pouët.net

Punqtured: Why would it be illegal? We're not talking piracy here - the music would be distributed from Revision's servers with the knowledge and consent of the copyright holder. As far as I'm aware, GEMA are not (yet) trying to impose restrictions on how members choose to distribute their music; only on public performance.

I agree with your general point, though... while it's fun to talk about loopholes as a kind of thought experiment (well, "fun" if you're a copyright nerd like me) I don't seriously advocate trying it in reality. As stupid as these regulations may be, trolling GEMA isn't going to do us any favours.

Well, at least as a member of GEMA you are not allowed to distribute your music under a CC license, which I would expect many people to use who are not aware of this problem.

This is making demo development seriously difficult :(

GEMA etc are all about licensing their clients' works in a centralized way. You can't decide on a per-song basis whether it's "in GEMA" or CC license or what. That would ruin the whole idea of being able to license music from a single place, and then music users (big companies, radio stations, tv stations etc) could threaten composers: give your song to me very cheap or free, or otherwise I'll go to some other composer who will. And then it would be like the Lion King song... (well I know it's not as black and white, buf I'm sure everybody here is mentally capable enough to get the point)

Sorry to state the obvious, but such copyright collectives exist for the benefits of artists who actually chose them, signed a contract with full knowledge of:



That such collectives act like degenerate sound mafias is uncorrelated from the righteousness of their claim.

yzi, ponce:
even if you want the generic "collect royalties" rule to apply (as a professional musician e.g.) why couldnt you decide on a per-song basis anyway?
especially as it works in a centralized way GEMA and its siblings should have databases they look for an author match anyway (i dont think they do this by hand).

so whats the problem in having a "CC/copyleft" list of songs added for every author where he himself can put the exceptions to the generic copyright/fee rule via his account and some web frontend?

yeah right ... you would need some web frontend and a couple of database queries. big deal...

Now we first doing all the POUET.NET Harlem Shake !

POUETED HARLEM SHAKER

let's do a HOODLUM SHAKE against GEMA!

So now everyone's had a good old rant out the rather frustrating copy"wrong" laws in Germania and we all know what to do if we are somehow affiliated with GEMA and want to particiapate by pretending to be our parents...

Who is bringing productions???

ponce: if you're trying to say that copyright collectives are, like all things in life, either black or white, good or evil, and all you need is to be able to blame those who give a finger to the evil side... then I must disagree.

OH NOES FREE-MARKET CAPITALISM

yes indeed, you are a very smart person

.de: Der Typ, der bei der GEMA die Titel eintippt, ist ein ganz blöder Penner

gopher: lets continue the discussion at Revision, I think I'll be feeling less serious at some point during the party

2 random ideas:

1. How's the situation in france? If it's substantially better there it might be an option (france is just 5 kilometers away from the E-Werk). Would also make a good headline: "GEMA scares musicians out of germany" or the like :D

2. Space Night has been officially confirmed to use gema free music starting in a few days. Also, it will be televised at easter saturday starting from 01:45 (actually that's early sunday morning) on BR. An option for revision (provided that BR gives permission)?

Kabuto: errrr... wat!?

Well then, you should really party in Russia, as no one cares about copyright here at all (you'd be surprised at scale), unless you're very-very unlucky, but in fact you're more likely to be hit by a meteorcar on a crosswalk.

Dfox: than dont play the music compo(s) on your own devices/equipment but from some visitor :) (solved ? ;-)

On another thought..

Let's say all revision entries are played/executed in another country (without gema laws) and for example scenesat will broadcast it on the bigscreen at Revision.

technicly a) revision doesnt run anything over there equipement b) its played/executed from another country withough gema laws..

what did we tell you about thinking?

LOL

Afaik, (And this is how i understand it)

the rules are more or less the same in all European countries. If you sign a contract with an Author Society, you give them permission to collect royalties on your behalf. Just like with (for instance) mobile phone operators, these societies all work together across borders. So if your music is played a lot in another country, but not as much in your own, you will still receive royalties from said music being played. (in theory!)

Now, most of these societies will charge "event organizers" based on different things, like how big the hall is and how much people have to pay to get in. In some cases, even the price of the drinks you sell at your event will influence how much you have to pay.

There are generally different formulas available for different types of "events". Eg: restaurants pay a set fee for playing background music all year. Your local soccer team pays a set amount once when they play background music at their yearly fund-raiser. Online radio stations again have another kind of contract etc...

In most cases, your event has to be "registered" a few weeks before the actual event, and you have a few days after the event to provide a list of all the songs/authors you played.

A demoparty the size of revision doesn't fit in with any of the existing formulas expect the big expensive ones like "concert". Revision has chosen to not go the expensive route, and not play any music from people who are registered with aforementioned societies. They still have to tell GEMA that they are organising an event where music will be played, and they still have to provide a list of the songs/performers that where played during the event. If an event organiser fails to mention that a registered artist is going to perform during the event before the event takes place, BANG!, they have to pay a hefty fine.

And don't get any funny ideas about "not mentioning person X played at the party" , GEMA has the right to come and check if you are actually "playing by the book"
(You can however "help another person create a track", but it will be forever his creation if it's released in his/her name, no crawling back if it turns into a million dollar viral hit) If they barge in during Revision and they find that the organisers actively helped playing their clients music on their sound system....It will be the last Revision. (Or they will have to spend a lot of effort to get a pardon, see Evoke)

Please note that signing up with GEMA might be a good idea for most artists, and I hope we don't get any backlash against sceners who -are- connected to GEMA. (Just go look on the site of the Author society in your country, most of them are connected with GEMA/BIEM) But please also don't blame Revision for choosing to keep the price down.
(Amazing fact: not all sceners can afford Revision and the trip, that's why i think it's good they offer subsidized tickets.)

On top of all that comes the "license" (permission to play stuff) which is a separate thing altogether. You might have listed that one catchy Nelly Furtado song as being played at your event and nicely pay your bills, ...but you downloaded it (and all kinds of other stuff) illegally from the interwebz? ... and proof of you doing so turns up... BANG! (Or WHAM! , I don't know what sound it makes when that happens) But, yeah, no more party :(

...Or i might be talking out of my ass of course. Arse! ARSE I say!

i support the revision decision on this, but really hope there will be some audio anyway :/

what I (believe to) understand is that Revision needs to sum up all the real names of all the contributors to all the compos.

what I (still) don´t get is how collecting and summing up names that are even a 100% not affiliated with the GEMA might "outrule" the "GEMA-Vermutung" (might make it obsolete)

I read some stuff about that today and if I understood all the crap correctly, the situation is that the GEMA never ever will believe that an event as huge as Revision is/will be _won`t_ feature any music from artists affiliated with GEMA and/or their siblings. (That is actually the _basis_ of the "GEMA-Vermutung"!)

So, if they are not generally demanding the (said) ca. 7000€ for the "all-you-can-listen-to"-fee, how do they actually charge/estimate (in advance or afterwards) the fee that they demand for the event and that would be base on the "Vermutung"?

It's really simple, Sir. You're right about GEMA (or any siebling organisation) genreally expecting an event the size of Revision to contain at least some amount of music by GEMA-members. Therefore - Revision organizers have to prove - music piece by music piece - who the author is. They have to do so, not by handles or bandnames, but by real names (and in some cases, even social security numbers)

So Revision organizers send them the list of music played throughout the party, and if just a single hit against the GEMA-member database is found, they not only pay for that piece of music or the all-you-can-listen-to-fee, but also (as stated elsewhere) a rather hefty fine.

Tolle really managed to sum everything up very nicely.
And to GEMA members, that falsely believe they have to register each track they want GEMA to handle rights for, you need to understand the two-step-process:

GEMA collects for ANY work created by it's members (past and present). Those money stay in the vault at GEMA who once a year distributes all collected money to their registered members. What happens if a GEMA memeber registers a track, is that any profit GEMA collected from that particular track, is no longer put in the large pool of money, but instead directed to the member that registered the track.

The flow of money would be:
Public -> *listens to music and pay* -> GEMA -> *if track is registered* -> Artist *else* -> Huge collective pool of money to be distributed once a year.

I once were member of the danish equivalent of GEMA (called KODA back then, NCB today) and what really frightened me, was how difficult it was to get out again. Joining was as simple as a walk in the park - fill out a form, mail it to them and voila - I was a member. Free of charge. However, getting out proved to be a real pain that costs extreme amounts of time and effort. Contrary to the smooth process of joining, exiting required written, signed and mailed documents back and forth, and when I finally managed to make them accept my resignation, there turned out to be a 1 year period of still being member before I was finally out. Oh - and that year naturally started on the next following january 1st. so in practice, I was member almost 1½ year after I left. That's actually a lot more scary than their means of collecting money, I think!