clip from Austria tour

also available through wordpress
done

gogole image of where i grew up

this is a google image of where i grew up in Australia.

back from tour

it was interesting to get out and about for  nearly a month and play tunes. always the unplanned turns that bring the unexpected buzz to a trip. or the jigsaw only makes sense when i’m not trying to make sense. think i figured out what ideas i want to work with on this trip. the doubled sided blanketed brick wall has some glitches.

ascap vs sabam

What stops a person outside of the US (I am in fact) from joining ASCAP or BMI
and not their local CS? If they can, what are the implications?

It’s not a problem for an artist to join ASCAP outside the US. All foreign artists have to do is fill in a US tax form and send it in with their application. They are not able to join online as they don’t have a social security number. Might be implications when applying for cultural funding in some countries if the artist was to join ASCAP. Yet i doubt that an artist could be openly refused funding for this.

Prior to the Buma/Stemra project this project started. http://www.icommons.org/nodes/project-dac .After the Buma project got started this project stopped. Is this project going to start again?

Buma look at everything that in the past that has collected a royalty as being a commercial use, and i can’t see how this could change. My experience from touring the Netherlands is that Buma/stemra is the same as SABAM.

corputation of songs by producers with publishers- evil or fair?

Its fair that producers= co-creators of a song be payed via the rights organizations the same amount of money that someone would be payed through the rights organizations for producing a cover of the songwriters song. It seems fair that the artist can pay what is owed to the producer for their work on the artists song “house” as it makes an income through the publishing system. To the point where the production work is payed for. Yet what rights organization is going to put that system in place and would producers abuse the system ultimately anyway?

Producers that work outside these guidelines need to create co- write agreements with artists prior to starting work (for the future). Yet what self publishing artist is going to give co-write share and pay a producer. How many artists with managers labels and publishers end up with publishing rights on albums with producers they went into the studio to make their songs sound better? The producer wants to make it and get rich with the artist, yet the artist wants to get the songs out and about. With a publishers name on a small back-room of the house, what to do, when the art is free as no publisher cares for it anyway?

Its not fair for artists to travel with their songs being owned by producers who did three hours work on their song, for 70 years after the songwriters death. Producers that understand a system working with artists that have no experience in the system can’t use their magic to extort ownership of a song. Especially in this changing environment.

A songs a song, let the producer publish the song with-out the artists song in it, yet don’t stop the artist publishing what the artist created when paying a professional producer with a publisher. Its hard for a songwriter with not much of a resource to tell a producer how to produce songs. Thats my experience, even when you have the dollars they still want do what the artists wants and then its art. Yet did’nt the songwriter not pay the producer as professional production artists anyway? or was the studio built for fun?

Take the music out of the song, yet don’t take the song from the song. Especially when the artist wants to make it free.

I think a lot of artists get caught up in these twists, yet the person that wrote the song wrote the song. The producer produced the song and the produced the song and should be payed fairly for their work when the artist can pay. Rights organizations could lend a hand here, yet then it would make it harder for the self published artist to be exploited and publishing rights would have to be incorporated in writer rights, like in the US. Rights organizations serve the interests of publishers and those working with them. It does seem that either way that things work, they don’t work so great for the self publishing artist.

The points system worked well for artists with record labels/publishers, as the artists can give up points for ownership of the recording. Yet most of that income was payed through the mechanical use and sale of the recording. For art that is self published without label or publisher, what does the production do to be in the groove if the music makes it?

I’m happy to own the songs i wrote without a publisher and to have payed for the master recording. Sure i wish i could have payed the producers more income for their work on my album. If i make a lot of dollars i’m going to give any dollars i owe to a “friend” that put some of his time into helping me build the back room of my house.

The crazy world of intellectual property. How dare you make it free.

Thoughts on ASCAp

what ASCAP say about creative commons

10. No “Authentication” When a Work Is Submitted – Even if a creator doesn’t want to submit his or her work to a CC license, someone else can. How? Because there is no “authentication” as to whether the true owner of a piece of creative content is the one applying for the CC license. Any person can go to the Creative Commons website with a digital song file or photograph, follow the instructions online and claim it as his or her own and release your work, without your consent, to the “commons.”

CC licenses are always going to be about the community having possibilities with art outside a regulated system. Its not about money, so why is ASCAP so worried? Media need much tighter licenses to use content. So they are not going to have the CC license listed with the content after they create a tighter license unless they have a contract with the media and the space that plays the content. I think that most of the guilds would not allow content to be aired without a royalty being payed. So i’m not sure how the rights organizations plan to work out the impossible. The current system means that royalties can not be waivered anyway. Youtube and myspace don’t pay for use of content.

7. The Issue of Co-Creators – CC licenses can cause complications for works created by more than one individual. Under the U.S. Copyright Act, unless they have a written agreement otherwise, each “co-creator” has the right to license the work on a non-exclusive basis without the consent of their co-creator. Each co-creator’s responsibility is to ensure that the other co-creator receives a share of profits. But what happens when a co-creator places a work under a CC license? If a license eliminates the possibility for payment on that work, and extends both globally and forever, the other co-creator is essentially out of luck.

Although rights are wavered- media is only not paying for use of content when the creator of that media displays the CC license. Why would media display the license if they have to create a license with the artist to use the content? Even with the license displayed, unless the blanket license system has a mechanism in place to give a reduction for use to where the media is played, the creator by law might have a claim to that royalty even with a wavier in place and license.

The problem is more that the rights organizations contracts outside the US don’t link up with the ASCAP contract. So long as all parties agree that its ok to use the license, what is the problem? All my producers where aware that i had chosen to give my content away and make it as free as possible. They did not care what i did with what i payed them to create as their was no income from the creation anyway.

Both these statements show the lack of vision and conservative attitude of the ASCAP, ASCAP is run mostly by publishers. Publishers don’t publish self publishers. the community like to mix songs with videos that they make. Surely the free world has a right to exist and its not just about professional artists, obviously professional and non-profesional artists are able to benefit from the use of CC licenses.

prisoner of the system

the digital medium is slightly strange in itself in that, every digital transaction that someone has, however useless it is to the person that creates the transaction, the potential exists for all transactions to be compiled and then a profile built. what if a super computer existed 10 years prior to when the net was built and was 10 times faster than any computer available to the consumer now and was not built in the US. who would be the prisoner of the house if this were true? good science fiction. today i’m in Hamberg, i got here one day earlier for the show tomorrow. very summer here.

open business idea

I contributed this idea to the open business website

When a film uses content licensed with CC, is it fair that attribution happen when the film has finished? how can the artist be considered to be attributed if the art is not placed with the attribution?

Consider: Could a different kind of attribution license exist/be adapted, that might work this way? If the film maker did not want to attribute as the art is being performed and wanted to put the credits at the end or the beginning of the film, the film maker could goto a central website and pay to have the rights cleared. Until the film maker could pay, the film maker would have to attribute the artists art when the film was being performed. Could be an interesting idea for the CC+ protocols.
a lot of artists might go for this license, rather than just giving the art to film makers via a traditional form of attribution for free.

goto the Creative commons website and look at the new CC+ protocols.

consider also: A problems with rights organizations (from the self publishers point of view) is that the rights organizations give the venue/radio/club the right to use content as they choose (at a cost), the user of content is under no obligation to attribute the artist.

If good attribution conditions were attached to a creative commons license, self publishing artists that are not commercial- might be more inclined to use a creative commons license.

Also: If an artist is not a member of a rights organization- then the cafe/bar/radio station/non-profit organization has no platform to use a song.

A lot of songwriters would like attribution attached to a song that included -a website link/ tittle of the track/ performer and writer of songs name, maybe even producers. Attribution can be a sensitive issue. Could attribution conditions be built into the license, if the artist would choose? Could a couple of different defaults exist? Is a default possible with so many variables?

It looks like attribution conditions have changed with the creative commons license. http://www.creativecommons.org

this is another text that might also.
Consider that DJ’s are able to use tunes without attribution as rights organizations provide a platform for that use. Very rarely is a commercial DJ going to play a tune that is not published by a publisher. DJ’s that are going to most likely use content licensed with a creative commons license are DJ’s that want to run events that are out of reach of the rights organizations. Doesn’t it make sense that free-culture DJ’s innovate to make sure the artists that give that content freely are attributed?

I thought part of the deal with creative commons was, i don’t get paid when the content gets a use, I get attributed.

Consider that music artists in the US are able to use a creative commons license and be a member of a rights organization. Artists outside the US are able to join ASCAP with little difficulty, to join ASCAP costs 25 dollars.

Letter to the arts council in Australia.

I noticed that APRA in conjunction with the hotel association have
created a concept called the live revolution, i wondered how the idea
bellow would translate into the system from the arts councils point
of view and how the arts council would look a concept like this?
http://www.apra.com.au/revolution/

live revolution:

Would it be possible to work with post codes.

example: if an artist that lives in area code 2009 and sings all
original content when they perform. could the venue be given a
performance rebate when the artist played a 100 percent original set
of music, no covers. the artist could still be payed through the
performance rights organizations, only the arts council might
subsidize the rebate. The more original live music that was used, the
less the venue would pay for use of content each year.

artists right to distribute

to get active visit http://www.myspace.com/optoutofapra

attribution- what does it mean in context of free-culture?

If a listener can’t place the art with the attribution, how can the art be considered to have been attributed?

Consider that DJ’s are able to use tunes without attribution as rights organizations provide a platform for that use. Very rarely is a commercial DJ going to play a tune that is not published by a publisher. DJ’s that are going to most likely use content licensed with a creative commons license are DJ’s that want to run events that are out of reach of the rights organizations. Doesn’t it make sense that free-culture DJ’s innovate to make sure the artists that give that content freely are attributed?

I thought part of the deal with creative commons was, i don’t get paid when the content gets a use, I get attributed. Consider that music artists in the US are able to use a creative commons license and be a member of a rights organization. Artists outside the US are able to join ASCAP with little difficulty, to join ASCAP costs 25 dollars.