Steve, are you seriously going to turn this completely unrelated topic into yet another platform for  your personal crusade against forum hosts?  Just giving you a hard time :)

dubdisciple
Steve, are you seriously going to turn this completely unrelated topic into yet another platform for  your personal crusade against forum hosts? 

 
An older boy made me do it sir.
 
 

 
Just giving you a hard time :)

 
I can take it.
 
Unlike a certain forum host.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Oops..... I did it again

I'm done with SongCraft. He just sent me a demented message basically calling me a hypocritical a-hole for having the audacity to disagree with him, ordering me to never interact with him in a post again otherwise it would be construed as "harassment" and threatening me with "prosecution" if I discussed the contents of the message on the forum. Well I guess I'm doing that now, lol. I should have the police pounding on my door pretty soon...

I honestly make no apologies for anything I've said to him and for anything I'm saying now. I'm not the type to start "reporting" people or demanding apologies or asking Cakewalk to ban him or anything like that - I just thought other forum users should know what they're potentially dealing with. It's not the first time he's gone over the line in attacking me in a completely over the top manner, he actually messaged me to apologize for that one saying that he sometimes gets over emotional. Well, I guess this is a regular thing with him. Lol!

sharke
I'm done with SongCraft. He just sent me a demented message basically calling me a hypocritical a-hole for having the audacity to disagree with him, ordering me to never interact with him in a post again otherwise it would be construed as "harassment" and threatening me with "prosecution" if I discussed the contents of the message on the forum. Well I guess I'm doing that now, lol. I should have the police pounding on my door pretty soon...

I honestly make no apologies for anything I've said to him and for anything I'm saying now. I'm not the type to start "reporting" people or demanding apologies or asking Cakewalk to ban him or anything like that - I just thought other forum users should know what they're potentially dealing with. It's not the first time he's gone over the line in attacking me in a completely over the top manner, he actually messaged me to apologize for that one saying that he sometimes gets over emotional. Well, I guess this is a regular thing with him. Lol!

He did something similar to me Before. Kind of reminded me of how an ex i ended up getting a restraining order on sounded.  It was too funny to actually upset me. I still wish him well. Emotions are a funny thing. Ironically, I admire that he feels so strongly in what he is supporting, even if i do think it clouds judgement. I really wish this topic could be discussed rationally. I think I will add this to abortion, religion, gun control, politics and racism as things that are next to impossible to discuss unless you are among people who already agree with you.

Ha I had a similar thing recently with an drunken client who decided to text me a torrent of abuse one evening. When I replied back to say "please stop texting me," she replied back "stop harassing me or I will call the police." About 50 abusive and threatening texts later, at 2am in the morning, I ended up calling the police myself. At one point she texted me "And another thing. Just because I have a few wine bottles lying about doesn't mean I'm an alcoholic." I got the feeling she was texting more than one person and got mixed up. LOL!

slartabartfast
I can not speak to Spotify specifically, but if you and the newly departed SongCraft were to have a serious discussion, you would both need to do a great deal more homework to understand the issue. I recognize that a pseudo-religious animosity to any government intervention in the market may make understanding the issues moot, but I take your question in good faith.
 
The main thrust of the bill is to return copyright protection to recordings when they are played on broadcast radio. There is some overlap in what is considered broadcasting, the law treats a service like internet radio differently than it does on demand streaming or downloads. The distinction being that if the broadcaster chooses the playlist, and everyone receives the same song at the same time, that is broadcasting ("nonsubscription broadcast transmission"), even if the medium is the internet rather than radio waves. If the user chooses the song to download that is online streaming (single play) "subscription" distribution. So to the extent that online services have successfully been claiming to be broadcasting (operating an internet "radio station") and thus not paying recording owners anything for playing recordings, they would have to do so. 
 
Another issue arises from the history of recording rights in copyright.Before there was technology to record sound, the copyright statutes did not envision that it would arrive, so when it became possible to record music, the copyright law protected the songwriters and the publishers of paper music, but was mute on the rights of the creators of recordings. Early cases involved protection for the punched paper used in player pianos, and the courts over a number of years made decisions based on the logical extension of rights to this new technology. State legislatures in some cases provided specific protection, and eventually the federal copyright law did recognize the right to collect revenue from the recording rights (as was previously done for the author rights) in a recording. This was included in the Copyright Act of 1976, but it provided protection only to recordings created after 1972. By that time there was a large amount of recorded music out there, some still very popular, but since the law did not include them, they could be used in many commercial ways without paying their creators. This new bill would extend federal protections to those older recordings. So if a non-subscription streaming service were to have a catalog of old recordings that it was serving up to users without paying for the recording rights, that would change. As you noted previously, Spotify pays for other audio streaming rights already.
 
A third issue arises from how Spotify and other music services pay for their recording rights. As others have noted it is rarely the performer who is paid, but usually the owner of the recording rights. Spotify has deals with a number of major record companies, and in many such deals there is a metered payment to the record company without any reference to who played the music that was recorded. In many cases contracts between the performer and the record company make it unlikely that performers will ever see much from these deals. Studio musicians, engineers and producers are often doing "work for hire" and have zero rights in the final product. The bill does not give such hired performers any new rights. In a some cases the bill would require payments be distributed to performers where a "statutory license" is used (actually where the work is eligible for such licensing). Currently that would be a non-interactive service like internet radio. How that would actually play out is murky. Assuming that the section applies, it would specify a division of license fees between the recording company and various types of free agent musicians who performed the recording, some of whom are being paid nothing now.
 
the bill:
https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/1733/text
 
Title 17 USC which the bill amends and more:
http://www.copyright.gov/title17/circ92.pdf
 
A pretty understandable summary:
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=f67da04a-b8df-49c8-8327-7bed8f266e9b
 
A very complete and balanced survey of the issues involved:
http://copyright.gov/docs/musiclicensingstudy/copyright-and-the-music-marketplace.pdf
 

 
Thanks for taking the time to clear that up. I'm still not 100% sure what it will mean for Spotify, but I guess we'll see. Of course SongCraft could have explained those things in answer to my questions, in fact I was kind of expecting him to given his personal interest in the bill and the work he says he did in campaigning for it, but I guess he didn't know either. I do take issue with your description of my objection to government interference in pricing "pseudo-religious." That would suggest some kind of blind faith - in actual fact I'm just sticking to a principle that I can defend with reason and logic. 

dubdisciple
I really wish this topic could be discussed rationally. I think I will add this to abortion, religion, gun control, politics and racism as things that are next to impossible to discuss unless you are among people who already agree with you.

There is no reason this topic could not be discussed rationally if rational individuals were to engage with each other and refrain from taking a discussion of ideas as a personal attack to be defended like the honor of a maligned wife, and I am not referring here just to SongCraft. I happen to agree that this bill remedies an unfairness, and that it may have some benefit to the small middle class of recording musicians. Part of the problem seems to be that what you see depends on where you stand, and that most of us have more than one role in the event.
 
As an amateur musician (and pretty unsuccessful even at that), I do not have a dog in this hunt, but some readers of this forum can claim to be directly affected by the issue as professional musicians. As a music listener, I am tempted by the possibility of getting all my music free. Just do away with copyrights and patents and let anyone who can, use whatever they want. On the other hand, like the left wing socialists who wrote the US constitution (Article I, Section 8, Clause 8), I can see a public good in offering an incentive to a songwriter or performer or recording company in the form of a time limited government enforced monopoly. Most of us would never have heard our favorite songs if there were not a way to pay the people who wrote, performed and recorded the works, and none of us seriously expect a business to pay for anything it can get for free. However, as a person who values fairness above profit, I find the elaborate system that has arisen to swindle artists by the powerful entities who value profit above fairness to be unconscionable, and I would like to be relieved of some of my responsibility in the care and feeding of this system. Most of us are similarly on several sides of this same issue at once. Therein lies the potential to examine our own positions from a broader viewpoint, and to have a little more tolerance for the positions of others.

Wow.. he sent me another ridiculous claim that I somehow violated the law by merely mentioning he sent me an insane message.  I guess I am headed to jail now. 
 
As far as the topic,  as someone has already mentioned, I doubt this increases the bottomline for individual artists anyway.  I have watched too many similar attempts at one side's definition of fairness end up having the opposite affect. The people most likely to reap benefits would be the already extremely wealthy types with extreme airplay due to the monopoly like state of radio. Rihanna, maroon 5, etc could easily get even more radio play as clear channel takes the less risky path of creating a smaller pool of"stars"to cram down our throats. Not saying that is guaranteed, but I doubt the industry declares "fairness has won" and simply cheerfully comply. They will, like all businesses react in the way that recoups potential loss. I think the conversation should always be open but that works both ways.

Another point is that if radio stations are forced to pay out more money, they'll get that money back somehow. Probably by cramming another ad into each commercial break 
 
I'm always surprised that people still listen to the radio. It just annoys the crap out of me. The DJ's are usually irritating in some way and I hate the silly voices they use for ads. 

I have noticed that they are editing songs to be even shorter on some songs by doing things like cutting out verses and solos.