VERY Low Flying Spitfire

[QUOTE=Tony C]If I understand things correctly, every (legal) radio station has to pay a fixed fee to a ‘governing body’ (sorrry I can’t remember its name) which then distributes the copyright/royality fees to the appropriate holder of that copyright.[QUOTE]

Correct to a point Tony.
In the UK when the local radio network was ‘Liberalised’ by the prevailing govenment in the early 80’s (in the interest of privatisation or ‘customer choice’ as they preferred to call it) dozens of independant local stations appeared.
With the passage of time corporate take overs have resulted in there being perhaps just three major players left supplying local radio services.

The consumer has no idea that this is the case because the corporate identity is never revealed. He/She still thinks that they are tuned to their local independant station because they get a regular local news bulletin/weather report.

Yes there is a person in a studio (during the day) but all these stations are linked to a central digital music library by phone line (usually a high capacity fixed link “private circuit”).
All these stations cover a fairly small area transmitter wise, but if you had a radio that could be tuned one after the other to Radio ‘a’ in Machester, Radio ‘b’ in Glasgow, Radio ‘c’ in Bristol and radio ‘d’ in Norwich you would find that thay are all playing the same song at the same time.
This means that they (the parent company) only pay one royalty payment depsite the fact that they are playing the music from perhaps 300 different locations at once.

Listen closely and sometimes you will pick up when the person in the studio gets really bored and deviates from the script between records
“And this one goes out to Great Aunt Maude on your 90th birthday from all the family, they know it’s one of you favourites”, what do you hear ?
‘Walking in the beaches looking at the peaches’ by The Stranglers.
Oh yeah right on Aunt Maude, I always knew you were a rocker at heart 😀

Hi Whalebone

Great response I agree

I may see you soon as I will be in the UK next month for a month

Regards
John P

Spot on John and that’s an excellent article by Janis Ian.
It is ineresting the comment she makes about her record company wanting her to accept a lower writers percentage because her first cd being new technology was ‘uncopyable’, what a hoot !

What the most of the buying public do by dowloading is to “try before you buy”
What people don’t like is spending £15 or whatever on a cd that they know costs less than £1 to make and that they also know that the writer gets pennies per copy for as their ‘cut’, only to find that maybe there are only a couple of tracks that are any good.
If the artist has talent the genuine fan will still buy the manufactured cd or whatever because it is still nice to have the ‘genuine article’ with all the sleeve notes and artwork etc.

I think for the big companies its a thing about control, and total control at that.
They make 90% of ‘their’ money from just the top 10% of ‘their’ artists. Ok we are talking huge amounts of money if there is a small percentage dent in profits but these companies still make billions. Those at the lower end seem to feel that file sharing benefits them as it brings their work to the attention of a wider audience and ulitmately boosts sales, its probably very true but that’s not where the effect is felt by those at the top.

Record company executives are not in the business of fostering new talent, they are in the business of making money. Profit is the bottom line and an awful lot of very good people that have a ‘lot to say’ in their music fall by the wayside because they are not ‘commercial’ or ‘mainstream’.

Shsshhh. It’s a secret. 😉

Keep it quiet or I’ll get dun for advertising.

Glad you like it!

See you soon Chez Land of the Long Grey Duvet, AKA UK.

Hi James

Quite right as well as identifying the “audit trail ” of the transaction / download – no easy matter as it can literally pass through thousands of servers and nodes all over the world and who is therefore responsible.

I’d rather watch aircraft or go flying……………………

Regards
John p

PS Nice articles in the mag – I only got it today

The global aspect is something most people overlook; what is regarded as ‘OK’ in country ‘a’ is completely unnaceptable in country ‘z’. And, on top of that, federal countries (e.g. Australia, Canada and some minor place called the USA) have dificulties keeping the law streight across their provinces / states. The big mistake made by folks who don’t travel much is they think the laws and customs of their country/state/province/village/local pub group are ‘right’ and thus applicable globally. This aint so!

Hi Tony

Good idea and whilst I take your point the practicalities of it are very hard to implement. It has in fact been thought of and that is what is underway in selected cases at present whereby a few companies and bodies are prosecuting people and ISPs for doing just that but it is not practicle on a world wide basis due to the scale of the issue.

The problem will require a different solution because of it’s global nature and the inability to clearly identify culprits.

Still it’s a good thread to explore

Regards
John P

If I understand things correctly, every (legal) radio station has to pay a fixed fee to a ‘governing body’ (sorrry I can’t remember its name) which then distributes the copyright/royality fees to the appropriate holder of that copyright.

Would it not be possible to follow a similar course and set up a Governing Body whereby all ISP’s must register and pay a monthly fee, to stay in business and then have this fee distributed to people who have music, images, videos etc, on the internet?

Anybody wishing to distribute music/images/videos via the Internet could then apply to the Governing Body for a license and then receive copyright/royalty fees everytime a track/image/video is downloaded.

I appreciate that this is a very simplistic idea and with 22 billion sites in operation, it wouldn’t be easy to start. I have also obviously missed loads of problems but it seems to be a way around the misappropriation of property but of course, something along these lines could already be in operation which I am not aware of it.

Tony

Hi Phil

Yes this can go on for many a long day but to address a few points you raise.

In my view the music and arts industry are the ones who really let the horse bolt years ago by totally taking the wrong track with all of this.

The entertainment industry is all about providing a service not about litigation and legislation and they should have gotten in early and tried to provide profitable online entertainment to people who wanted it at an affordable price. The profits they have been reaping for decades are based upon a different paradigm where they had complete control of the medium and distribution channels – the VHS machine and Cassette sound recorder were the warning signs and they should have started to do something about it then. The horse has bolted well and truely and they will never be in a position again to fully control their own destiny as a result.

I think the future for these industries will lie in embracing the net and digital technology to provide better experiances at a price people are willing to pay – no easy task given that it is still an industry based upon a model that started with sheet music, records and cinema style movies all of which they controlled and over which they had a monoply.

I think it will take a new generation of thinkers in the industry who are a little more agile in their business planning and not rooted in past obsolete paradigms and prepared to entertain their customers instead of working out how to prosecute them.

As for profit I don’t think we yet have the data to say that the industry is hurting from piracy – sure they are using artists as an excuse but Cinema audiences have never been better because the theatre experiance has never been better from a technical viewpoint its just that the rest of the media is not much better than it has ever been just more expensive. The artists don’t benefit because their percentage from each sale is so marginal and getting more so – it is the cost of the overheads and profit of the megolithic producers/suppliers of product that is killing sales.

I would indicate to you all that a read of this comment by artist janis ian is well worth a read.
http://www.janisian.com/article-internet_debacle.html

Kindest regards
John Parker

The answer unfortunatly is realistically if you don’t want it pirated – don’t digitise it and put it out there. People on the Net don’t have the same morals it just isn’t a factor.
I in no way agree with this piracy debate I am just being realistic- unless you are microsoft you don’t have the resources to counter it.

My two bobs worth

Kindest regards
John parker

We may do better to move this discussion on to the general board if it takes off (no pun intended), I agree with everything you say John.
To tackle just one area what, in your professional opinion, is the future for the ‘entertainment’ industry ?
By industry I mean the huge conglomerates as these are the ones claiming to feel it ‘in the pocket’ owing to online piracy, (they never mention the artist loosing out do they :D).

‘Don’t digitalise it’ well the horse has really long bolted. Like millions round the world the software to make high quality mpeg’s of all my old 33rpm albums sits on my pc. I can make a hiss,rumble, wow and flutter free cd to play in the car, I also have the ability to share it with others and there are plenty of websites that offer me free downloads of their P2P software to enable me to do it. Right click, save as, install. It’s as simple as that any fool can do it.

CD encryption can be ‘cracked’ seemingly in an instant, the latest Hollywood blockbuster is recorded at the glittering premier by someone with mini cam in his jacket lapel, and it all gets out “on the net” the following day.

I am not condoning it but who amongst us here, hand on heart now, has not seen the clips in question that started all this off ? All of the guitly have been party to a breach of copyright and sconner is rightly considerably peed off about it but it’s his living after all.
If I see a cracking shot taken by one of the many talented folk on here and have that as my desktop back ground for a few days am I infringing their copyright ? They posted it here, and the software to digitally brush out any embedded (c)xxxxxx 2004 is widely available.
We are in a digital age, how can you stop it, could we ? should we ? I just don’t have the answers.

As profits fall and big business fosters even less up and coming groups of actors and musicians than it does already ( because the big bucks in terms of % profit margins cannot be made any more) will we eventaully be reduced, if thats the right word, to being entertained in our local village halls by people with real talent ? and who can actually sing and play an instrument ? Good Lord heaven forbid 😀
Phil

Steve,
You’ll have to move fast to ‘blatantly distribute Robbos photos’ before he does. I’ve a fine collection from the master ‘imself!
Cheers

PS the Writer’s & Artist’s Yearbook is quite good (but not as good as Snapper) on Copyright (UK). Also it changed a bit a few years ago to simplify the difference between copyright ownership in ‘commissioned photographs’ and ‘solicited’ ones – Snapper could probably outline that clearer than me, it having bin ‘is bisiness.

Thanks Setter, Sconnor, Snapper and all the others who contributed (even if your name didn’t begin with an S) to this legal primer on copyright law. Again, I don’t think anyone on this forum was trying to engage in intentional theft, but rather we are all probably guilty of the, “this is way cool, have you seen it” syndrome. Something along the lines of passing an interesting magazine article around the office.

I promise from now on that I will only blatantly copy and distribute Robbo’s photos. 😀

Steve

Sparky – they come under the pre-1988 rule, ie 50 years after the end of the year the photo was taken in. ie 1953 and before is safe. Word of caution though, Crown Copyright is different I believe, and it is also possible to extend copyright.

Mark,

sorry I never replied to your request, I haven’t checked my PM’s for some months!

Copywright – a legal perspective

Hi
I am the ICT Strategy and Governance Director for an Australian State Government so I have a little experiance in this area.

Welcome to the 21st Century people!!!

The digital age is upon us all and copyright breaches are the norm – this is essentially the basis of the rights management issues perpetrated by online music and video piracy peer to peer file sharing programs such as the ill fated Napster etc.

Each and every day it is estimated that 160,000,000 individual copyright breaches occur on the Net. Yes that is 160 MILLION.

The beauty and trouble with the Web is that it is pervasive and that it has no rules in the accepted sense – these are mostly written in retrospect after the horse has bolted. Existing copyright conventions are simply ignored as a matter of course on the Web.

The reality is that once an item/article is on the net it is open to any abuse whatsoever – the proof that someone is the owner of a work and that a particular individual has breached that copyright is not at all straightforward and requires a huge technical and legal investment. The facts are that in this digital age the minute you put any item in a digital medium such that it can be copied , downloaded or otherwise abused – it will be. I wish it was otherwise but it is not the case. Another legal issue is that laws and cross jurisdictional issues also apply – if I for instance steal a file from a site in the UK and whilst I live in Australia I actually put the file up on a server hosted in Russia for example. If I am the owner of the file do I take action against the Web host, the site owner or even any ISP who allows the trade in my stolen file and in which country – there are 22 BILLION web pages figure it out – it is not within control of individuals.

The answer unfortunatly is realistically if you don’t want it pirated – don’t digitise it and put it out there. People on the Net don’t have the same morals it just isn’t a factor.

I in no way agree with this piracy debate I am just being realistic- unless you are microsoft you don’t have the resources to counter it.

My two bobs worth

Kindest regards
John parker

Well I must admit I was silly not to ask permission from Steve if I could use his work in my avatar! 😮 😮 😮 😮

I did ask – politely… and did not get a reply! 🙁

This is a delicate issue.

Clearly blatant rip-off to the detrimental financial advantage of the copyright holder is a no-no.

If you however employed the letter of the law, as stated on this forum, a very large tract of the principal historic aviation journals would just implode. We as enthusiast would so very much the poorer.

It is a fine line and it is hard to see a major legal battle arising over a £25 photo fee.

Just think though, if Alberto Korda had got 50c for every poster, T-shirt etc for good old Che, he would be on the Forbes list.

Mark

I am happy to post stuff on here, and am happy for it to be used for whatever, as I like this people and you lot. Anything I want to keep to myself, I do, and other stuff gets a watermark that will make it unattractive to copying.

This is the point I was trying to make. If you want to protect your copyright, then don’t let it enter the public domain in the first place. I could be just as upset as anyone when someone copyrights a photo of my airplane with me at the controls, but that’s what public domain is all about. When a photographer or videographer uses footage of my airplane at a “public” event (which you could argue applies to every airport in the world) then I have no rights to the photos or video? I have no problem with this if that’s the way the law reads, but don’t be critical when someone copies me on a photo or video clip, with no watermark or other means of identification, that has made its way around the internet a hundred thousand times.

This “Just wait till my lawyer get hold of you” stuff is pure nonsense. In the world of patents and intellectual property the owner is required to excercise due dilligance to protect the property from general distribution to the public. If this burden is not upheld the courts often find that the material is “public domain”. This forum has many photographers who know how to apply an ownership tag line or watermark, and I respect them for doing it. It makes it that much easier to know who to contact when I want to purchase a print.

Lastly, I’m not looking to pick a fight or play devil’s advocate, but this is far from a black and white issue.

I have been taking pictures for many years (not as many as Mark12) and one thing I have learned is that human nature is to take, if you put something in front of them, they will take it.

Imagine going to Duxford and all the stalls are not manned. No one to take your money.
What would you do?

If you are going to present people on the internet with pictures or video clips, you have to make sure that if people take a copy of them, they can’t do much with them.

There are ways to make the image big enough on the screen, but if you try to print it, it would almost be postage stamp size.

I am amazed at some of the images that have been posted on this forum.
I have come across some pictures that when printed are almost an A4 print!!!

Big may be beautiful, but it can cost you.

PDS

Well I must admit I was silly not to ask permission from Steve if I could use his work in my avatar! 😮 😮 😮 😮

So apologies my sincerest apologies Steve.

And it’s now been removed.

And I’m also very sorry that you have had to close your site down.

A real shame IMO. 🙁

Cheers

Paul

I do enjoy it when a topic gets fully exercised. From my perspective, until I posted on this Forum, I had not published any work commercially. Since posting my fisrt pics here I have received requestes from a magazine and subsequently the mags, readers for copiesof my pics.

I can understand someone with commercial rights getting upset when they find that they are losing orders because of someone ‘appropriating’ their work, but most of the images posted here are done for the benefit of each other for information and interests sake.

Keep posting chaps, just remember to give credit where due.

ps. My avatar photo was taken by me at DX last weekend. Available from leading newsagents. 😀 😀 😀