-You’re an Australian living in Europe, why did you make the move, its all beaches why spend a winter here?
I moved from Australia about four years ago, and i’m mostly based in Prague. I made the move because i wanted to be performing more tunes rather than just a guy with a recording. I lived mainly in the inner city of Sydney and out of a 150 potential spaces to perform tunes, music happens in about two. The scene is not that much different in Europe, yet more cities, more people, and a better understanding of what art means, makes life more interesting. We have it good in Australia, more space, less people, yet its not really that great a place for someone a little off-beat. Its a great inspiration, yet hard to figure out a way to connect that inspiration.
-Recently you had a song go out in the now showing x-files film “i want to believe”, how did this happen and what does it all mean for you?
The director of the film Chris Carter found out about the song and Beatpick licensed the recording to fox. I was shocked to find out about it. The use of the song in the film has changed a lot of things for me, an industry that has left me out of things for so long has taken an interest. That’s not a bad thing, yet i’m still not sure how to react. Its going to take time to re-adjust and i’m in no hurry.
-What creative commons license do you use and why do you use that license?
I use a creative commons license that allows commercial use, i use this license as it offers more flexibility to the user than a non-commercial license. Consider though that although a song might have gone out as part of a major film production, look into the commercial avenues where artists can have their music used and gain a revenue and I don’t see many “self published” works being used. Mostly the rights organizations issue blanket licenses, for the use of content that is owned by publishers. The system is set up in favor of the publisher not the artist. To me it seems its best to license content with as little restrictions as possible, as there are already a heap of restrictions in place as things are.
-Do you think this could be the first major released film to use a song that is also licensed with a creative commons license?
I hope so. Its interesting to consider all the people in the past that gave their songs up, many maybe taken or given away in the hope of getting a name for themselves, or some songs maybe just in the hope that people would get it. The thing i really appreciate about a Creative Commons license that allows commercial use, is that a regular publisher could possibly use a song that is licensed with a creative commons license, yet probably wouldn’t as someone else could use that song as well. This might be the reason why publishers are putting bad vibes out about Creative Commons.
-How did you hear about Jamendo?
I found out about creative commons through an open source guy in Vienna, at first i was skeptical about Creative Commons, it took me a while to even get what open source meant. Then i struggled with understanding my situation. In the heat of the moment i told APRA in Australia to cancel my membership, at the same time i went along to the Icommons isummit in Croatia. I sat on the plane next to the CEO of Jamendo with a project.
-You joined ASCAP to collect for the use, are you worried about not being included in any revenues from the film?
I can’t see much reason for a self publishing artist to join with any rights organization, unless they are sure they are going to collect something. Sure its a family of artists, yet its a family of artists that is represented mostly by the artists and publishers that collect the most revenue. As soon as an artist joins a rights organization other than ASCAP or BMI it seems that they are removing themselves from the market place. Self published artists look to be better off with ASCAP and publishers in Europe might even be better to transfer their artists memberships to ASCAP/ harry fox. Less equals more. Most publishers and labels based in Europe are using Myspace anyway. I’m still trying to figure it all out, yet it seems this way.
I was not so worried about not collecting revenues through the screen actors guild as I did not write the song for the film. Its just the way it works and i can’t change that. I respect competition and the right for the artist to be able to choose. I’m told a small residual is paid when the song gets to TV though.
Consider though, artists, web services, film makers and the consumer are left in the cold as a result of how the rights organizations look after their authors copyright outside the US. Its just not fair. For me its important that people get to hear the song, looking for ways for people to get the song I’ve gone active against the system. I’m not sure if one side is better than the other, it seem as if both sides don’t care much for the art though.
Knut Krywinski talks about cultural landscapes, some might find this not such a flash topic. Yet its really important that people understand how all this works, cultural landscapes are being destroyed in Europe due to the global food market. The environment simply does not have the ability to adapt, man no-longer has a personal relationship with the land, what does this mean, what is the effect? Knut has created this film independently. http://www.fieldsofdemeter.org
Not sure if the film is going to go out under a creative commons license. After speaking to Knut it seemed like he was looking for a creative commons license, only he had not heard of the license yet. I hope that the film does go out under at least a creative commons non-commercials non-derivative license (CC NC ND) wait and see? although Norway is yet to get the license off to a start yet.
I just bumped into Knut at the cafe in hostel where i was staying, the sound in the background does not make the clip so great and yeah i have to learn more about lighting.
code brakering has now been called cryptography or maybe it always was. i’m not sure. i found out about cryptography listening to Dan Browns audio book digital fortress, its all a little scary when you think about. secure and not secure. i have been thinking about putting a password on my mac data, yet if a super computer is walking around the block with me, it would know about the password prior to me thinking it up. (is?) it(s) really 1984 through the back door. all your process, paths premeditated within a digital environment. so everyone drifts into apathy and magic fades to shoes put in bin. what to do? with the right software and processing power you can get any information you want, according to Dan Browns book. yet also ‘e wrote that small flies could take pictures of people that wanted to be president having sex with their assistants. that would be an interesting fly to be able to buy at the super market and plug into your laptop. after reading the book i found this link, so the NSA does really exist. I wonder if the NSA read Dan Browns Books to work out what to do next? on ebay soon maybe they are going to start selling machines that attract the NSA mini flying photographic super crypto saucer linked bugs, yet maybe we were cosmically chipped at birth anyway (via ray gun on mars).
the Turkish army (when they took over Europe ) they were made up of orphans, not sure if this is true, someone told me this. every family had to give up their first son to the army and these were the soldiers that took over Europe back hundreds of years. that would be a scary army. so now you might start thinking that in chambers deep beneath the ground they (= us divided by everyone) are inventing you to come and take you over and do a better job of being you for them. or maybe they did that and you forgot.
Belgium copyright law makes the composer of a song the exclusive owner of that song and SABAM collects royalties on behalf of that owner. SABAM is an organization that has a monopoly on royalty collection in Belgium. The conditions that the board of SABAM maintain effect the way that members and non members deal with all forms of media. If you join SABAM you give SABAM the rights to your musical and artistic voice. SABAM do not protect creative works of its members from theft. (theft as in someone taking your music and calling the tune theirs) SABAM’s job is to collect royalties for the use of its members content where ever SABAM can. Very much more than most of what is collected by SABAM goes to labels & publishers outside of Belgium. When an artist gives up their music and artistic voice to a rights organization the artist gives up the right for a venue to use that content without SABAM’s permission. This means the price for the use of the “self published” content is the same as that of “well published” content. By joining SABAM your making your content less attractive to grass routes venues and spaces. Don’t join SABAM, SABAM works best for artists signed to a publisher or label. Consider licensing your content with a Creative Commons license and maintaining the rights to your musical voice.
SABAM provide content at one price, this means that published content is used by media almost all the time. 95 percent of SABAM members are self published artists however rights are exercised to benefit corporations like universal music.
Consider also: of the 121 million dollars that SABAM collects for use of universal musics content, 100 million goes to those that own the rights . This compared to rights organizations APRA in Australia that is able collect royalties for a fee’s for around 5 percent. Artists also do not have to pay a fee to join APRA in Australia. What makes it so expensive to collect and distribute a royalty in Belgium?
Recently i read that SABAM want to put a ban on the availability of peer 2 peer file sharing software to the people of Belgium. Organizations like Jamendo however are able to use this technology to help artists distribute their art. It seems Belgium artists are not able to distribute what they create because SABAM price all content at one price. It seems unfair that SABAM shall try to ban this form of P2P distribution.
Consider: Technology allows us all to create new media at home without the use of a regular publishing system. It seems natural that these changes in technology are going to decrease revenues for some corporations. Can the law adapt to have an understanding of new technology? What is next form of technology to be ban in Belgium? blank DVD’s, regulate all online hard drives. Where did it start? where does it end? Is this about control of information or financial gain for corporations, or both. How do the people of Belgium gain from the introduction of this law? How much of that 100 million dollars that is to be paid to universal music is going to people that are still alive that created this content. Is this the future “we” or you as the reader of what i say here want. Are you going to do anything about this?
“We” being the people without a commercial or (non-commercial !!!) publisher. The basic difference between the rights organization in the US ASCAP and SABAM, is that SABAM and its European partners get artists to sign exclusive contracts for the right to use their copyright content, where as ASCAP have artists sign non-exclusive contracts. With changes in technology it makes sense that all contracts now are non-exclusive. Media needs to rebuild, artists need to be business people.
A couple of months back this thread started on a last FM’s forum. Today I noticed that last.fm in conjunction with Mozilla is sponsoring an event that celebrates five years of Creative Commons.
Now if an artist, label or publisher tags their song with the words Creative Commons, the song goes into the Creative Commons charts. Read this thread for more information. For now artists or net labels are not able to upload using any type of Creative Commons licenses; a Creative Commons chart within last.FM’s system is a good step forward.
Type in the name of your favorite artist… into the last FM search engine. You are then taken to a page that says “Now playing:… Similar Artists”. The first track you listen to is the artist you choose, then to similar artists, example. The user has the option of clicking on a heart button to say weather they like the track playing or not, by doing this you create your own play list. The next artists playing is a different artist and so on. Each band or artist playing has a buy link that the listener can visit. Last FM has no advertising brakes, this sets last.fm apart from all other forms of music radio media.
Last.fm’s revenue.
Last Fm’s revenue comes from banners and preferences given to content played.
Information from last.fm’s website.
* 100 impressions for $20.00
* 500 impressions for $100.00
* 1,000 impressions for $200.00
* 2,000 impressions for $400.00
Book a Powerplay campaign to target a set amount of radio plays for a track to a specific group of users. After you’ve run your Powerplay campaign, you will be able to access statistics of how your track has been received.
Pay and be heard.
Artist’s label’s and publisher’s are able to “pay and be heard” on last FM. In Australia it is illegal to “pay and be heard” on radio. Its the responsibility of a programmer to decide what is played and what is not. A publisher, artist or label is able to bring content to the station. Its upto the radio network to pay the programmer to do her or his job. Last FM may be just a little closer to the reality of the music business.
Rights for use of content?
Last.fm have to pay the rights organizations for use of content, last.fm does not ask the artist when they become a member of their service, if they are a member of a rights organization or not. This means last.fm most likely pay a blanket license fee for the use of content. When an artist not with a rights organization is being played on last.fm, last.fm still pay for use of that content. Its possible that a fair chunk of last.fm’s revenue goes towards paying rights organizations. How are the rights organizations going to react when Creative Commons content is played via last.fm in non-profit spaces. If these organization only play content from the CC last.FM charts they be in a situation where they would not have to pay for use of this content.
The last.fm system looks to support the established publishing/label industry. The system gives the opportunity for un-known artists to tap into the fan bass of a well-known established artists with a similar style and possibly sell music through i-tunes, paypal, cdbaby, amazon…. For an artist to be heard beyond the community of people that she or he comes in direct contact with, seems to be an expensive process. Creative Commons charts could change this.
Free culture & rights organizations?
People like music without hearing advertisements. With wifi moving everywhere is last.fm going to last? As the last.fm system gets more and more popular, the cost for the use of content might go up. Listening to radio without having commercial brakes gives last.fm a competitive edge in the market place, this might be seen as un-fair. Are publishers, artists & labels (companies that use banners) going to bring in enough revenue to pay for the use of this content? Could last.fm be shut down by the right organizations?
The music business looks to have turned from the exploitation of the public for revenue to that of the “self publishing” artist. The explosion in artistic content created, fueled by the net and an explosion in technology, makes the exploitation of unrealistic dreams a good business. Its good business for the music business to maintain low standards of content within the market. “Pay and be heard”, pay this and our festival might consider you for a performance. Pay 20 dollars for your song to be reviewed. Put three songs on an album written by famous artists so public might find your content on i-tunes. Where does free-culture fit into all this?
response to mail thread about how to get free-culture to work.
The idea of being able to make a living through music without having a live performance aspect to the art is not so common for DIY artists. Also consider if the act is solo or with a band. Artist is in Europe, US or developing/ transforming country. So many variables, no one size fits all.
Free music distributor www.Jamendo.com has 5000 Albums on site, from April to July Jamendo made 3000 Euros for artists through advertising revenue, that was split with artists according to how much content was used. This is less than a euro an album, consider the amount of time that goes into creating that content. The contributor to the site also gets a load of banners when they visit the network. The fan has the option of giving a donation, yet few contribute. This is good distribution for the artist/band yet with no live show to go with the performance what to do ?
Over the last weeks i have been on travel mode. What I’m starting to notice more than ever is how centralized this place is; media, places to get media, railway stations. The whole gig. People get lazy, small systems get eaten up by big systems. A monopoly evolves, then an anti monopoly, then the anti monopoly becomes a monopoly and gets eaten by the monopoly. Then the government regulates that monopoly. Then the government sells the rights to regulate the monopoly. It can start out with biscuits and move to railway company’s. Then a car company buys the railway company and in Phoenix a man uses a million dollars of his own money to stop a light rail train system from being built. Reason: he doesn’t want people from that side of town being able to catch a train to his side of town.
Europe:
The environment in Europe has improved. Thanks to nuclear power plants and an end to the cold war. Industry has shut down in the eastern block; containers arrive full from asia and return empty. EU regulation has cleaned up the river system of the eastern block, people can fish in the streams again. No more acid rain. At the same time in the Swiss alps they are putting special covers over their glacier’s to make sure they don’t melt.
Drive the car you have for 10 years or buy an environmental hi-brid car, your global foot-print is bigger in your environmental car.
In the 1920’s a silent film called “metropolis”: people beneath the city rising up. Today, a protest in Paris, people are angry as working conditions get worse. In Bangladesh women are paid less in a month than what it costs to ride one stop on a Swiss train. None of the clothing that the protesters are wearing was made in their country. The leaders of the protest wearing cloths designed in their country.
Posted by jamyoung 
Posted by jamyoung 
Posted by jamyoung 