THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE JUST FOR YOUR SMILE!
Unless I pay the PROs to insure my copyright they don't represent me, so they can't charge a venue on my behalf. That would be up to me alone to decide. How can things change so much that I don't have ownership of my own material?
THE WORLD IS A BETTER PLACE JUST FOR YOUR SMILE!
If someone copyrights a traditional tune they are copyrighting the arrangement, not the tune. Unless you follow the arrangement very closely you are not infringing on the copyright. No one is going to make a court case out of whether or not you are playing a copyrighted arrangement of a traditional song at a Farmer's Market. Just find a version that says it is traditional or find it on a list of public domain tunes to show the venue if they ask.
As others have said, ASCAP and BMI are not trying to hurt artists. They are trying to see they get paid for their work. My understanding is they are very negotiable on their fees. Generally they are happy to get something as most venues ignore them.
I agree with David Brown; two years ago, a SESAC rep happened into a place I played, and warned the owner. His message was only PD or original. Nothing came of the visit, no letters or further communication. I think he was in the area on vacation. I am a BMI member (proud to say I was recruited by Del Bryant), and support the mission of the PROs. I don't get any income from them though...maybe I should write better songs.
Dave
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From BMI website:
"Unlike some performing right organizations, joining BMI as a songwriter is free. There are no fees or annual dues of any kind for songwriters and composers."
You do need to pay to be a publisher.
Thank you very much!
Do you have your material on CD Baby and such?
I'm not hearing the similarity, so I guess we're just hearing it differently. Either way, you're mentioning the composer of The Sleeping Tune by name, and calling him a genius (I'd agree). How is that possible, if composers don't matter, and we're all just playing variations? Can't have it both ways.
How wide do you want to stretch that window? So... everything we're writing here in the forum is equivalent to the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, or Twain, and we don't need to honor those names, because we're all writing in English and the words are just variations?It is difficult, if not impossible, to compose anything today that's not a version * of something else.
Just my view on it: In the context of an ITM pub session, I'd call a "version" equivalent to the word "setting" as used on thesession.org tune database. Several different settings may exist for many of the more popular tunes, depending how the person contributing heard the tune. Different keys/modes, slightly altered notes, more or fewer parts for the tune. But the tune name(s) remain the same, and the composer is mentioned, if known.(*) still waiting for a definition of what exactly a version is, i.e. independent of resemblances firing in people's heads.
There are some cases where tunes are extremely similar, and that's usually mentioned. Sometimes there is a known legacy, like the way Junior Crehan wrote the jig version of "Mist Covered Mountains" based on the much older Scottish air of the same name. Other tunes are more easily recognized as distinct, individual tunes with their own character (and a composer name, if known). Nobody confuses "Cup of Tea" with "Toss the Feathers." They don't sound like different settings of the same tune.
You seem to be using "version" in a wider sense beyond setting, where all Irish trad tunes are just versions of each other, because nothing is truly original. And by extension, we don' t need to honor the contribution of composers. As you said earlier, "a composer is somebody who takes money for something we do for free." I don't see it that way.
Composers matter, but we are all composing to a degree, we all matter. And none is attending a session with a lawyer in tow, like they had invented penicillin and saved the world. That is my point. Honoring a musician must be voluntary, not enforced.
the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world
Nobody is forcing the musicians to do anything! Licensing is an issue for the owner of the venue. We musicians can ignore it completely when we walk into a pub session.
Where it affects us, is when a venue is lost because the owner can't, or won't pay a music license. I hate that as much as anyone, and I've seen places in my area closed to live music as a result. It sucks, but it's a result of the umbrella nature of the licensing setup, which doesn't discriminate between current Pop music and material that's largely PD. I wish it were different. We can probably agree as far as licensing goes.
Where we disagree, is this notion that ITM tunes are somehow all versions of each other, and that's why composers shouldn't take money for something we casual sessionistas do for free. I just don't think "we all matter" to the extent that I'd ever compare myself to the ITM composers I respect deeply, and whose names have entered the tradition as well as their tunes. So I guess we'll just agree to disagree on that.
David B: Thanks for asking.
Do you have your material on CD Baby and such?[/QUOTE]
Some, but, fair warning, I am vocally challenged.
Maria singing -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmO_DEt6t7U -- Opposite Way
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lHChpr6EYjc -- Time Machine (co-write with Hal Pettit)
Me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0sW5VQ23Yg -- Some Guy From Texas
https://store.cdbaby.com/cd/martindavid -- done while on chemo
https://www.reverbnation.com/davemartinsantafe -- basically work tapes
I checked my cdbaby royalty status, and I am getting $0.00091 per digital play from , Amazon, Spotify, Yandex, Google, a few others.
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David Hopkins
2001 Gibson F-5L mandolin
Breedlove Legacy FF mandolin; Breedlove Quartz FF mandolin
Gibson F-4 mandolin (1916); Blevins f-style Octave mandolin, 2018
McCormick Oval Sound Hole "Reinhardt" Mandolin
McCormick Solid Body F-Style Electric Mandolin; Slingerland Songster Guitar (c. 1939)
The older I get, the less tolerant I am of political correctness, incompetence and stupidity.
And therein lies the irony.
The songs we want to play are popular because they were played for enough years to become popular and without the excessive lawyering that goes on today. Now, new artists will have a hard time getting their songs played enough to become popular enough for us to pay for the lawyering.
Bite the hand, unfortunately, is how I see it.
BTW, I am probably going to change my band's name to: The Off Copyrighters.
"Those who know don't have the words to tell, and the ones with the words don't know so well." - Bruce Cockburn
I guess so, and this is why:
Our perception is different, obviously, and there is no way around that. We can't outsmart our wirings.
When it comes to similarity, I am with Rob Paravonian and once even did an experiment (sorry, bad vid quality) to prove his point to myself. To me, much music is similar, even across genres, and I have deja vues every day.
Well, literature is not music, written words are written and give no leeway for fuzzy similarity. I do like to quote Shakespeare, I am careful to not change a word and to declare it as a quote when I do; and yes, I plan to honor the name of whoever wrote Shakespeare's plays as soon as they find out who that really was.
Last edited by Bertram Henze; Mar-01-2018 at 3:10am.
the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world
Any good intent can be turned into the opposite by overdoing it. The process can eat you.
the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world
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