Techdirt. Stories filed under "songs"

Confusing Value And Price, Choir Demands £3000 Per Download

Tim Cushing — Mon, 7 Jan 2013 05:39:43 PST

If you asked most people what a single track is worth, most would answer with the going market price, which ranges from ~$0.79-$1.29. This is what the market has shown, for the most part, that it will bear. You veer too far away from the high end of that range and you'll find most people will opt for other music, cheaper music, or your music, fully detached from the high-end price tag.

Now, if you ask this same question of a certain 22-piece self-described "feminist alternative choir," the answer would be much, much different. Your initial estimate would need to be upped by approximately $4,850. Gaggle, the 22-member choir, has announced that they are selling their new single for £3,000 per download (no physical option exists). Why? Because they've chosen to use the persuasive power of economic fallacies to get people talking about "value."

Here's the womanifiesto:

"The Power of Money. What does money mean to you? How do you put a value on the things you care about? Is money the same thing as worth? Like it or not, money means that some people are rich and others poor, some considered successful, others failures. It determines your healthcare choices, education, clothes and how long you have the heating on for – whether you can have the things you want. But money is made up. Without our participation in the illusion, it's meaningless – in fact, if meaning equated to value, we would happily burn all the money tomorrow. Gaggle, of course, uses money. But Gaggle is an exercise in the power of other things as well – otherwise we wouldn't, and couldn't, exist. The Power of Generosity, Inventiveness, Courage. The Power of Flirting, Improvising, Blagging, Hard Work and Being Nice and Polite. The Power of Friendship, Faith, Obligation, Ambition, Anxiety…..Dreams. Without these Powers this track would not have been made. This song is precious. And yet, we're told that 'a single' is almost valueless. And that pisses us off. So we have done a budget of how much this single 'cost'. The many hours it took to write, arrange, compose, master; the expertise of all the musicians, technicians, designers, producers involved; the combination of all the Powers described above and more – we've totted it all up as best we can and… …we are putting this tune to market for the sum of £3000. The power of money? Let's see."

Well, good luck with that. It's been said time and time before, the customer has little to no interest in your fixed costs. This factor is completely irrelevant to purchase decisions, which are most often based on a more subjective perception of "value." While Gaggle may value their creation highly, it would be ignorant to assume that potential purchasers will value the track accordingly. In an era where creative output is at its highest, the sheer number of competing, cheaper options would be enough to bury this track's chances, even if Gaggle decided £5 was a reasonable amount to ask. (It isn't.)

Beyond that, there's some questions as to Gaggle's math. Are they intending for one sale to reimburse the entire creative effort? 10? 25? Wouldn't it be better to sell a few thousand copies at a price that people will actually pay, rather than pin the hopes of the collective on sales in the single digits? For that matter, wouldn't this scenario be more likely as well? And is it really fair to ask purchasers to support 22 musicians through the purchase of a single track? Aren't you running about 10-15 members over the upper limit for potentially successful bands that aren't named Broken Social Scene or Chicago?

But the issue at hand here really isn't £3000 or the perceived value of a single track versus the true cost of production. Gaggle's move here is a publicity stunt, primarily aimed at raising awareness of the band with a secondary aim of opening a dialogue about the value of artistic endeavors. All well and good except that it's rather hard to hold a discussion with a group whose opening gambit is to hurl themselves off the deep end while everyone else looks on in bemusement.

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Like Clockwork: Copyright Holders Mistakenly Freak Out About Presidential Candidates Using Their Music

Mike Masnick — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:16:00 PST

This seems to happen every four years like clockwork during Presidential elections. Some musician gets upset about a politician he or she disagrees with, making use of his or her music during campaign rallies. This time around the candidate is Newt Gingrich, and the upset musician is songwriter and member of the band Survivor, Frank Sullivan, who co-wrote the song "Eye of the Tiger" which Gingrich has apparently been using during presidential campaigns:

The complaint states that the violation it alleges is intentional since Gingrich is "sophisticated and knowledgeable" concerning copyright laws.

That strikes me as interesting, because I would have to assume that the campaign has paid for standard ASCAP performance license (either that or the locations they use almost certainly have such a license). And if that's true, then Sullivan has no case. If the venue has a license, they can play whatever they want. Full stop. "Eye of the Tiger" is registered to ASCAP, so that's all that's needed. The campaign doesn't need permission of the copyright holder. The Chicago Sun-Times goes into more detail, where Sullivan insists this isn't political, he just doesn't like the song being used without him getting paid. Perhaps he should check his ASCAP statement. If he's not getting paid, he might want to take it up with them.

That same article also notes that Sullivan co-owns the copyright along with his song writing partner/bandmate, Jim Peterik, who seems to both (sorta, kinda) like Gingrich and not like legal actions:

“My wife is a big fan,” Peterik said. “I’m becoming a fan of Newt Gingrich. He has a mind of his own. He’s not a talking head. Originally, I didn’t like him, but look at the competition. He’s looking better and better.”

Peterik is not a party to the suit that Sullivan filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago. They share the copyright, but tend to stay out of each other’s way when it comes to cracking down on infringers.

”I hate suits,” Peterik said. “I hate being in court. I avoid that meticulously. When I [heard about the lawsuit on the radio Monday} I said I’m not surprised, but I’m surprised.”

I say this every time something like this comes up, but even if politicians can make use of such songs without getting permission from the artists, thanks to ASCAP/BMI/SESAC performance licenses, it still surprises me that the campaigns don't seek out musicians who support them in the first place to get their "okay" just to avoid embarrassing situations like this. Either way, it seems almost certain that this lawsuit is going nowhere fast.

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Anti-SOPA/PIPA Protest Songs

Mike Masnick — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 05:25:40 PST

Well, well. It looks like the ongoing protests are inspiring some extra creativity from some musicians. A bunch of people have been sending around The Day The LOLcats Died, an obviously play on a song you all know: If you're a bit more into hip hop than rock and roll, there's this song, by Okwerdz, called: The American Government wants to CENSOR the Internet: If there are any others, feel free to leave some comments...

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Creativity Comes From Such Strange Sources

Mike Masnick — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:58:00 PST

Aaron DeOliveira points us to an amusing Christmas to New Year's week diversion in the story of the song, WTF?! I Wanted An iPhone!!! (warning, potentially NSFW, if your work place doesn't like people singing curses). Beyond being entertaining and amusing, the story behind it is a cool case study in how creativity comes from all sorts of strange sources online. The story begins with comedy writer Jon Hendren, being bored on Christmas Eve & Christmas, and playing around with Twitter search, doing searches on terms seeking particularly entitled and angry tweets from kids who didn't get "what they wanted" on Christmas -- with "what they wanted" being defined as an iPhone, an iPad or a car. Hendren then started retweeting the ones he found: That, itself, started to go viral, at which point singer Jonathan Mann, who's made quite a name for himself writing, recording and releasing a song a day ever since January 1 of 2009, picked up on the story and wrote the song linked above (his 1089th song, if you were wondering). The song basically takes some of the "best" of the entitled tweets and produces a fun little ditty (again, potentially NSFW): Now, this whole thing is silly (or, potentially, a bit sickening when you look at how entitled some of those kids feel), but it really does demonstrate a few different concepts, all wrapped up in one nice holiday package:

Creativity comes from all sorts of strange sources
Online, collaboration can happen without people even realizing it (and that's cool)
The ability to create, promote and distribute content just keeps getting easier and easier

But, mostly, it's just amusing.

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Big Record Label 'Innovation': Actually Release Songs For Sale The Same Time They Hit The Radio

Mike Masnick — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:47:54 PST

I can't quite figure out which is more amusing: the fact that record labels are just now thinking that maybe it makes sense to release songs for sale the same time they're sent to radio stations, or that it's seen as newsworthy as a strategy to "beat piracy." I mean, it's a good sign that the labels are finally realizing that a lack of availability is often a driver for unauthorized copies making the rounds, but the fact that they're only coming to this conclusion in 2011 suggests just how out of touch these labels are with the world. People were making this point over a decade ago.

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Beatles & Apple Finally Going To Let You Pay Money For The Beatles Songs You've Been Pirating For Years

Mike Masnick — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 04:05:29 PST

The WSJ is reporting that Apple is getting set to announce that 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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Folk Singer Just Notices That Led Zeppelin May Have Copied His Song Forty Years Ago

Mike Masnick — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 10:55:04 PDT

Reader Tim DiPaula alerts us to the news that folks singer Jake Holmes is suing Jimmy Page for copyright infringement, claiming that the Led Zeppelin song "Dazed and Confused" is a copy of his own song, of the same name, recorded two years earlier. The TMZ link above has clips from both songs, which certainly have some pretty serious similarities. But what's really amazing, of course, is that Holmes recorded his song in 1967, and Zeppelin did their song in 1969. And Holmes is just noticing now? TMZ notes that copyright law has a three year statute of limitation, saying that this lawsuit can only cover damages from the last three years. But, of course, as with all things copyright law related, it might not be that simple. The courts have been somewhat divided on this, but some interpret the law to say exactly what TMZ says -- that it will only cover infringement from the past three years. However, others have interpreted it to mean that it's only three years from the last infringing act. So as long as infringement has been happening all along... some courts will cover that entire period. Of course, you might think that regardless of the statute of limitations issues, Page has a pretty damn good laches claim. Forty plus years to bring the lawsuit? Yeah, the courts might not like that very much.

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Let Them Sing... About Copyright?

Mike Masnick — Fri, 4 Dec 2009 18:50:46 PST

Shocklee points us to an awesome little app that lets you type in whatever lyrics (or, well, words) you want, hit play, and whatever you type will be sung for you, using clips from various famous songs. It's a really fun little app (though, I was amused that they have no clip for the word "lyrics" despite the service being all about lyrics) and can get pretty addictive. In fact, if you want to hear this entire post sung outloud via this system, just click here (please note, this will take a really long time to load, but it's totally worth it). However, like with many other cool music projects, I'm left wondering whether or not some would consider this to be copyright infringement. All of the clips are tiny -- one word, or in many cases, less than a full word, but they do seem to come from various popular and well-known songs. It's not hard to identify some of them. I have no idea if the company behind this service cleared all the licenses (it's possible), but if that's the case, you'd have to imagine that this service would get ridiculously expensive very quickly. If a simple lyric of, say, 8 words, involves a dozen clips, with royalties needing to be paid for each, such a service would quickly become impossible. Doesn't it say something when copyright law would effectively outlaw an awesome and fun app like this one?

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Dear Peter Mandelson... Dan Bull Sings His Opposition To Kicking People Off The Internet

Mike Masnick — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:36:09 PST

Musician Dan Bull seems to be carving out a nice space for himself responding to UK efforts to make copyright law more ridiculous than it already is, by voicing his opposition in song. A few months back, we wrote about his awesome open letter to Lily Allen (full disclosure: I get a brief mention) and now he's informed us that he's back again with an open letter (in song) to Peter Mandelson, called Dear Mandy: I wonder if someone rich and famous has to buy Mandelson dinner before he'll actually listen to it.

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Songs Used In Promotions Get A Ton Of Sales... So Why Does The Music Industry Try To Make It Harder?

Mike Masnick — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 21:40:00 PDT

Ethorad was the first of a few to write in pointing to an article over at the BBC, highlighting how old songs are finding new life and new sales after showing up in a commercial -- or being used on TV during a popular event. In other words, getting your music more widely heard leads to more ways to make money. That, of course, should be obvious. And yet, why is it that so many in the industry are trying to make it so much harder to get music heard by putting up tollbooths at every stop? You have the RIAA/Soundexchange working overtime to put an additional tax on radio play and you have ASCAP/BMI trying to get fees for everything, from the 30 second previews online to ringtones. Of course, the more you put a toll on such things, the less the songs are used, the less they're promoted and the less opportunity there is to increase sales. It's really amazing sometimes that these big organizations don't seem to comprehend the basic idea of a "promotion" and how that helps sales.

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Mattel Now Using Song In Commercial... Which It Once Sued Over Copyright Infringement

Mike Masnick — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 11:33:23 PDT

Back in 1997, the band Aqua released a song called "Barbie Girl," that was actually somewhat critical of "Barbie doll" culture. Mattel, famous for its rather aggressive intellectual property stance, wasted little time in suing the band, claiming the song infringed on the company's rights. In 2002, everyone's favorite appeals court judge (seriously, the guy never fails to entertain) Alex Kozinski told Mattel too bad, parody songs are a part of what you get for being a cultural icon -- and included the classic line: "The parties are advised to chill."

It took seven years since that decision, but apparently Mattel had decided to heed Judge Kozinski's suggestion. Reader Sallo alerts us to the news that Mattel has actually licensed the song for a commercial -- though, they "adjusted" some of the lyrics to make it a little more pro-Barbie, rather than mocking-Barbie. Still, that's quite a jump: from suing the band for infringement to actually licensing and using the song in just a few years.

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Radiohead Leaks Its Own Track To BitTorrent; Apparently Still Happy With 'Free'

Mike Masnick — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:38:00 PDT

Last week we did some debunking on the unsupported idea that just because Radiohead was sick of recording full albums, it somehow meant that the band's business model experiment had been a failure, and that the band did not like using "free" as a part of its business model. Amazingly, the usual cast of characters in our comments continued to insist that Radiohead had clearly learned that "free" doesn't pay. Amusingly, that very same day a "brand new" Radiohead track suddenly appeared on BitTorrent, leading to all sorts of speculation (much of it wrong). But on Monday, the band not only officially released the track for free, but in order to distribute it, it pointed to the very same torrent tracker that had been uploaded last week. In other words, the band leaked its own latest song (for free) via BitTorrent, let the buzz build, and then officially announced the "release" a few days later. But, of course, we're to believe our commenting friends who insist that the band learned that "free" doesn't work?

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Has The Recording Industry Finally Realized That Selling 1,000 Songs In One Package Makes Sense?

Mike Masnick — Thu, 2 Apr 2009 11:32:10 PDT

While we still think SanDisk's new music format is unlikely to get much traction, there was one bit of interesting news in a report on the new slotRadio device designed to play its music-on-microSD: you'll be able to buy slotRadio cards with 1,000 songs on them for $40. We've been wondering for years why the industry is so focused on the $1/song price, when new technology allows for tens of thousands of songs to fit in your pocket. In fact, if you get past the whole price-per-song thing, you start to wonder why you can't buy an iPod stuffed with thousands of songs based on exactly what you like. To date, it's always been a price issue -- with the industry requiring its huge fee per song.

But apparently that's changing. slotRadio has almost no chance (DRM included!), but the very fact that it got the industry to agree to a package that involves 1,000 songs for $40 shows that, somewhere, somehow, people in the industry are realizing that, when you can carry 40,000 songs in your pocket, the $1/song pricing model just doesn't make sense.

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REM Copyright Suit Against Danish Band May Backfire, Since The Dane's Song Came First

Mike Masnick — Fri, 6 Mar 2009 10:13:00 PST

Last year, the lawsuit between Joe Satriani and Coldplay got lots of attention, as Satriani accused Coldplay of ripping off one of his songs. Of course, Satriani's claims were greatly weakened when people turned up other songs from well before Satriani's that sounded quite similar as well.

It looks like REM and Warner Music may be in a similar situation. Michael Scott points us to the news that Warner and REM are suing the Danish pop band Hej Matematik, claiming that the band's song Walkmand copies REM's 2008 song Supernatural Superserious. There's just one (somewhat major) problem. Walkmand is a cover song. The original was by another Dane, Michael Hardinger, and was called Walk, Mand!!, and was recorded in 1981... seventeen years before REM's release. In fact, Hej Matematik got permission from Michael Hardinger before doing their version. I'm guessing REM did not. Feel free to compare all three songs below:

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The First Rule Of Product Placement In Songs: You Don't Talk About Product Placement In Songs

Mike Masnick — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 17:24:00 PDT

We've pointed out recently that as brand advertisers recognize increasingly that content is advertising, they're looking to all sorts of new ways to do "product placement" in places you might not expect. For example, we've talked about product placement in novels. But, what better place for product placement than in a song? Lots of famous songs mention brand names, and it seems some creative advertisers are now going out and trying to sell such placement. At least that's what's being suggested after some guys who received an unsolicited offer to have their brand in a song went and published the email they received. The email notes:

"I'm writing because we feel you may be a good company to participate in a brand integration campaign within the actual lyrics of one of the worlds most famous recording artists upcoming song/album."

Of course, now there's also something of a dispute concerning the publicizing of the email. The guy who apparently sent the email is threatening to sue the recipients who posted it to their blog -- though it's entirely unclear what they'd be suing over, other than that someone called them out for their marketing practices.

In the meantime, I don't see any problem with bands mentioning brands in their songs, but it seems like there are much better ways of doing that, which don't seem quite so tacky as unsolicited emails asking people to pay up to get included in a song.

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The Songs Coldplay Didn't Write?

Mike Masnick — Tue, 1 Jul 2008 09:55:30 PDT

The What Is Fair Use? blog points us to a fascinating story, suggesting that one of the popular songs from the new Coldplay album has a nearly identical melody to a song by another band. This was brought to the world's attention by that other band, who put together this great YouTube video cheekily comparing the two: There are a few ironies here, including the fact that the original song, by the band Creaky Boards, is called "The Songs I Didn't Write." The band also points out that the Coldplay version is being used in an iTunes commercial -- even though it's about the Crusades. The Creaky Boards version is about listening to music in your room -- which, indeed, seems like it would make for a better iTunes commercial.

Still, the good news is that this doesn't appear to be descending into legal threats or anything of that nature. Instead, the video concludes with a rather cheeky: "I wish Coldplay the best of luck. If they ever want to collaborate, I've got some microphones we could use in my bedroom." Coldplay, for its part, "totally refutes" the claims of the band, noting that the song was written well before the Creaky Boards performance in New York where the band thinks Coldplay's front man, Chris Martin, attended (the band also notes Martin was in London that night). It also notes the differences in the songs, and suggests that it's a "simple coincidence" that the songs sound similar.

Indeed, the guy from Creaky Boards later not only retracted his accusation, but suggested that perhaps both bands were actually "inspired" by the "Fairy Theme" in the Legends of Zelda. In a world of strict copyright, of course, that might make both songs "illegal," though I doubt anyone would think that would be the optimal outcome.

Of course, Martin also once admitted: "We're definitely good, but I don't think you can say we're that original. I regard us as being incredibly good plagiarists." The thing is, part of the point we keep trying to make around here is that, for the most part, that's true of just about everyone. It's the overly aggressive use of copyright law that prevents that sort of "goodness" from showing up. Oh, and it's also worth mentioning, that this little story has definitely increased the profile of The Creaky Boards -- proving one of the points we recently made about plagiarism. Even if the plagiarist is "bigger" than you, the original creator can use that to their advantage as well.

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