Sometimes you start writing and you have no idea where it will lead and how it will end and which is why words and linking them with thoughts can be a trippy magical mystery tour.
It’s like writing a song and not knowing where the next line will come from and how you got there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG2gNvqGJVU
For days I had been thinking of copyright laws today and how meaningless these laws have become and how even “entertainment lawyers” have no answers.
It all comes down to bluffing and seeing who folds first ‘cos no one wants hassles.
But often- too often- those who come at you for this and that “infringement” with their only “evidence” being “that’s how it is” when in actuality, it’s how it’s never been and is a scam made up on the spot to make a quick buck and music publishers being the worst culprits.
Don’t even get me started about Warner-Chappell in Greater China. They are clueless, have no set rules and with their only answer to everything being, “This is how it works in China.”. What does? Making it up as you go?
How Warner Chappell and the music company called Gold Typhoon those involved with this artist and this track are now almost legendary.
Then again, this guy was a bit too precious and a bit of a legend in his own lunchtime where a baby step at “going International”- a gig in Taiwan and record release in China had him believing he could be the new Robbie Williams.
Getting back to music publishing houses and dealing with them, it’s worse than a music company “signing you up” but with you, the artist having to pay for and give them the record, the video and the EPK for 22% of sales.
And what if there are zero sales ‘cos of dumbass marketing where streaming of a video and the song goes on for so many months before the track is made available as a download that fans have already got tired of it and moved on.
You’d be surprised how frequently this goes on along with the “royalty rate” scam where percentages of nothing are “negotiated” and eager and trusting artists are sucker punched.
I was reminded of all this over the weekend when sitting with my girlfriend at a shisha bar and being approached by a guy selling singing-dancing Psy Dolls which included a chip playing the original track.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMlpVEM-C0g
We bought two of these for HK$300 which we could have bargained down for a hundred bucks, but we were tired and also liked the product.
Where did they come from? Where was the track cleared? Who owns the Rights to so many aspects of this product?
Who knew and the guy selling these dolls didn’t know and even if he did, think he would have cared? Of course not. It’s only idiots like us who try and play by the rules where there are no rules or else the rules make no sense.
It’s like all those great never-seen-before videos of the Beatles up on YouTube and staying there and yet, the channel taking down far less important videos for copyright infringement because someone complained.
But EMI has no Rights to all those Beatles videos- and thank gawd for that- just as they have no Rights or cannot stop all those great Beatles bootlegs from obscure labels like Yellow Dog and Taxman flooding, of all places, Hong Kong.
So what we have today is consistency in inconsistency and with even the self-appointed experts knowing nothing about anything and only a little about something and playing blind man’s bluff.
The winner is going to come from those who call their bluff and bring about some real power that is evenly distributed and where everything is shared by all and deals not made on a whim.
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