Good Copy Bad Copy - What Constitutes Fair Use?

A fabricated star would be someone presented as a star but is anything but. What you probably meant to say is manufactured stars, since they grab people with a bit of singing talent and then mold their image into star material. Big deal.

There is no one Mega Label which oversees all contracts and dominates distribution in all retail outlets. An artist can always take his talents to another label to find a better deal. This is not entirely one-sided, and I'm really finding it hard to shed a tear for people that make 5-10% out of millions. The real money is in concert sales anyways.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Well, neither do I. The thing is that it's well within their rights to sue for plagiarism, since they can claim ownership, just like it's well within the rights of an artist to negotiate with another company.

Record labels aren't just one guy with a record press, they require a lot of effort and costs have to be factored in across multiple services and markets. The Evil Record Companies can claim the lion's share of profits because they do the lion's share of work.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by Sassafrass

That's funny.

Hey, I'm a funny guy.

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Without the artist, they wouldn't have a product to sell. They may market the fuck out of their artist and produce a record, provide studios, and so on - but they're not required

Yeah, it's not required to produce millions of copies and spend millions on marketing to sell records, but it is required to sell millions of records.

Whether or not the resultant gains were worth the investment is the label's responsibility to determine the risk. If the band attempted to produce 15,000 copies on their own, and sell them for 10 dollars a copy, they make 150,000 before costs. But with the record deal, a million copies are produced and sold, making a profit of let's say: $6,000,000. If which, the band is entitled to 5% of: $300,000. That is twice the return on what for the band was only a marginally larger expenditure of effort, yet because the band agreed to this trade, you claim that the record company is not entitled to the returns agreed upon.

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And before you come back with "well, without the recording/label companies, the artists wouldn't have a way to produce records," I'm just going to go ahead and tell you that an artist can definitely turn a profit without the companies.

Well, that's their decision to make. Nobody is forcing them to sign the contract.

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There was a day when record labels didn't exist.

And we had to walk 15 miles to school in rain and snow...

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

I think this has a lot more to do with Big Money.

When Timberland plagiarises some obscure Finnish artist's Commodore 64 tracks, it's a terrible indecency, yet when DJ Mix Trick McQuick plagiarises U2 it's a victimless crime.

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Yes Brady, record companies are unfortunately seen by most musicians as a necessary evil. But the last word in that title is still "evil."

Well, you don't have to be smart to be an artist. Anybody who considers an entity which gives them larger returns for the same amount of effort, as an evil has several screws loose.

Also, since Mikey covered everything else:

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He has a point, Brady.

No, he doesn't. Just because this isn't the way things used to be done does not make it worse. It would be like saying that we should've kept using steam engines for cars instead of the internal combustion engine.

Record labels allow artists to make much larger returns on their labor and creativity. If Record Labels provided no benefit to the artist then they would not exist.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

If something is wrong there is no gray area. Gray areas come into play when it is difficult to determine right or wrong, but since we've already assumed that piracy is wrong then it is always wrong.

I was speaking idiomatically.

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According to who, exactly.

Originally Posted by Sassafrass

There's no argument here that piracy, by definition, is wrong.

Aw man I'm funny.

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FELIPE NO

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Teamed up with Brady, 'sup.

ONLY ON PAY-PER-VIEW

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I fail to see why remixing wouldn't also be allowed. If anything, remixing a song is an advanced parody. Just an example.

Not really. Re-mixing takes somebody else's property (or your own), re-arranges it, throw in some additional compositions or phat beets, and claiming the end result as your own.

If the re-mix was made with the consent of the artist and/or the label, then proper credit is given. When permission and credit have not been acquired or given, it's plagiarism.

The reason a re-mix is different from parody, is because parody will use practically the same song, so that the listener intrinsically knows what property is being parodied. While it's still possible to recognize the source material in a re-mix, it's not being used for the purposes of parody.

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Couldn't you then loosely say that chopping up a song to your own tune is a grotesque rendition of the original art, or perhaps say that the mix mocks the dignity of the original source, thus loosely associating it as a parody?

Well, no. Your definition states burlesque, not grotesque.

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burlesque -
–noun
1. an artistic composition, esp. literary or dramatic, that, for the sake of laughter, vulgarizes lofty material or treats ordinary material with mock dignity.
2. any ludicrous parody or grotesque caricature.
3. Also, bur·lesk. a humorous and provocative stage show featuring slapstick humor, comic skits, bawdy songs, striptease acts, and a scantily clad female chorus.
–adjective
4. involving ludicrous or mocking treatment of a solemn subject.
5. of, pertaining to, or like stage-show burlesque.
–verb (used with object)
6. to make ridiculous by mocking representation.
–verb (used without object)
7. to use caricature.

A re-mix does not factor in to the definition of burlesque.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

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It says a lot about a band when they sign a major contract. At least in my view. I don't know about yours.

Maybe if they burned their bras, would that placate you?

Or perhaps if they Kurt Kobain'd?

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Absolutely right. I pirate. Just like you do. But that's apparently "wrong" with no gray area (which I still find lol, Brady).

So wait. Because you do it, that makes it ok? That's your gray area?

Hell I've done it, but I'm not going to lie myself and try to justify it by claiming I'm not really hurting anybody. Regardless of whether or not I would have ever bought the music (I wouldn't) that doesn't change the fact that I'm stealing.

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I don't know about you, but I like the idea of taking something awesome and altering it a little bit, or maybe chopping it up to fit a certain culture. (WATCH THE DOCUMENTARY). Taking little BLIPS (seriously, little blips) from a song or whatever hurts NO ONE.

Nobody takes issue with the awesome nature of the re-mix. They take issue with the plagiarism.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

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Hardly. I am just saying it's a reality. People will do it - they'll continue to do it. There's really no stopping it. The MPAA has admitted it.

There must've been a point here. I'm not seeing it.

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You do it too, then. So you're also a huge hypocrite?

It's hypocritical to say that what I'm doing is wrong?

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We're stealing - you and I are stealing - about as much as a person steals when they give someone a book to read.

Speaking of books, is it wrong to sell old books you have collecting dust at a yard sale, Brady?

Sharing the copy you own does not violate distribution because you own one copy, which you shared. The book you own is a copy of an intellectual property, over which you own discretion of use.

You can't copy the book and sell it, you can't copy the book and share it, because that would violate terms of use, and/or copyright. You can sell the copy that you own, but you cannot make more copies and sell or give them away.

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These artists give credit, in MOST cases. Now, if you don't give fucking credit, you're a hack. I don't LIKE it when people don't give due credit to an original author or artist.

But I don't think "credit" is monetary reimbursement, necessarily.

But that's not what people take issue with. People take issue with the plagiarism, but they don't take issue with the copyright infringement. That's the problem.

Edit:
I wonder, now, what you think of Iggy Pop, Sass?
http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/articl...rview-iggy-pop

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...that's what always annoyed me most about the American alternative/do-it yourself scene when I came up. It was simple. If you were the artist you were supposed to be cool, and the agent was supposed to be a crook, and the manager was supposed to be a creep, and everyone administrating was un-cool and the publicist was cheesy. You know, we all have our roles. But then the DIY guy says I am the guitar player, I'm the publicist, I'm the agent, and I'm the lawyer, too. So I look at the guy, and I'm like, okay, you've convinced me. You're a greedy, cheesy crooked creep with a guitar. Fuck you. I want nothing to do with you.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

It means that without somebody to produce things like instruments, studios, venues, buses, etc., music doesn't get made.

Now, I can make music using my voice. I can sing to all of the people I want. Without a producer, though, it's impossible for my songs to be heard outside of a circle of thousands.

You could be your own producer, but there's also a benefit to having somebody else produce the music for you.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Is it? Without producers, willing to invest in the creative talents of individuals, the barriers to entry mean that there's much less incentive for somebody to create music, because the potential benefits aren't great enough to justify the labor.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

You could also say that the musicians make noise and the producers shape that noise into music.

I was speaking idiomatically.

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I don't know, but making billions in profits seems pretty much like not hurting to me.

You're suggesting that the secret to success is to sell at a loss. Products don't actually become cheaper until they've achieved sufficient economies of scale, and producing music isn't exactly as simple as producing a widget.

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As for economics 101, I never took that class,

Well, obviously.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Dude, there was no excuse for this whatsoever. Don't practice necromancy.

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