Here, here!

I thought that was referencing
“pi rate” (the rate of pi), which is actually a mathematical constant.
Now I’m even more confused than normal

Hi Speck,

this name is related to the pirate party movement. In fact I am the press officier of the hessian pirate party. It took us a couple of years until people in the streets did no longer ask us if “are you the guys from somalia”? Now we are sitting in four of sixteen german parliaments and dozen of regional parliaments. It looks pretty good, that we will manage to get seats in the national elections next year. “Pirate Party” is now a respected name in germany. :)

Musikpiraten (Music pirates) also got a lot of positive media attention in germany when we produced more than 50.000 song books with public domain songs for children. We deliver them since that time to all kindergarten in germany. There are also a couple of bands naming themselves “Musikpiraten” that produce songs for children.

At least in germany there is no danger that people mix up our creative commons projects with copyright infringement.

Thanks for the explanation/education. I knew none of that.

Since I don’t know enough (=anything) German to read the article, I have used an automatic translator which however did not help too much…
If I got it well… Are they saying nobody can distribute music without the artist (or the distributer in name of the artist/artists?) paying a fee to GEMA? Or rather… are they saying that because of the use of pseudonyms, they can’t check whether an artist is in their records (and if s/he would be in their records, s/he would be forced to pay a fee to distribute his/her music…? … then, anyone can do it except if registered to GEMA and the use of pseudonyms and CC licensing would be a way to avoid paying the fee?).
Sorry, but I don’t get it: it seems to me a thing that a court should reject “automatically” GEMA’s claim in few seconds… instead, it seems it’s going to be a hard battle. What am I missing?

You cannot produce a cd in germany without registering this production at GEMA. If you can give them the real names of all authors (and in case of duplicate name date of birth and current place of living), you have to pay for that production.
Unless the court decides, that a pseudonym CC production beats the GEMA claim - which I realy hope.

Of course in that case a GEMA member could decide to release music under a pseudonym and does not register it at GEMA. S/he would not receive any royalties. But if the royalties were the goal, the registration could be done easily.

I suppose you meant “If you can’t give them the real names of…”, right?

Cannot or will not - this does not matter. I do believe that Creative Commons are valid licenses, even if you do not know the real names.

With our last CD we have five duplications and GEMA “asked” us for personal data about the artists to release us from paying them money. If the CC licenses are valid, there is no need to give those data to GEMA. In most cases you do not even have it.

In a couple of hours I can tell you, what the court thinks about the situation. :)

Ok, we have to wait. At least months, maybe even years. The judge will publicize her decision at august 27th, because both sides told her, that we want a fundamental judgment. She asked GEMA a couple of questions they could not answer and we both have times to send in arguments until august 13th.

No matter how she will decide, we will appeal from first instance - either us or the GEMA.

Wow, GEMA is kinda control-freaky…
reminds me of (whispering)
M-O-N-S-A-N-T-O

____________
Fighting this using relevant anti-trust (competition) laws of your country?

I guess that the name Musikpirat refers to the Pirate Party Germany (short: Pirates). With their focus on freedom in the net they have been surprisingly succesfull in the latest national elections. For more informations about them visit the English Wikipedia article or this Wall Street Journal article.

That the name Musikpirat is ambiguous and also could refer to music piracy and copyright infringement is some kind of self-irony, I would guess.

EDIT: Did it really take me that long to write those few lines? I swear that muikpirat’s answer has not been there, when I hit the reply button ;-)

But a lot of your songs are free as in freedom… :o)

Musicians can always work a day job, but if freedom of speech goes, we can’t play at all.

Thanks very much for so quickly reCCreating my lyrics on this subject.
I have tried to reflect my preference for open content as a consumer and the more I listen to CCmixter tracks, the less other music I use. It is incredibly gratifying to have my children growing up with freedom of choice and regularly asking for reCCreated music and singing along.

I concur that there is a cartel, but a contracts and distribution cartel with little interest in music. I hear that millions of computer users in developed countries are involved in illegal file sharing. Further I understand that despite all the sabre rattling about lost revenue, the corporations are healthier than ever. I hear they have stopped prosecuting individuals and written off the theft as “yet more airtime”. All exposure is good news and regurgitating copyright works amplifies the exposure with an unlawful thrill. Copythieves are the enemy of CCmixter stealing the limelight. We need to be clear about this. Remixing copyright works is

Robbing
Every
Musicians
Intellectual
eXpertise

Quote: economixThanks very much for so quickly reCCreating my lyrics on this subject.
I have tried to reflect my preference for open content as a consumer and the more I listen to CCmixter tracks, the less other music I use. It is incredibly gratifying to have my children growing up with freedom of choice and regularly asking for reCCreated music and singing along.

I concur that there is a cartel, but a contracts and distribution cartel with little interest in music. I hear that millions of computer users in developed countries are involved in illegal file sharing. Further I understand that despite all the sabre rattling about lost revenue, the corporations are healthier than ever. I hear they have stopped prosecuting individuals and written off the theft as “yet more airtime”. All exposure is good news and regurgitating copyright works amplifies the exposure with an unlawful thrill. Copythieves are the enemy of CCmixter stealing the limelight. We need to be clear about this. Remixing copyright works is

Robbing
Every
Musicians
Intellectual
eXpertise


This is one of the biggest problem at the moment. And can very well contibute to the economy. There is no crystal clear law written yet about file sharing since that is the main purpose of internet. File sharing. Something needs to be done here.

Some people can’t get a day job, night job, or any other kind of job. Or get paid for playing music. And that only leaves “free” vehicles like ccMixter as a platform for expression.

Quote: JavolenusSome people can’t get a day job, night job, or any other kind of job. Or get paid for playing music. And that only leaves “free” vehicles like ccMixter as a platform for expression.

In the UK, we had an actual genre called “dole queue rock”. The famous reggae band UB40 are named after the unemployment benefit form which you took to the JobCentre to sign on- they met in the dole queue!
Something that’s a shame today here in England is a lot of unfortunately unemployed kids hang around in gangs rather than starting a band which might not pay a lot but is a great educational and team experience not to mention a creative and artistic one. I’ve spent about half my adult life out of paid work with health problems, and the music has helped me keep my spirits up and given me something to live for. Such as shame the music “industry” here doesn’t give a credit to this inspiring side of music!

Slightly OT, but a recent letter of mine about the questionable practices of another collection society

Sir,
As someone who has recently started a business as my way back to work after a period of illness, I was very surprised to receive a letter from the Performers’ Rights Society or PRS. Now I can understand that businesses playing music to entertain customers, from supermarkets and waiting rooms to bars, restaurants and clubs would require a license to pay music. As they point out in the Copyrights, Designs and Patents act of 1988, public performance of a musical work requires permission and payment from the copyright holder. However, they then go on to say that if a radio is played in the workplace whether customers are present or not, the management require a licence to do so.
I feel this amounts to deceptive bullying- behind a door labelled “private- staff only” is not a public place in any shape or form, so music played in such an area does not constitute a public performance. I am after all, as a member of the public, not allowed to walk into the PRS boardroom at leisure because it’s private property.
As a keen musician and music fan myself, I have sympathies with the music industry for losses sustained through internet piracy. Yet bullying and pettiness neither strengthens the music industry’s case or endears supporters to a business that many would consider operating as a cartel as opposed to a competitive business model.
I am also highly sceptical about any cosy relationship between the arts world and the state. Many of the greatest popular music works of the last century have been highly political, such as John Lennon, Bob Dylan and so forth. To me it would be all to easy for multinational record companies to pay back a helpful state by silencing any criticism. A musician can after all work a day job, but if freedom of speech goes we can’t play at all!

brilliant! you are very talented, and we share a philosophical core (huge fan of Linux and GNU!!) :)

we are about 1% of the desktop users, so it`s always great to meet people who know this hole philosophy matters. No wonder that a place like ccmixter has probably more GNU/ Linux enthusiasts than most of the other sites and I`m always glad to read comments like this :)

There are, of course, limits to that for musicians. I’m on a Mac because music tools on Linux mostly aren’t that good (other than Hydrogen!)

true, in terms of making music its limited, although some people are fine with it. There is some nice audio-software for linux (indeed hydrogen for example is very cool!), but unfortunately making music is the only thing I still need another OS either, so I have a windows partition on my music pc.

Haven`t read that much about it yet, but Bitwig could be nice maybe (upcoming ableton clone also for linux). well, we will see..

so..true, musicians are limited with linux, but in the end this hole sharing here on ccmixter is the thing linux users are always looking for, thats what I meant in my previous comment :)

Quote: ifupdowntrue, in terms of making music its limited, although some people are fine with it. There is some nice audio-software for linux (indeed hydrogen for example is very cool!), but unfortunately making music is the only thing I still need another OS either, so I have a windows partition on my music pc.

Haven`t read that much about it yet, but Bitwig could be nice maybe (upcoming ableton clone also for linux). well, we will see..

so..true, musicians are limited with linux, but in the end this hole sharing here on ccmixter is the thing linux users are always looking for, thats what I meant in my previous comment :)

Hopefully, my business will have grown within a few years enough to employ full time C++ developers with DSP programming skills. I’d like to invest a million dollars or so building a combined user interface for the different components of Ubuntu studio- effectively turning individual programs into plug ins.
Sadly I dropped out of a Software Engineering and Maths degree aged 21- would have been really useful to have graduated from this course. Youth is wasted on the young indeed- and in England they seem to make it as hard as possible for adults- with mortgages, families etc to study at degree and masters level. Go to college to get a job and they stop your unemployment benefit because this doesn’t count as looking for work- they just want to shift you into a dead end position. It sucks!

indeed, when education or knowledge is expensive, that`s a pretty clear message from politicians..

very sad indeed! I am a currently an eager hobbyist and professional programmer swinging between boring “business logic” and the desire of “actual computational stuffs” and since I am a little bit (so to say) interested in music too I had planned several tools to help my musical production, but they all turned into just “dreams”, since there’s no time to do all the needed study and research and test and… Recently I’ve stumbled on FAUST, which it seems it could be helpful in reducing the time needed to handle some details of the several plugin architecture one would like to support (indeed I am interested just in LV2 and Jack…:D)

The idea of a software which provides an “unified” interface is interesting —even if all software that can be “Jack”-ed can be thought as a “plugin”, sometimes I miss a more “central” view and control of all the “components”!

But even I need an annuity to chase all these ideas…

Works OK for new Admiral Bob/Sackjo22 videos
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Quote: Admiral BobThere are, of course, limits to that for musicians. I’m on a Mac because music tools on Linux mostly aren’t that good (other than Hydrogen!)

I would dare say Ardour (as DAW) is a good software —and it’s GPLed. Ardour3 seems promising … I have donated to the project hoping a day it could compare better with commercial tools…

great words!

REccREATE
While I am on the subject, I have been using the word CCreator or CContributor for a person who generates open content. it is problematic that remix and file-sharing have illegal connotations. I propose the term reCCreate for a legal remix. reccreate is three letters longer. Can’t have everything. It implies that commons have been used and produced. ReCCreation has a lovely ring to it.

Love the term reCCreate. Will start using right away.

Quote: economixREccREATE
is indeed a cool term. i love it. guess it would nicely fit below the ccmixter logo… :-)

Loving that term!! I’ll start using it as of today

Very cool and clever

http://ccmixter.org/files/s...

http://www.youtube.com/watc...

It is a great idea! And what if it was a bit more ambitious. What if it was about ccMixter? :)

I realize the community is about making music. I don’t want to distract the purpose by asking for more creation, but staying open to ideas. The music itself has enough notoriety that it has started to appear in film, but it would be nice to have a feature length work with CCMIXTER in the title. I am suggesting CC-BY to widen the audience. There is so much material that editting is a thankless job (which works gets in?). To use the name and logo, the idea needs an official CCMIXTER heavy weight to greenlight the final list.

This is a bit off the subject of free beer, perhaps an admin can suggest where to take it?

Fantastic. You have captured the violence in media wars very nicely.
We could also point out differences between copyright culture. Australia inherited the British system in which copyright is automatic on all my works on creation. A default. There is no patent office and never will be. Copyright on all works expires seventy years after my death (increased from fifty to get a free trade deal with the USA). There is no possibility of ever transferring or extending ownership, regardless of how much you are willing to pay. So it is theoretically impossible for me to make a universal dedication. A legal puzzle. The situation has already arisen where works copyright in one country are legally expired in another. Worse, when the term of expiry was extended in some countries, works which had been public domain were suddenly not.

My point is that copyright is not absolute, simple or even very long-standing. The concept of patents is barely a century old. Sure they protect owners rights, but I want the right to give. I want my gifts to have legal rights on par with ownership, even after my death or in my absence. That would NOT include paying fees.

Newspapers survived radio. Radio survived TV. All will survive internet communication and self-publishing. Creative Commons licenses are important, but the rights of a respository like CCmixter for hosting our products under license cannot be overstated, they harbour a critical freedom.

Some of the music posted on ccmixter are gospel songs. Does a tax on preachig raise an alarm with anybody?

The principle GEMA are trying to uphold is the importance of propiety. The public domain is a huge and permanent reminder, like the air we breathe; not everything has an owner, nor should it.

What I find rather strange as a businessman, is quite simply why the animosity between commercial and free sectors? In software, Bill Gates, a guy I’ve generally a lot of respect for, once talked about Linux as the “cancer of free software”- what planet is he on? By embracing Linux for example he could bundle Firefox with Windows instead of IE- it’s better, simple as that. He could abandon IE development, pay Mozilla developers for their work and still be quids in- so that Windows could be profitably offered for $5 or so less. Similarly, the free and resource lightweight Paint.net could replace the inferior Windows Paint, again saving money, boosting profits for both Microsoft and the developer yet cutting price. Everyone’s a winner.

Music is sadly even less evolved than software. CC just like Linux still allows for exclusive commercial deals between distributor and developer- offering *new* business opportunities rather than destroying them! Why pay big bucks for your company to re-invent the wheel when someone’s already done it for you?

There is an operating system I only refer to as “GATE-CRASHER”, but since you plugged it already.
The internet is media. Media Moguls weren’t ready for it, but they are catching up fast. The real estate they covet most is between your ears. If they make something dazzling, we are drawn to it, get used to it, treat it as a fact of life and then after a trickle of small print, WHAM come the conditions. It is about control.
If Linux were an analogy with creative commons music, then ccMixter is playing to 1% of the audience. I am happy with 1% of music users choosing the tracks less heard. Often not glossy, without any air time other than what vloggers chose to give, locked out by distributors. be 1% proud.
Take a look at the choice of subject matter - people sing about what they are concerned about. They sing for the environment, gospel, vegetables, cycling. Someone is probably doing a Masters dissertation on these independent options as freedom of voice.

http://ccmixter.org/files/s...

The web masters repeat often - do your own research. A challenge from the owner is all that is required to remove material. I am afraid many will see the situation as simply CCMIXTER encouraging intellectual trespass, even though this is an incorrect over-simplified view. The explosion of commons licensing in social media represents a landslide in the popularity of this concept. We must stay positive. CCmixter must associate itself with rigth and lawful media exchange.
I propose a tutorial on how (and why) to make CORRECT and BEST PRACTISE attributions and recognize ownership as the maker intended and the license dictates. I have sorta been doing this anyhows… Does anyone have a dead certain “I shot this myself” video on youtube or vimeo I can use?

Big players would love for small minnows to think they need to be an international copyright lawyer to post anything - CCmixter is challenging this assumption with the truth. Every song advertises the honesty of the movement.

Quote: economixThe web masters repeat often - do your own research.
And this simplification is one of the sources why institutions like GEMA can do what they do. Web masters make money with content they don’t care about. They have the profit - they should be responsible for the content they provide.
Try to see it from the perspective of GEMA: how should they know that ccMixter is a “good site” where CC licensing is taken serious? That’s why the law is as it is at the moment: if you make a CC licensed CD you have to proove that the content is license free. Its this reverse proof that makes it most problematic for my understanding of rights. But maybe the upcoming Pirate parties all over Europe now will be able to change the laws in a democratic way.

My attempt to help clarify things
http://www.youtube.com/watc...

I hope it will have some effect.

PS This message is bought by a concerned commuity member

Shouldn’t that be brought by??

Thanks, spelling corrected.
From the perspective of GEMA, I see a sacred duty to use all that power given by parliament wisely.

What constitutes proof of originality I wonder? If the originality of a work is proven, does that confer immunity from prosecution? If GEMA takes on all responsibility for intellectual property, that would mean GEMA police commons licenses also.

Quote: morgantjUm… I’m here for the free beer.

Hell yeah! All this talk about rights is making me reeeeeal thirsty!

I definitely owe you a beer Travis. When will you be in So Cal???? :)

Quote: morgantjUm… I’m here for the free beer.

Send me your address and I gonna get you that beer!