The music companies' new idea is to try to enforce a music tax:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/27/the-music-industrys-new-extortion-scheme/

  One thing I don't understand is why the music industry is so privileged
over other industries? This is not so only in the US, it's so also in many
other countries, including most western European countries, including
Finland. For example here the music industry is allowed to collect taxes on
each empty cassette, CD-R and other recordable media, as well as collecting
taxes from bars, restaurants and almost anyone. What is most puzzling is
that they are legally allowed to collect taxes from music they have
absolutely no rights to. All this is completely legal and government
sanctioned.

  My question is why. Why is the music industry specifically so privileged?

  Let's compare it to another very similar industry: The software industry.
Both music and software are both intangible intellectual property. The exact
same copyright laws protect both music and software. They are by all
practical means almost identical things from a legal point of view.

  However, for some reason, the music industry gets privileges the software
industry doesn't. In Finland, for example, there are no less than three (!)
entities created solely to protect music IP and to tax people (often even
if those people do not use music for anything at all). There's no such
thing for the software industry. There's nobody who would protect the
rights of software writers (other than basic legal protection which also
the music industry has).
  Recordable media gets taxed for potential music piracy. This money goes
to the music industry. Recordable media does not get taxed for potential
software piracy, and the software industry doesn't get a dime from this.
  The authors of the music IP get paid part of these taxes for doing
absolutely nothing, software authors don't get any such free payments.

  What is more aggravating is that the music industry gets all these
government-sanctioned privileges even though music is basically useless.
It has no real use. The same thing cannot be said about software: A large
part of software is actually useful, as useful as most physical tools and
devices you can buy in the shop. They help the overall industry to run and
produce.
  One would think that software needs more protection than music because
software is actually used to run the industry. But no, it's the other
way around: Software only gets the basic legal protection as any other IP,
but music gets all these government-sanctioned privileges. And why? I have
no idea.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   The music companies' new idea is to try to enforce a music tax:
> 
> http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/27/the-music-industrys-new-extortion-scheme/
> 
>   One thing I don't understand is why the music industry is so privileged
> over other industries? This is not so only in the US, it's so also in many
> other countries, including most western European countries, including
> Finland. For example here the music industry is allowed to collect taxes on
> each empty cassette, CD-R and other recordable media, as well as collecting
> taxes from bars, restaurants and almost anyone. What is most puzzling is
> that they are legally allowed to collect taxes from music they have
> absolutely no rights to. All this is completely legal and government
> sanctioned.
> 
>   My question is why. Why is the music industry specifically so privileged?

Because they have friends in the legislature.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Because they have friends in the legislature.

  The music industry has more people in government positions than the
software industry? Maybe the music industry is more organized and thus
they have succeeded in doing this better than the more disorganized
software industry has been able to?

  What does it tell about democracy and basic human rights when it's
a bunch of private companies who run the government for their own benefit?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

On 1 Apr 2008 06:53:27 -0500, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:

>
>  What does it tell about democracy and basic human rights when it's
>a bunch of private companies who run the government for their own benefit?

We could always try a dictatorship, a benevolent one of course. Any
volunteers? :)
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

John VanSickle wrote:

>>   My question is why. Why is the music industry specifically so 
>> privileged?
> 
> Because they have friends in the legislature.

I was going to say they have rich lobbyists.

Post a reply to this message

"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> a écrit dans le message de news: 
47f22236@news.povray.org...
>  The music industry has more people in government positions than the
> software industry? Maybe the music industry is more organized and thus
> they have succeeded in doing this better than the more disorganized
> software industry has been able to?

I think it's simply that authors' societies and other rights collection 
societies have been around for decades or even centuries (the French one was 
created in 1850). Music
has been in the spotlight for a long time and public, harsh debates about 
music rights and rights collection go back into the 19th century (and into 
the 18th century if one considers author's rights in general).

OTOH software started post-WWII as an obscure, marginal industry that only 
became mainstream in the late 1980s so property rights issues concerning 
software didn't emerge until very recently. Possibly the problems weren't 
noticeable until the late 1990s, when the web became popular or even the 
early 2000s with broadband access.

G.

-- 
*****************************
http://www.oyonale.com
*****************************
- Graphic experiments
- POV-Ray, Cinema 4D and Poser computer images
- Posters

Post a reply to this message

>  One thing I don't understand is why the music industry is so privileged
> over other industries?

Well the size of the industry can't be the reason.  Worldwide there was 
20x - 30x more spent on software than on music.

I guess the music industry just got their act together as a group to protect 
their interests and managed to convince lots of governments to their way of 
thinking.

Actually lots of big industries manage to get special treatment from the 
government, cigarette manufacturers, car manufacturers etc, so I guess the 
software industry is just the odd one out.  Maybe MS and Adobe etc should 
get together and get some taxes on DVD-Rs to be shared out?

Post a reply to this message

scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
> Maybe MS and Adobe etc should 
> get together and get some taxes on DVD-Rs to be shared out?

  No thanks! The point of my rant is that these unfair privileges should
be *removed* from those industries, not to extend the same unfair taxing
privileges to everyone.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:
> On 1 Apr 2008 06:53:27 -0500, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> 
>>  What does it tell about democracy and basic human rights when it's
>> a bunch of private companies who run the government for their own benefit?
> 
> We could always try a dictatorship, a benevolent one of course. Any
> volunteers? :)

Me!  Me! :)

-- 
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> Because they have friends in the legislature.
> 
>   The music industry has more people in government positions than the
> software industry? Maybe the music industry is more organized and thus
> they have succeeded in doing this better than the more disorganized
> software industry has been able to?
> 
>   What does it tell about democracy and basic human rights when it's
> a bunch of private companies who run the government for their own benefit?
> 

Democracy is a lousy system.  The only thing going for it, is that it's 
better than anything else we've tried.

(Sorry, can't remember who originally said that).

-- 
...Ben Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

Post a reply to this message

Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
> Democracy is a lousy system.  The only thing going for it, is that it's 
> better than anything else we've tried.

> (Sorry, can't remember who originally said that).

  Someone has also said that democracy is a dictatorship of the majority.

  IMO he's wrong. In practice democracy really is a dictatorship of a
minority. It just fools citizens to believe that it isn't.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

"Warp" <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote in message 
news:47f21448@news.povray.org...
>
>  Let's compare it to another very similar industry: The software industry.
> Both music and software are both intangible intellectual property. The 
> exact
> same copyright laws protect both music and software. They are by all
> practical means almost identical things from a legal point of view.
>

(Caution: Sarcasm may be employed)

Or better yet, let's compare it to the paper industry.  Specifically, blank 
"copy" paper, for use in copy machines.  Obviously, this is going to be used 
(and indeed has been used) to make multiple copies of copyrighted material. 
Instead of buying 26 copies of the latest Forbes magazine, just to give all 
of the board members a copy of the latest article, the CEO decides that 
he'll just use the copy machine.  26 copyright violations right there. 
Within his organization, you could probably find millions of violations, 
with thousands happening each day.  Why isn't the print media pursuing 
these?  Print Media has been losing revenue over the last several years, and 
obviously, this has to be the culprit.  Hundreds of billions of dollars per 
year are lost due to articles that are illegally copied.

Therefore, to make sure that the print media industry does not suffer 
irreparable damage due to this type of piracy, we should add a fee (tax) 
onto each ream of copy paper that gets sold.

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Tue, 01 Apr 2008 12:53:27 +0100, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

>   What does it tell about democracy and basic human rights when it's
> a bunch of private companies who run the government for their own  
> benefit?

That it's the same as it has always been. When has any government not been  
run by a bunch of selfish people? All we have here is a change of  
ownership from the aristocracy who at least had the decency to be up front  
about running everything rather than hiding behind the scenes.

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> Because they have friends in the legislature.
> 
>   The music industry has more people in government positions than the
> software industry? Maybe the music industry is more organized and thus
> they have succeeded in doing this better than the more disorganized
> software industry has been able to?
> 
>   What does it tell about democracy and basic human rights when it's
> a bunch of private companies who run the government for their own benefit?

Since the exploitation of the law for the benefit of a few is far worse 
(and has a body count) under every other system, I'm not going so say 
that the present situation is a sign that democracy should be ditched.

And if private companies really were running the show in either Europe 
or the United States, there would be no business regulation.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>>  One thing I don't understand is why the music industry is so privileged
>> over other industries?
> 
> Well the size of the industry can't be the reason.  Worldwide there was 
> 20x - 30x more spent on software than on music.
> 
> I guess the music industry just got their act together as a group to 
> protect their interests and managed to convince lots of governments to 
> their way of thinking.
> 
> Actually lots of big industries manage to get special treatment from the 
> government, cigarette manufacturers, car manufacturers etc, so I guess 
> the software industry is just the odd one out.  Maybe MS and Adobe etc 
> should get together and get some taxes on DVD-Rs to be shared out?

Software companies have the reputation of making humongous scads of 
money and getting very very rich, whereas the picture of struggling 
artists just barely getting by remains a popular conception of the music 
industry.  More to the point, a legislator can pretend to subscribe to 
these opinions while crafting legislation.

And this is the key.  As any observer of Western culture can affirm, if 
you discriminate on the basis of race, sex, religion, nationality, or 
physical handicap, there is somebody who makes a living out of trying to 
stop you.  But discrimination against the successful is considered a 
perfectly acceptable attitude in most of the world, and certainly in 
most of the world's governments.  Most people simply don't care if a 
rich man gets shafted, and are quite deaf to the idea that it is just as 
wrong to rob a rich man as it is to rob a poor one.  Many people assume 
that every fortune is founded on something other than honest hard work, 
and in the process of their political activity, they accomplish little 
more than making it even more difficult to get rich by means of hard work.

The functional flaw in most democracies is that their respective 
governments are empowered to sacrifice the interests of some of the 
people, people who have done nothing wrong, in the name of some benefit 
to others.  As long as that remains the case, some people will get 
screwed over, and the only remaining question is who gets screwed, and 
for whose benefit.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

John VanSickle escribió:
> Software companies have the reputation of making humongous scads of 
> money and getting very very rich, whereas the picture of struggling 
> artists just barely getting by remains a popular conception of the music 
> industry.  More to the point, a legislator can pretend to subscribe to 
> these opinions while crafting legislation.

You should compare software companies to record companies, and artists 
to programmers. Who keeps the big bucks?

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
>   Recordable media gets taxed for potential music piracy. This money goes
> to the music industry. Recordable media does not get taxed for potential
> software piracy, and the software industry doesn't get a dime from this.
>   The authors of the music IP get paid part of these taxes for doing
> absolutely nothing, software authors don't get any such free payments.
> 

OTOH our copyright law says that we're allowed to copy copyrighted music 
(only for personal usage only, naturally - and practically if breaking 
the copy protection ain't hard*) in extense of the media-fee - but not 
to copy copyrighted software.

*) The same law announces that it's illegal to break a technically 
effective copy protection. After that the very same law announces that 
*any* action made by the record company to stop copying the music is 
considered technically effective. So literally that "#!"#!"#!#!** law 
says that if the case holds a "please don't copy this" -text printed on 
it, it's a technically effective copy protection. Luckily practical 
justice overrides this with common sense and technically effective 
really means technically effective.

**) I'm not against copyrights or copyright laws mainly. I'm just 
against our quartelry-prethinked halfly-written, technically retarded 
copyright law.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

Post a reply to this message

Stephen wrote:
> We could always try a dictatorship, a benevolent one of course. Any
> volunteers? :)

It actually works out fairly well if the leaders are interested in 
helping the people and go on to pick others with similar desires. Unlike 
hereditary rulers, if your emperor can pick five or ten likely 
candidates and train them from children, then pick one to take over that 
he thinks will be most beneficent, it seems to work out well.

The problem is it all falls down when you get a nasty in. It's bistable: 
either good or bad.

(I'm thinking of some of the chinese and japanese emperors, for example.)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> scott <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote:
>> Maybe MS and Adobe etc should 
>> get together and get some taxes on DVD-Rs to be shared out?
> 
>   No thanks! 

I'd go for a tax on writable computer media if the money went to fund 
FOSS development. :-)

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

Post a reply to this message

On Tue, 01 Apr 2008 13:21:11 -0700, Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom>
wrote:

>
>The problem is it all falls down when you get a nasty in. It's bistable: 
>either good or bad.

Often starting off with good intentions.
-- 

Regards
     Stephen

Post a reply to this message

Eero Ahonen <aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid> wrote:
> OTOH our copyright law says that we're allowed to copy copyrighted music 
> (only for personal usage only, naturally - and practically if breaking 
> the copy protection ain't hard*) in extense of the media-fee - but not 
> to copy copyrighted software.

  The new copyright law forbids copying music from illegal sources.
The vast majority of internet sources are defined as illegal, so you
basically can't download music legally (except from legal online shops).

  (OTOH eavesdropping internet traffic is still illegal, so how they are
going to enforce the copyright law is anybody's guess. I think a police
officer commented on the new copyright law that a law doesn't make sense
when it's impossible to enforce it.)

> *) The same law announces that it's illegal to break a technically 
> effective copy protection. After that the very same law announces that 
> *any* action made by the record company to stop copying the music is 
> considered technically effective.

  The same law also says that it is legal to circumvent the protections
if it's necessary to listen to the music in the first place.

  The new copyright is really messed up. Nobody understands it fully.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:
> >   My question is why. Why is the music industry specifically so privileged?
>
> Because they have friends in the legislature.
>
> Regards,
> John

They can tap into natural sympathies on both sides of the aisle.  On one hand,
Barbara Streisand and Hollywood are in bed with the Democrats. On the other
side of the aisle, they can appeal to some Republican sentiments if the
controversy is painted as using the Big Stick of government to swat unwashed
college students who steal private property from big business.

Post a reply to this message

>> Maybe MS and Adobe etc should
>> get together and get some taxes on DVD-Rs to be shared out?
>
>  No thanks! The point of my rant is that these unfair privileges should
> be *removed* from those industries, not to extend the same unfair taxing
> privileges to everyone.

Oh it sounded like you were arguing *for* some extra privileges for the 
software industry (being a software developer yourself IIRC).

BTW why is it unfair?  Governments are obviously open to industry groups 
requesting special treatment, especially when large amounts of money are 
involved, so why is it unfair to any particular group?

The software industry generates far more income than the music one, so I 
would imagine they would have quite a good bargaining position with 
governments on lots of subjects.  It's not unfair just because they have 
been ignorant of this fact so far.

Post a reply to this message

And lo on Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:10:36 +0100, Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> did  
spake, saying:

> Chambers <ben### [at] pacificwebguycom> wrote:
>> Democracy is a lousy system.  The only thing going for it, is that it's
>> better than anything else we've tried.
>
>> (Sorry, can't remember who originally said that).

Churchill

>   Someone has also said that democracy is a dictatorship of the majority.

Hmm Marx mentioned a dictatorship of the proletariat, but only as a  
transitional period between capitalism and communismm otherwise I don't  
know who said that.

>   IMO he's wrong. In practice democracy really is a dictatorship of a
> minority. It just fools citizens to believe that it isn't.

"In politics, an organized minority is a political majority"

-- 
Phil Cook

--
I once tried to be apathetic, but I just couldn't be bothered
http://flipc.blogspot.com

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> 
>   The new copyright law forbids copying music from illegal sources.
> The vast majority of internet sources are defined as illegal, so you
> basically can't download music legally (except from legal online shops).
> 

A lot of people say that it says so. So far I hadn't found any mention 
about that, nor anyone has been able to point it out for me. But I think 
I found it now:
Vastoin lakia tapahtuvasta teoksen kappaleen valmistamisesta yksityistä 
käyttöä varten on hyvitysvelvollisuus vain siinä tapauksessa, että 
kappaleen valmistaja on tiennyt tai hänen olisi pitänyt tietää, että 
kopioitava aineisto on saatettu yleisön saataviin vastoin tätä lakia.

Even this actually points out that there *can't* be any payment for the 
copier to do, *expect* if (s)he knows or should know that the source is 
illegal. Yes, everyone should know that most of the music at p2p 
networks is illegal - in case they actually are considered as "teos" 
(which pretty much means it's original, ie. something new) - but if a 
download web page seems legal and one ain't an expert, can (s)he 
actually know that the source is illegal?

Nasty, I'd say. But the practice will (unfortunately) show us that lack 
of knowledge is - once again - not an excuse.

And still the copyright law allows you to ie. loan a CD from a library 
and copy it. By using the right software from the beginning you won't 
even notice any copy protections, so they can't be technically 
effective. Ah, and radio recording also, is legal by these payments 
(yes, the quality is a different thing here...).

>   (OTOH eavesdropping internet traffic is still illegal, so how they are
> going to enforce the copyright law is anybody's guess. I think a police
> officer commented on the new copyright law that a law doesn't make sense
> when it's impossible to enforce it.)

Remember Finreactor? If names get gathered in same kinds of cases, they 
may have a chance to find enough proofs to nail people. It think it 
would be illegal for me to write here that one should make sure he won't 
register to any pirate source (at least with real addresses etc), so I 
won't write it here. You'll just need to come up with your own ideas, 
but I'm sure it's not a problem, since POV'ers tend to be thinking and 
problem-solving people.

>   The same law also says that it is legal to circumvent the protections
> if it's necessary to listen to the music in the first place.

Yep :).

>   The new copyright is really messed up. Nobody understands it fully.

I think so too. I think that not even Tanja 
Karpela/Saarela/Vienonen/whattheheckwillhersurnamebetomorrow understand 
it fully, even though she's pretty much behind it.

-- 
Eero "Aero" Ahonen
    http://www.zbxt.net
       aer### [at] removethiszbxtnetinvalid

Post a reply to this message

Eero Ahonen wrote:
> Nasty, I'd say. But the practice will (unfortunately) show us that lack 
> of knowledge is - once again - not an excuse.

Unfortunately, a lot of this is "legal should know" and not "practically 
should know."

For example, in the US, actually registering the copyright means 
everyone "should know" it's copyrighted. After all, it's available from 
the copyright office if you want to check.  Once it's registered, if 
someone comes up with the same thing independently, they have to be able 
to prove they *didn't* copy it, rather than the copyright holder proving 
they *did* copy it.

Filing a patent means everyone "should know" the thing's patented. After 
all, you could have done a patent search, and the patents are all public 
knowledge. The fact that a serious patent search costs big money doesn't 
matter - you're still in trouble because you "should have known" you 
were building something already patented.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Filing a patent means everyone "should know" the thing's patented. After 
> all, you could have done a patent search, and the patents are all public 
> knowledge. The fact that a serious patent search costs big money doesn't 
> matter - you're still in trouble because you "should have known" you 
> were building something already patented.

  In some cases you have to know in advance.

  First person A makes an invention and uses it. Years later person B takes
this invention and patents it (as we all know, prior art is a no-op in
practice in the US patenting system). Now person B sues person A for
patent infringement. If person A can't prove that he made the invention
before it was patented, he's screwed.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
> John VanSickle escribió:
>> Software companies have the reputation of making humongous scads of 
>> money and getting very very rich, whereas the picture of struggling 
>> artists just barely getting by remains a popular conception of the 
>> music industry.  More to the point, a legislator can pretend to 
>> subscribe to these opinions while crafting legislation.
> 
> You should compare software companies to record companies, and artists 
> to programmers. Who keeps the big bucks?

One factor in the artist's favor, vs. the programmer, is that the artist 
is generally on his own time when engaged in the creative effort, and 
therefore owns his work.  Programmers working for a software company do 
their creative work on company time, and therefore do not own one line 
of the software they write.

Consequently the artist, at a certain point, becomes indispensable in a 
way that the programmer does not.  The record company cannot simply 
replace Bono, the Edge, and the other two guys in U2 with cheaper 
replacements and expect the customer to keep buying the music.[1]

The result is that sometimes the artists get big bucks.

Another factor involved is that is that many artists are famous to the 
general public, but programmers are not.  Since political figures focus 
on appearances, what the artists want gets heard by politicians, and 
what programmers want gets ignored by politicians.

Which leads to the present situation:  Legislation is written to benefit 
musicians at the expense of everyone else, while people doing work that 
is just as creatively demanding in other industries have no such laws 
operating in their favor.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

John VanSickle wrote:

> Consequently the artist, at a certain point, becomes indispensable in a 
> way that the programmer does not.  The record company cannot simply 
> replace Bono, the Edge, and the other two guys in U2 with cheaper 
> replacements and expect the customer to keep buying the music.[1]


Forgot the footnote:

[1] -- Insert your favorite comment about whether U2 makes music >here<.

Regards,
John

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> (as we all know, prior art is a no-op in
> practice in the US patenting system).

I'm not sure *that* is quite true. But again, "prior art" doesn't mean 
"someone did it before" legally speaking.

But yes, patents are a mess here. If you were restricted to effective 
patents of existing technology, we'd be much better off. ("Effective" 
being the legal term for "actually describes how to make it work", i.e., 
a solution rather than a requirments spec.)

But if you were already selling something with the patented technology 
before the other person *filed* for their patent (not "was granted the 
patent"), then you have a good case you'll win.  (I've provided expert 
reports on several such cases, where I invented and sold stuff a couple 
years before someone else patented it. So far, my side has won.)

But again, it's cheaper to pay the patent trolls $2000 than to pay the 
lawyers $20,000 to fight it.

-- 
   Darren New / San Diego, CA, USA (PST)
     "That's pretty. Where's that?"
          "It's the Age of Channelwood."
     "We should go there on vacation some time."

Post a reply to this message

"scott" <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote in message 
news:47f3333a$1@news.povray.org...


> The software industry generates far more income than the music one,

     It does?? I find that kind of mind-boggling since the music industry 
has been around for ages.

     ~Steve~

Post a reply to this message

>     It does?? I find that kind of mind-boggling since the music industry 
> has been around for ages.

I just did some quick Googling and came up with this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#Recorded_Music_Interim_Physical_Retail_Sales_in_2005

Which seems to indicate about $12bn of music sales in the top 20 countries, 
so we can guess that the worldwide figure is tops $20bn.

And then:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_largest_software_companies

Where Microsoft alone sells $40bn of software, the total is probably around 
$150bn.

Post a reply to this message

"scott" <sco### [at] laptopcom> wrote in message 
news:47f48403$1@news.povray.org...
>>     It does?? I find that kind of mind-boggling since the music industry 
>> has been around for ages.
>
> I just did some quick Googling and came up with this:
>
>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_industry#Recorded_Music_Interim_Physical_Retail_Sales_in_2005
>
> Which seems to indicate about $12bn of music sales in the top 20 
> countries, so we can guess that the worldwide figure is tops $20bn.
>
> And then:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World%27s_largest_software_companies
>
> Where Microsoft alone sells $40bn of software, the total is probably 
> around $150bn.

      Wow, that's a big difference indeed. So, maybe a government thinks 
that the software industry can handle their own affairs accordingly, and the 
music business get's a nice nudge now and again?

   ~Steve~

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John VanSickle wrote:
> Nicolas Alvarez wrote:
>> John VanSickle escribió:
>>> Software companies have the reputation of making humongous scads of 
>>> money and getting very very rich, whereas the picture of struggling 
>>> artists just barely getting by remains a popular conception of the 
>>> music industry.  More to the point, a legislator can pretend to 
>>> subscribe to these opinions while crafting legislation.
>>
>> You should compare software companies to record companies, and artists 
>> to programmers. Who keeps the big bucks?
> 
> One factor in the artist's favor, vs. the programmer, is that the artist 
> is generally on his own time when engaged in the creative effort, and 
> therefore owns his work.  Programmers working for a software company do 
> their creative work on company time, and therefore do not own one line 
> of the software they write.
> 

Not true, except for indie bands that haven't signed to a major label 
yet, or a big band that has gotten past all of the contract stuff.

Bands get signed for a number of records, so they are contractually tied 
to the label for how ever long it takes them to create that many albums. 
  They may, at that time, be getting paid living expenses and studio 
costs, but the label takes that out of the amount the artists would get 
from royalties. From the retail sales, the label gets their cut of cost 
before figuring out the profit. From the profit, the label gets their 
cut when they figure out the royalties that the band will get. From the 
royalties, the label recoups the cost of the band list studio time and 
the catering for the tour bus. What's left after that gets split between 
the members of the band. Even if you figure it as a 50/50 split each 
time, the band is splitting 12.5% of the total sales of an album.

And as for who owns the work? Usually the record label, unless the band 
saved enough money from sales or made enough touring to buy back the 
copyrights. Recording contracts, just like programmers and photographers 
and others, can get hit with a 'work made for hire' clause. Most 
musicians do not own the music they write, any more then a programmer 
owns their code.

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