Techdirt. Stories filed under "beatles" Easily digestible tech news... http://www.techdirt.com/ en-us Techdirt. Stories filed under "beatles"http://www.techdirt.com/images/td-88x31.gifhttp://www.techdirt.com/ Fri, 28 Sep 2012 13:33:00 PDT The 'Hey Jude' Replacement Ref Protest Plan: Turning Copyright Maximalism Against Itself Tim Cushing http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120927/17071120535/hey-jude-replacement-ref-protest-plan-turning-copyright-maximalism-against-itself.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20120927/17071120535/hey-jude-replacement-ref-protest-plan-turning-copyright-maximalism-against-itself.shtml decided by a call blown so badly that b-list writers began cobbling together "amateur night at the brothel" analogies. Also, the idea that the real refs, upon returning, actually got what was perhaps the first ever standing ovation for refs should tell you something about just how bad the replacements were.

A couple of days before the NFL reached an agreement with the real referees, Mike Tanier (writer for Football Outsiders and formerly the only thing worth reading at the New York Times Fifth Down blog) whipped up an idea to shut down the replacement refs before any more damage was done. The scheme relied on crowd participation, the intricacies of public performance rights and a band whose catalog was once referred to (by a b-lister) as being about as approachable as a "badger covered in live hand grenades."
Go to the game. If you are a Chargers, Jaguars or Bengals fan, this involves purchasing a ticket and driving to the stadium. There are websites that teach you how to do these things. Anyway, once there, wait for the replacement officials to make an idiotic call or lapse into one of their marathon delays. When it happens, start singing:

Nah nah nah na-na-na-nah, na-na-na-nah, Hey Jude!

Beatles copyrights (held mostly by Paul McCartney and the estate of John Lennon) and publishing rights (held by Paul, Sony/ATV publishing, and possibly by one or two of Michael Jackson’s former chimpanzees) are among the most closely guarded music rights in the world. “Hey Jude” is the most preciously protected song in the Beatles catalogue. Everyone knows it, and it is easy for a huge crowd to sing, as Paul himself proved when he led Olympic fans in a chorus of a song first recorded 15 years before their parents reached puberty.

If the crowd at an NFL game sings “Hey Jude,” television networks will be stuck broadcasting “Hey Jude” without the rights-holders permission. The sound editors are pretty good at obscuring the B.S. chant, but that only takes a little bit of white noise. Try editing away one of the most recognizable melodies in the world on live television. The broadcast will sound like it is coming from Venus. But if the NFL doesn’t drown out the singing, someone big and powerful is going to show up at league headquarters in a suing mood.

Faced with the choice of a battle against Big Music Publishing and the fourth most beloved human on earth (wedged between Ron Howard and … wow … T.J. Lang) or negotiating fairly with the referees, the NFL will be left with no choice. The lockout will end, thanks to you and the Cute Beatle.

I am no copyright lawyer, and there are probably holes in this master plan. But if the NFL can publish a mix of lies and obfuscations and call it an “explanation,” then I can publish this and call it a “solution.”
Tanier may not be a copyright lawyer, but he does certainly understand the stupidity that often masquerades as "needless complexity" in the copyright system. While the stadium would likely have a blanket license to cover the not-very-spontaneous "performance" of a Beatles' tune, the NFL's broadcast would likely be short a sync license.

Those watching the game on broadcast TV would probably be unaffected, but those watching a livestream might find their gridiron action replaced with the soothing images of Heidi doing something Alps-related, or a more familiar message informing them that the stream has been taken down due to copyright claims by Michael Jackson's chimpanzees.

While most of us would find a somewhat spontaneous singalong to fall under "fair use" or at the very least "nothing to get hung about," people singing songs out loud for non-commercial reasons is apparently Very Serious Business. BMG takes down a clip of Obama singing an Al Green song. EMI takes down a clip of a drunk guy singing a Queen song. A Slovak performance rights organization bills a village for singing folk songs about itself. Bourne Music Publishers demands $2,000 from a 10-year-old girl for singing a theme song to a Charlie Chaplin movie for charity.

It's an obviously facetious post but there's enough truth to the farcical situation to make it seem tenable. Expansion of IP protection hasn't resulted in any great declines in infringement and has criminalized several activities that most people feel would fall under "fair use." As Tanier's very humorous hypothetical situation points out, IP maximalist enforcement has a tendency to do more damage to itself that its intended targets. And by all means, read through Tanier's entire post, which also covers such enjoyable oddities as New Jersey legislators insinuating themselves into the replacement ref debacle and the NFL being covered on NPR of all places.

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]]> a-takedown-that-takes-itself-down http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20120927/17071120535 Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:27:00 PDT Is Talking About The Beatles As A Wonderful 'Shared Experience' Really Wise In An Anti-Piracy PSA? Tim Cushing http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110818/12234515587/is-talking-about-beatles-as-wonderful-shared-experience-really-wise-anti-piracy-psa.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110818/12234515587/is-talking-about-beatles-as-wonderful-shared-experience-really-wise-anti-piracy-psa.shtml a shared experience that brings many people together. All in all, it's a well done tribute that John Lennon certainly would have approved.



Of course, it's tough to watch this promo, which celebrates "sharing" music, without feeling a bit like you're being beaten over the head with an extremely heavy irony stick wielded by someone who has no idea how hard they're swinging it. For starters, Unnamed Protagonist states that he first heard the Beatles' music when it "floated through his window." As picturesque as this scenario may be, the end result will most likely be dismayed gasps from the BMIs and the ASCAPs of the world, who hate to see a public performance go unpunished.

In fact, the video seems to be making the opposite point of the one it's intended to make. It shows just how important sharing is to make culture culture. You've got really mixed messages here. The Beatles are a shared experience, but sharing it with others outside of the way they want you to share it is bad -- even as the (nameless) person profiled clearly enjoys the Beatles in his own way. Like hearing it through the window. Or out in the street with his evicted belongings. Or surrounded by friends in an unlicensed open air venue.

On top of that, the Beatles seem like a really odd choice for such a PSA.

Whatever level a person's love for the Beatles might be, it's pretty tough to find much reciprocation from the band itself, which spent most of the last decade making sure that the only digital copies of their music available were illegal copies. The band also spent a fair amount of time shooting down licensing requests and otherwise making their catalog about as approachable as a badger covered in live hand grenades.

Between the Beatles' "yes, we love you, too but only through very selective channels" and Music Matters' "music is a good thing but only through selective channels," the whole idea of music being a communal experience, one that relies on sharing, kind of gets lost. Even worse, because this is a Music Matters promo aimed at reducing piracy, the message shifts from "Music matters because it's shared," to "Don't share music because, together, we can keep music from mattering."

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]]> this-promo-also-seems-to-be-anti-beard,-but-maybe-that's-just-me http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20110818/12234515587 Tue, 16 Nov 2010 04:05:29 PST Beatles & Apple Finally Going To Let You Pay Money For The Beatles Songs You've Been Pirating For Years Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101115/23404411875/beatles-apple-finally-going-to-let-you-pay-money-for-the-beatles-songs-you-ve-been-pirating-for-years.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20101115/23404411875/beatles-apple-finally-going-to-let-you-pay-money-for-the-beatles-songs-you-ve-been-pirating-for-years.shtml the Beatles' music is finally available on iTunes, something that tons of online music stores have been trying to offer for years and years without any luck. Given that Steve Jobs allegedly named his company "Apple" after the Beatles' "Apple Corp." -- it's been a particular goal of Jobs to get their music into his store (even with the legal fights that have been had over the name). Either way, while I'm sure Steve Jobs will make this out to be the most amazing thing since the invention of electrical power, it's kind of worth pointing out that the Beatles' music has been widely available online for years via file sharing options. Putting this in perspective, all this is really doing is giving people a chance to pay money for music they've probably already been getting for free. Suddenly, it doesn't seem like such a big deal, and makes you wonder what the hell took so long.

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]]> well-that's-compelling http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20101115/23404411875 Tue, 31 Aug 2010 12:35:14 PDT Questionable Site Claims To Legally Offer Unlimited MP3 Downloads... Record Label Lawyers Already Springing Into Action Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100831/03454710834.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100831/03454710834.shtml claiming to have legal download offerings that don't pass the laugh test. Remember a year ago, we talked about a company called Bluebeat.com that claimed to be the only site where you could legally buy Beatles MP3s, based on a bit of absolutely ridiculous logic, that it was using "psycho-acoustic simulation" to recreate the tracks, thereby giving it a brand new copyright. That company also got a registration for these "new" works by the Copyright Office, hoping that most people wouldn't notice that the Copyright Office registration process is a pure rubber stamp effort, and conveys no actual legitimacy to a bogus copyright.

Well, it looks like we've got another similar situation, as some mysterious company called ZapTunes is claiming to offer unlimited MP3 downloads for $25/month -- with an initial "free" period, though you have to hand over your credit card details. The whole thing sounds highly questionable, however. The store claims to have licensed the work from all the major labels, including being able to offer Beatles MP3s and AC/DC MP3s -- which have not been offered in MP3 format anywhere.

In the comments on that Hypebot article, some point out that the company appears to just be scraping Last.fm data, as it found a track that one guy had created himself, which only lived on his computer (but which had been "scrobbled" and the info was sent to Last.fm). The company also claims to have raised "about $5 million in funding from various Venture Capitalists," but doesn't seem to name any of them.

Despite the claims from the company that they've secured the necessary licenses for this, it appears not everyone agrees. EMI is apparently already starting the legal process. The whole thing really makes me wonder if these sites honestly think that people will buy their claims when there seems to be little evidence to support them. There are plenty of sites out there that offer up such content in a clearly unauthorized manner -- but at least they're honest about what they do. It seems pretty silly and destined to fail massively to falsely claim the legal rights to music you almost certainly did not license.

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]]> sounds-dodgy http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100831/03454710834 Mon, 15 Feb 2010 13:46:30 PST EMI Apparently Forgot Grey Album Disaster; Issues Takedown Of Wu Tang vs. Beatles Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100215/1235058169.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100215/1235058169.shtml force offline a wildly popular mashup, mixing The Beatles with The Wu Tang Clan., despite it getting rave reviews and lots of attention... and despite a history of similar actions backfiring massively for EMI.

Let's take a look back. Apparently the folks over at EMI/Capitol Records have no sense of history. Back in 2004, DJ Danger Mouse put together "The Grey Album," a fantastic mashup of The Beatles' "The White Album" with Jay-Z's "The Black Album." EMI/Capitol, who holds the copyright on much of The Beatles' catalog went nuts, and started sending cease-and-desists to pretty much everyone, leading to the infamous "Grey Tuesday" on February 24, 2004, where lots of websites posted the album in protest. Years later, EMI admitted that the Grey Album didn't do any harm, but the company didn't care, saying "It's not a question of damage; it's a question of rights." Except, that's not true at all. If no damage is being done -- and, in fact, such a mashup is likely to attract a lot more attention to your back catalog from an audience who might not be that familiar with it, you're making a pretty huge mistake. That's just business.

Of course, EMI/Capitol refuses to learn. A few years later, when someone put together a Beatles/Beach Boys mashup, EMI/Capitol again sent out cease-and-desists and demanded the IP addresses of anyone who downloaded the album.

And here we are today, as EMI/Capitol (who, last we saw, was trying to bootstrap a fake word of mouth viral campaign, after its suits blocked a real viral campaign) is fighting to stay alive, as it is massively in debt, with little hope of getting out of it.

So what does EMI/Capitol decide to do? The same thing that's helped fuel this downward spiral: send out cease-and-desists on wildly popular mashups.

Towards the end of January, word started spreading online of a mashup put together by Tom Caruana and Tea Side Records, called "Wu-Tang vs. The Beatles: Enter the Magical Mystery Chambers." I have to admit, I've been listening to it a lot the last few weeks, and it's really well done. It quickly started receiving rave reviews online. If you listen, this certainly isn't just playing Wu Tang vocals over Beatles instrumentals. As many noticed, the beats are changed significantly to fit with the vocals.

But, apparently, that's not going to satisfy EMI/Capitol. It's not entirely clear what happened, but the album has been removed from where it was originally posted, and the only explanation is a short comment on February 10th:
Had to remove all Wu Beatles material at Capitol Records request
So, yes, as EMI/Capitol are battling for survival, its lawyers thought the best thing to do with their time was to send a cease & desist to an album that might actually get them some attention and sell some Beatles albums -- and they do so knowing how badly this backfired with The Grey Album, leading many to swear off EMI releases. No wonder they're going out of business.

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]]> haven't-we-done-this-before? http://www.techdirt.com/comment_rss.php?sid=20100215/1235058169 Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:20:51 PDT Less Than Expected Sales Of Beatles Rockband Shows It's Not Just About The Music Mike Masnick http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091021/1140186621.shtml http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20091021/1140186621.shtml Guitar Hero and Rock Band weren't paying enough for the music they used in the games, saying that the success of such games was "entirely dependent on the content we own and control." As we mentioned at the time, this is the usual fallacy of the entertainment industry, to assume that the entire value of the product is in the content itself, rather than other aspects of it -- such as the gameplay. It looks like the initial sales results of the massively overhyped Beatles Rockband is helping to prove this point. Despite all the attention and press and the fact that this was the Beatles' music being offered in such a game for the first time, reader Eric alerts us to the news that sales of the game have massively underperformed expectations. Sales were less than 60% of what most analysts expected, and some of the quotes from people suggest why:
"[It] felt like an expansion to me, not a full release... [It was] cool, but not quite enough to be a stand alone game ($60) purchase."
That's just one quote, but others have expressed a similar sentiment. The music... that's nice, but you can get Beatles' music all over. It's the game that makes this worth buying -- or not worth buying. And just adding new music to an old game wasn't nearly as exciting as many people hoped it would be. This isn't to say the music is "worthless." But it does suggest -- yet again -- that the entertainment industry overvalues the contribution of the content itself.

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