pouët.net

Well.. read the whole statement. Seems I can forget about german parties from here on :/

revision - the muted version.

No need to be all pessimistic about this. We fought and won battles in the past, this one is nothing different besides some necessary basic reinventing .
http://theintelhub.com/2013/02/08/european-court-of-human-rights-rules-copyright-monopoly-punishment-a-violation-of-human-rights-prosecutions-to-cease/

Play only my tunes at the party!

This GEMA thing would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad...

I can see no way how using a fake identity, while still being technically illegal, would hurt anyone. Isn't it practically impossible to establish a link between any random set of characters on the internets and a real person?
This, however, may just be my russian habit of questioning the law is speaking.

Stupid laws must be questioned, otherwise they'll stick.

:)
Xerxes: you have been thinking about renaming for quite a while now, haven´t you? this is your chance :)
besides, you are not registered with GEMA, are you? the statement only affects artists who are "entangled" with the GEMA (if I got it right).

I talked about this with the Finnish counterpart Teosto, and they said GEMA shouldn't have the authority to do such composer name checking on behalf of Teosto, it's against international treaties between the associations. But anyway, I terminated my contract with them (with 31.12.2012 being the last day), because this thing is totally beyond my abilities and interests. I was getting something like 10€ a year from Teosto, so not a big deal.

I can understand why the contracts cover all compositions. It's to protect all members collectively just like a labour union. Big companies and the industry will always protect their interests, but individual composers and lyricists alone are in a much worse bargaining position. The problem with the copyright associations, GEMA in this case, is however that they seem to have become just another greedy beast with no sense of proportion.

Sir, correct.. I am not a member of GEMA. But I think GEMA is in association with a lot of other countries similar organizations.. so hence I would still be affiliated. There was an incident at Evoke about this :) And changing my handle, which I have wanted yes hehe.. would not change anything as they clearly state you can not release under a different handle. So basically I am banned from participating at Revision under any circumstances.. which is a bummer and probably keeps me home during easter instead :(

Bugger, this could make my Dj set a tad complicated or simply unbraodcastable!

xrs: if you're unclear about TONOs affiliation with GEMA - please check with them explicitly how this works between those two associations.

As for you handle of course you can change it and release under a different one. Keep in mind that we need to submit all the real names of the artists to GEMA.

By the way, I'm sure that giant media companies will gladly see the copyright associations' power diminish and composers (humans) become their cattle. Divide et impera.

D-Fox: I am not unclear about this. GEMA gave Evoke shit about this a couple of years ago. So GEMA has my name in their database.. so yes, they OWN me and basically drives me away from the german side of the demoscene. Not fair.

xrs: have you tried discussing this with TONO?

xrs: You did read the fine print, didn't you? They also owns all your tracks you have ever composed or ever will, no matter if you update them to database or not. If you add them to database there is slight change you can get some money out of them.

They don't OWN you, you just gave them right to supervise playing of your own music for your own behalf.

There should be same kind of agreement there is with game musics. If i do soundtrack for game, no money is collected.

Music competition is grey line, but demo/intro/game compos should be quite equivalent.

dfox, what could I tell them? Could I somehow get a statement from them that allows me to enter the competition? Would something like that help? :)

rebb, i understand.. and i guess it is good that it is like that. but i should be able to sign a waiver and disclaim association with GEMA for a single event.. after all, their job is looking after my interest. not their own.

xrs: I don't know. As far as it stands, that's not possible - but try it, please.

Hmmm... since this starts to make some people thinking about not going to Revision, I'd like to know if there's anything the "general" demo-scener could do to help out in any way.

Not that I have any brilliant ideas myself, the only thing I can figure from the discussions at hand is that gema-connected artists will have to use another person to release/hand in their work for the compos - eg. a musician that is not connected to GEMA.

This is not really a great solution, though.

I have wrote to the GEMA today...
Feel free and translate.

Guten Tag,

Immer wieder höre ich, dass Gema-Mitglieder nicht in der Lage sind, gemafreie Musik anzubieten. Bislang hielt ich dies für einen Mythos, welcher mir aber durch einen Gemabrief widerlegt wurde.

Darin heißt es:

"Das einzelne Herauslösen von Werken aus dem Gesamtschaffen (cherry picking) ist einem GEMA-Mitglied nicht gestattet, denn dies gefährdet die in der kollektiven Rechtewahrnehmung begründete Interessenvertretung der Verwertungsgesellschaften."

In der heutigen Zeit ist es nicht immer gegeben, HITS zu produzieren wovon ein Komponist leben kann. Dazu ist der Wettbewerb einfach zu groß geworden. Kleinere unbekanntere Produzenten suchen nach Alternativen wozu auch das Veröffentlichen von gemafreier Musik zählt. Ebenso ist für Komponisten interessant, Musik für die "Game-Industrie" zu schaffen welche möglichst auch gema frei sein sollte. Darüber hinaus
gibt es sogenannte Festivals der "digitalen Computer Kultur" zu der auch ich mich hingezogen fühle. Auch diese Festivals präsentieren gemafreie Werke in ihren "Demos" und Computerpräsentationen auf diesen Veranstaltungen. Dazu zählt auch das Auftreten als Act mit den freien Kompositionen.

Ich bitte deshalb um ein Statement zu der Sache. Ich bin seit 1999 Mitglied bei der Gema und möchte selbst entscheiden, welche Kompositionen von mir durch die Gema überwacht werden und welche nicht. Die Freiheit zur Entscheidung dessen steht jedem Menschen frei zumal durch die GEMA hier eine art Ausschluss vom Wettbewerb gerade im Bereich der Game-Kompositionen statt findet. Ich bitte darum, dass diese Regelung für die Zukunft überdacht und gelockert wird.

mfg...

I wonder what happens if the organizers say they just do not know who made the music? I mean, an anonymous music compo. Set up a collection bin where people can drop a USB memory stick containing their music entry, no names anywhere. Names are not known, and will not be found out or announced ever. You can only guess who made what. So it's just songs competing, not people. I'd like to take part in such a compo.

yzl: if we'd do that, we have to pay the complete fee, since it is "not believable" that we'll play no music by registered artists at all. It's a new thing called the "GEMA Vermutung".

But what about the old scene tradition of name voting :(

djh0ffman: Well how about "silent music compo (also known as "namevoting compo". No music just tune names and handles shown on screen.

Puryx: as of now, there are just two options that come to mind:

1) increase the entrance fee by 10 euros
2) spend our money reserved for competition prizes in favor of the "everything allowed" license fee

Not considering the fact, that we currently don't have any competition prizemoney to give away since we're still searching for more sponsors.

And no, we won't do either :) At least not to pay for GEMA. If something like this is going to happen, it'll be to add features and fun to Revision or to cover our basic costs.