TeledyN: CMCC: Stop suing our fans!

CMCC: Stop suing our fans!

Saturday, February 3, 2007

Nielsen numbers say our digital download market grew 120% last year, dwarfing the market growth in Digitally Restrictive markets like Europe (80%) or, worse still, the copy-restricted spooked market in the United States (65%). So why, asks the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, are foreign music labels still pressuring Ottawa to stifle fan-sharing? Why, they ask, do you sue our fans?

"The CMCC sees the 2006 sales numbers -- and the continuing success of the private copying scheme -- as a sign that there's no need to change Canada's copyright laws to enable record companies to sue our fans. Our music download market is growing faster than those in the US and Europe. To us, that seems like evidence that the Canadian government should focus on empowering Canadian musicians and protecting Canadian consumers from potentially harmful technology."
[ CMCC Congratulates Industry on Unparalleled Growth ]

Keep in mind too that these figures and concerns are for the Recording Industry, which, despite the rhetoric, is not the same thing as the Music Industry; the music biz, the business of musicians and songwriters and composers and arrangers and all sorts of singers of song and all the folks who make the gear, lessons, accessories and gadgets for their craft, that industry is doing exceedingly well. Globally.

They all say it's because people now carry music with them wherever they go, so they have lots of time to explore all kinds of new and interesting things, and lots more time to enjoy the mound of stuff they had, a mound that folks like Microsoft and Apple would dearly love to chain to one spot with draconian DRM.

When DRM Doesn't Matter

There's that scene at the end of Jim Henson's Labyrinth where the Goblin King confronts our heroine, and she realizes, "You have no power over me." and the entire scary castle flies apart, shattered and ineffectual.

DRM is obsolete, a non-concept in a TeledyN Hypercubic Computing Reality where my music and your music isn't really a posession, it is only an access right, invoked anywhere, at any time, no need to store jewel cases, no need to lug milk-crates of vinyl, no need to sync-up or back-up and no need to trade. Everything ever recorded by anyone, the audio-visual wikipedia; at a penny a listen or less, think about it, that works out on average to the same cost as you now pay for your tangible product listening habits, some of which you play to death, some of which you never played again.

Only, if it was a truly open catalog (and not the partisan corporate buddy dealings we have today) and if the cost was more transparent than a local phone-call, why would you ever need to 'own' the sound? What matters is the listening.

But that's for tomorrow's world -- for today, we'll have to endure the fights and just hope folks like the CMCC can stay the dragons while we all wait for the sunrise.

Submitted by mrG on Sat, 2007-02-03 10:16.

mrG's blog
3707 reads

Perhaps they can slay

Submitted by mrG on Thu, 2007-06-21 21:00.

Perhaps they can slay dragons! This just in from the CMCC mailing list:

CMCC Members Clean Up at Much Music Video Awards: Sam Roberts, Avril Lavigne and Billy Talent further proof that musicians can succeed without supporting lawsuits

For Immediate Release: Montreal, June 21, 2007

More than one third of the Much Music Video Awards (MMVAs) handed out in Toronto June 17th went to members of the Canadian Music Creators Coalition.

Six of the seventeen MMVAs went to CMCC members including Billy Talent (who won awards for Best Video and Muchloud Best Rock Video for Fallen Leaves and People's Choice award for Favourite Canadian Group), Avril Lavigne (who won Best International Video by a Canadian; and the People's Choice award for Favourite Canadian Artist) and Sam Roberts (whose post-production team went home with the Best Post-Production MMVA for Bridge to Nowhere).

"It just shows that some of Canada's most popular and most successful artists believe there are better ways of managing the music business than suing music fans," said Broken Social Scene Member and CMCC Co-founder Brendan Canning. "The government is reportedly working on changing Canada's copyright law. We hope they get the message."

For comment from the Canadian Music Creators Coalition, please contact Brendan Canning via CMCC Communications (514) 867-8337. More information about the CMCC is available at www.musiccreators.ca.

About the Canadian Music Creators Coalition

The CMCC is a coalition of nearly 200 Canadian acts who share the common goal of having our voices heard about the laws and policies that affect our livelihoods. Our membership rolls boast dozens of household names including Avril Lavigne, Sarah McLachlan, Broken Social Scene, Matthew Good, Metric, Randy Bachman, Billy Talent, Sloan, Chantal Kreviazuk, Sum 41, Stars, Raine Maida (Our Lady Peace), The New Pornographers, Bill Henderson (Chilliwack), Ronnie King (The Stampeders), Dave Bidini (Rheostatics), John K. Samson (Weakerthans), Three Days Grace, Andrew Cash and Sam Roberts. We are the people who actually create Canadian music. Without us, there would be no music for copyright laws to protect. **

Until recently, a group of multinational record labels has done most of the talking about what Canadian artists need out of copyright and cultural policy. The labels' legislative proposals facilitate lawsuits against fans and increase the labels' control over the enjoyment of music. These proposals have the labels' interests at heart not artists' interests, not fans' interests, and certainly not Canada's interests. The CMCC grew out of our common desire to speak out in Canadian copyright and cultural policy debates. The CMCC is united under three key principles:

Suing Our Fans is Destructive and Hypocritical -- Artists do not want to sue music fans. The labels have been suing our fans against artists' will, and laws enabling these suits cannot be justified in artists' names.

Digital Locks are Risky and Counterproductive -- Artists do not support using digital locks to increase the labels' control over the distribution, use and enjoyment of music or laws that prohibit circumvention of such technological measures. Consumers should be able to transfer the music they buy to other formats under a right of fair use, without having to pay twice.

Cultural Policy Should Support Actual Canadian Artists -- The vast majority of new Canadian music is not promoted by major labels, which focus mostly on foreign artists. The government should use other policy tools to support actual Canadian artists and a thriving musical and cultural scene.

Hi I fully agree in the need

Submitted by a stranger on Tue, 2007-11-27 22:02.

I fully agree in the need of allowing people to enjoy whatever music they choose to listen to, and artists to perform their Works freely. Laws should Project both groups, as it is their desire, but we all know labels have the Money…

___________________
Submited by : Caballos

Aye, Caballos, you and I, we

Submitted by mrG on Wed, 2008-04-23 07:24.

Aye, Caballos, you and I, we have money too, and collectively considerably more of it, and thus our money carries a pretty hefty vote when you add it all up.

Friends don't let friends buy RIAA-member product

if we shift where we put those dollars, you can bet your bottom one that the record execs will change their tunes long before they give up their lattes and BMWs.

Post new comment