an award that is more money that the entire music recording industry has made since Edison’s invention of the phonograph in 1877.”
Music files not restored yet
Welcome
Glad you could drop by. My name is Stan Cording and I’m a composer and pianist.
I’ve finally posted some music again. The last time I had some music here it ended up all over the web.
I don’t want to make people register or give me their email, just prove they’re not a bot or a web crawler.
I found some nice functions (not the usual Captcha) that do that for posting comments, etc., but not for protecting pages or links. Looks like I’ll have to write it myself when I have time.
Meanwhile, I found another solution that ought to work for a while (I hope), so the music is back!
performance copyright
As overall recording sales continue to fall, 8% last year according to IFPI, the IFPI and other lobbying groups are trying to raise what were secondary sources of income, royalty payments from performance rights. Payments from performance royalties rose 16% last year, and the IFPI is lobbying hard to double performance royalties.
A recent copyright settlement in Australia now results in 50 cents per nightclub customer being paid to the PPCA, and is scheduled to double ($1.05) soon. The PPCA argument is “if there was no music, there would be no nightclub”. The PPCA is now going after fitness clubs, wanting much larger royalties from them for playing music in their classes. And they have tariffs for nearly every conceivable situation, from playing music video clips in electronics and hi-fi stores for demonstration purposes to the music that is played to telephone callers on hold. No matter what your business, if you are making money, and recorded music is involved in any way, they want a slice of your pie.
These kind of royalties don’t exist in the US yet. But there is extensive lobbying going on to try to get it started, and congress may pass some kind of performance rights bill by the end of this year. Radio stations in the US pay royalties, but only to the songwriter, the record company and the performers don’t get royalties. There are plenty of people who would like to change that. A bill sponsored by Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat, Michigan, would result in radio stations paying royalties to record companies and the performing artists.
Meanwhile, some Australian and european nightclubs are threatening to play only American recordings, with American musicians, in order to avoid paying the royalties.
Whatever the final shakeout in these royalty battles, it looks like big changes in royalty payments and maybe even performances themselves, will result.