The Off Topic Topic

[Eddie Teach]

Fuckers aren't native to Ohio so screw 'em.

Neither are you.

[sbr]

[celedhring]

They also suggested a deal to kindergartens where the kindergartens pay 56 p.a. for photocopied song sheets. The state of Bavaria settled with them paying out 290,000 p.a. A main issue with GEMA is how intransparent it is, with a huge share of the money going to a few members who have voting rights.

Sounds exactly like SGAE then :p

I have one vote(!!!!) but the richest members have many more. Censitary suffrage ftw.

Does SGAE also have a points system that stipulates compensation? In GEMA, a pop song would give 12 points, a 70 minute symphony 1200. (GEMA distinguishes between entertainment music and serious music, with the latter getting a point advantage because it's supposedly played less frequently - mostly this will be classical music. For entertainment music, if a foreign author/composer/lyricist has given their collection rights to an agency, then GEMA automatically represents them in Germany (which means that almost all entertainment music is covered by GEMA).

Again, main contention with GEMA is not their existence, but utter their lack of transparency, their reluctance to negotiate with digital content providers (see overblown 1 cent per view demand for YouTube ... a video with 100,000 views in Germany would net them EUR 1,000, which is probably a lot more than YouTube could afford to stay profitable) - something similar agencies in other countries manage, and a fee structure that can hurt the artists they represent and that can be prohibitive to some event organizers.

What SGAE usually does is to agree flat licensing deals with most broadcasters. They pay XXX for one year and they can play whatever they want, as much as they want; then SGAE takes that money, and distributes it among membership depending on the "playing share". They also tried to get youtube to pay but didn't get a deal.

SGAE is extremely opaque, though, not even us members had much of an insight into their finances until very recently, when it was found out the board embezzled millions in license money. That scandal has forced them to operate more transparently.

Anyway, I agree with you general sentiment. SGAE, GEMA and the likes are necessary - they are vital for us authors actually - but they should be less cunts about it and more transparent.

[derspiess]

Fuckers aren't native to Ohio so screw 'em.

Neither are you.

Incorrect.  I am Ohio First Family certified

[Josquius]

Random blast from the past. When I was a kid, gum vending machines were pretty widespread. You'd put in DM0.10 and would get some gum. Many models had additionally an DM0.50 section that would sell cheap little toys (a friend and I were collecting awesome rubber robots one summer).

Around 1980-82, though, you could also get this:



I remember having one of those pocket knives. They were super cheaply made, obviously, and the blade was maybe an an inch, or an inch and a half, but man was 6 year old me proud of it.

I can't imagine the shitstorm this would create today.

The shop near my school used to have these kinds of things outside:



Then the word spread amongst everyone that instead of using 20p you could just wrap 1p in paper and it would have the same effect.
The machines moved inside 

[Caliga]

I was out on the deck last night smoking a cigar and heard coyotes yipping, barking, and making other weird sounds.  Got out the spotlight and in my neighbor's backyard there were three sets of eyes looking back at me.  I'm thinking of setting some traps.  Fuckers aren't native to Ohio so screw 'em.

I saw a coyote in my yard last week.  It followed a bunny into the woods behind the house.  I'm guessing it was hoping to make friends.

[derspiess]

I'm not sure how we still have rabbits in our neighborhood.  Figured the coyotes would have killed them off.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Anyway, I agree with you general sentiment. SGAE, GEMA and the likes are necessary - they are vital for us authors actually - but they should be less cunts about it and more transparent.

Why should an author who signs their copyright over to another party get anything beyond what they received for signing it over in the first place?

[celedhring]

Anyway, I agree with you general sentiment. SGAE, GEMA and the likes are necessary - they are vital for us authors actually - but they should be less cunts about it and more transparent.

Why should an author who signs their copyright over to another party get anything beyond what they received for signing it over in the first place?

Because under European law you aren't allowed to sign away the entirety of your copyright to another party. There are some baseline rights that you are always entitled to; since - unlike a big media company - I don't have the time or the resources to go after the people that would owe me royalties, that's were entities like SGAE or GEMA become necessary.

Note that this also happens de facto in the USA; there's always a minimum level of royalties for movie/music people that can't be bargained away. However, instead of regulation, that is a product of the strong bargaining power American entertainment unions have.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Because under European law you aren't allowed to sign away the entirety of your copyright to another party. There are some baseline rights that you are always entitled to; since - unlike a big media company - I don't have the time or the resources to go after the people that would owe me royalties, that's were entities like SGAE or GEMA become necessary.

Does that apply to all copyrighted works?  If so, why are book and software authors not all compensated with a portion of the sales from their works?  If not, what is the rationale for treating movie scripts and music lyrics and compositions differently?

[jimmy olsen]

I've got my eye on you light eyes. 

Eye color: A potential indicator of alcohol dependence risk in European Americans

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajmg.b.32316/abstract

[MadImmortalMan]

400 burgers per hour. Not even McJobs are safe anymore.

[derspiess]

Does it demand $15/hr?

[celedhring]

Because under European law you aren't allowed to sign away the entirety of your copyright to another party. There are some baseline rights that you are always entitled to; since - unlike a big media company - I don't have the time or the resources to go after the people that would owe me royalties, that's were entities like SGAE or GEMA become necessary.

Does that apply to all copyrighted works?  If so, why are book and software authors not all compensated with a portion of the sales from their works?  If not, what is the rationale for treating movie scripts and music lyrics and compositions differently?

Book authors are included too. Software/games aren't, our IP laws aren't well designed to support that kind of product (current framework is from the 90s). They have aspects of intellectual property and industrial property; the guy that writes the dialogues and characters of an RPG is creating IP, but the guy that writes a graphics engine is generating a patent. We need to figure that out; there's some moves in Brussels to try to find a framework for them, but it's still got ways to go.

[celedhring]

From a friend's FB wall: