#Copyright law is messy and complicated
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What is a Creative Common lisence?
Hello everyone! I want to thank the three people who submitted themes to use in #FRobinMonth24
Even if it's only three answers I am so thankful! That really helps a lot because it means I have to pull up way fewer idea.
That being said I asked for inspirational fotos and one answered, that they don't understand creative common licensing.
Which is fine! It is not easy to understand.
So, I decided to write a little text about copyright and license and the usage of certain things online.
Please be aware that I am no lawyer and that copyright might be different from country to country. I also don't guarantee that everything I wrote here is 100% correct!!
More under the read more (sorry to mobile users).
What is copyright?
As Wikipedia puts it:
A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives the creator of an original work, or another owner of the right, the exclusive, legally secured right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.
A copyright is an intellectual property. This paragraph I copied from Wikipedia is the intellectual property of the wikipedia editor who wrote it. They have the copyright to it. But the "Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 4.0;" (CC BY-SA 4.0).
And we'll get into what that means later. (Also I quote it and linked back to the source)
So, Copyright... Oda created One Piece and gave Shūeisha the "copyright" to print it in the Shonen Jump Magazine, basically giving them the right to copy it.
And legally created merch of One Piece is licensed. And the manufacturers bought that license.
Which is why fan-zines that are sold for profit are in a very, very, very grey zone. I don't think ayone within that community is actually allowed to sell those or the merch. Even the charity zines are in a grey area but not as much as the for profit ones. In some countries selling fanart (even commissions) is illegal. The only reason that the big names don't go after those zines is because they are aware that it's good publicity and the "profit" is too small. Also they often don't know about it. Still, be aware of the risks!
On a much lower scale, if you go to any Stock website, you can buy licenses for most of the photos to use. This is mostly used in professional context because you can't just go online, search for a picture, take it and use it in an billion dollar ad campaign or something else. If the creator finds that and gets angry, it can get very expensive.
Or that is the theory, otherwise there wouldn't be so many illegal copies of all kinds of websites like Shein. (Which is the other side of the coin)
And while these rich companies should actually buy the right to use designs, pictures, and other intellectual property, there are a lot of poor artists and they also need pictures and inspiration.
So, what is Creative Commons (CC)?
Creative Commons is the nonprofit behind the open licenses and other legal tools that allow creators to share their work.
Creative Commons is a way for artists to share their work but to add limitations too with a simple code.
The text I had in the form for the submission to the FRobin month was the following.
Please feel free to submit/link a picture prompt (a photo you have taken yourself or which has the correct common license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/). (CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC or CC BY-NC-SA)
Of course a picture of yours that you submit, you allow to be used in a creative way in a fanwork or to be an inspiration for fellow artists.
I also want to encourage people to use the picture prompts within the artwork too. For example in a manipulation, animation, collage.
In theory to do that legally I asked for your own pictures or links to pictures that are shared with the creative common licenses of BY, BY-SA, BY-NC or BY-NC-SA.
There is a total of six common licenses but those four are important for this very case. Why?
CC BY
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use.
CC BY includes the following elements:
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
-> With other words the medium (song, picture, video, etc...) can be used in any imaginable way. You are even allowed to sell or earn money with what you created, as long as the original creator is credited.
CC BY-SA
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, so long as attribution is given to the creator. The license allows for commercial use. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-SA includes the following elements:
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.
-> The medium (song, picture, video, etc...) can be used in any imaginable way. You are even allowed to sell what you created, as long as the original creator is credited.
PLUS the thing you created is also allowed to be used in the same way, so someone else can use it in any imaginable way, is allowed to sell it as long as they credit you.
CC BY-NC
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.
CC BY-NC includes the following elements:
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
-> The medium (song, picture, video, etc...) can be used in any imaginable way, as long as the original creator is credited.
BUT you are not allowed to sell it or earn money with it!
CC BY-NC-SA
This license enables reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. If you remix, adapt, or build upon the material, you must license the modified material under identical terms.
CC BY-NC-SA includes the following elements:
BY: credit must be given to the creator.
NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
SA: Adaptations must be shared under the same terms.
-> The medium (song, picture, video, etc...) can be used in any imaginable way, as long as the original creator is credited. You are not allowed to sell it or earn money with it.
PLUS the thing you created is also allowed to be used in the same way, so someone else can use it in any imaginable way, as long as you are credited. But it can be used to be sold it or earned money with.
---
There are two more licenses that don't allow the change of the medium, which is why I decided to not include them.
Now, looking back the Wiki-quote and actually all of Wikipeida is shared with the CC BY-SA license. You are allowed to quote from Wikipedia in any paper you want as long as people are allowed to quote within the same license. With other words if you are now having a discussion about
Now, since this is a fandom blog, I want to take a short look at fanart and fanfiction.
Legality of fanworks
Fanart and fanfiction is most of the time running within the legality of "Fair use" (again Wikipedia) and likewise laws within each country. (So again, check within your own countries texts within the copyright laws.)
Fair use is a doctrine in United States law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without having to first acquire permission from the copyright holder. Fair use is one of the limitations to copyright intended to balance the interests of copyright holders with the public interest in the wider distribution and use of creative works by allowing as a defense to copyright infringement claims certain limited uses that might otherwise be considered infringement.
I can't find right now the exact quote but the overall understand is that as long as you don't sell your fanworks, based on copyrighted works you can always claim fair use if someone tries to sue you.
Which is why Ao3 has it in their TOS that you are not allowed to post advertisement. (Explaination) You are not allowed to link to your Ko-Fi or ask for commissions or donations.
Because then you might not be able to claim fair use and Ao3 as the hosting website can't either.
And again this goes back to the fan-zines, fanarts and also fanfictions that might be sold for profit.
To read more on the topic, Wikipedia's, Legal issues with fan fiction sure is a source but so is fanlore's, Fandom and Profit.
Sorry for the long text. I hope you have a good day!
(x)
#not FRobin#Fandom#creative commons#Fanwork#Fanart#Fanfiction#modpost#Legal stuff#Copyright law is messy and complicated#but it's good to have at least a basic understanding#Sorry but I had to share those sandals#They are art#Goncharov-esque
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Anne Kustritz’s Identity, Community, and Sexuality in Slash Fan Fiction
Anne Kustritz’s new book, Identity, Community, and Sexuality in Slash Fan Fiction: Pocket Publics has just been released by Routledge (2024). You might know Kustritz, a scholar of fan cultures and transmedia storytelling, from her early essay “Slashing the Romance Narrative,” in the Journal of American Culture (2003) or maybe from some of her more recent work on transmedia and serial storytelling. But this new book is an exciting addition to the fan studies canon, and Fanhackers readers might be particularly interested, because the book “explores slash fan fiction communities during the pivotal years of the late 1990s and the early 2000s as the practice transitioned from print to digital circulation,”--which is the era that a lot of the fans involved in the creation of the OTW came from. As I noted in my book blurb, “While there has been an explosion of fan studies scholarship in the last two decades, we haven't had an ethnography of fan fiction communities since the early 1990s. Kustritz's Pocket Publics rectifies that, documenting the generation of slash fans who built much of fandom's infrastructure and many of its community spaces, both on and off the internet. This generation has had an outsized impact on contemporary fan cultures, and Kustritz shows how these fans created an alternative and subcultural public sphere: a world of their own.”
Kustritz doesn’t just analyze and contextualize fandom, she also describes her own experiences as a participant-observer, and these might resonate with a lot of fans (especially Fanhackers-reading fans!) Early on in the book, Kustritz describes her how her own early interest in fandom blurred between the personal and the academic:
Because I began studying slash only a year after discovering fandom on-line, my interest has always been an intricate tangle of pleasure in the texts themselves, connection to brilliantly creative women, and fascination with intersections between fan activities and academic theory. I may now disclaim my academic identity as an interdisciplinary scholar with concentrations in media anthropology and cultural studies and begin to pinpoint my fan identity as a bifictional multifandom media fan; however, I only gradually became aware of and personally invested in these categories as I grew into them. This section defines the scope of the online observation period that preceded the active interview phase of this research. In so doing it also examines the messy interconnections between my academic and fannish interests and identities. Trying to pick apart what portion of my choices derived from fannish pleasure and which from academic interest helps to identify the basic internal tensions and categories that slash fan fiction communities relied upon to define themselves, the pressures exerted upon these systems by the digital migration, and complications in academic translation of fannish social structures.
Later in the book, Kustritz discusses how fans have organized and advocated for themselves as a public; in particular, there’s a fascinating chapter about the ways in which fandom has adopted and transformed the figure of the pirate to forge new ways of thinking about copyright and authorship. If the OTW was formed to argue that making fanworks is a legitimate activity, the figure of the pirate signifies a protest against the law and a refusal to be shamed by it:
[F]ans also use the figure of the pirate to make arguments that validate some fan activities and consign others to illegitimacy. At the urging of several friends involved with slash, I attended my first non-slash focused science fiction and fantasy convention in the summer of 2004. The program schedule announced a Sunday morning panel discussion provocatively titled “Avast, Matey: The Ethics of Pirating Movies, Music, and Software” with the subheading “Computers today can distribute [more] intellectual property than ever before--not always legally. Is it ever okay to copy, download, and/or distribute media? Sorry, ladies, none of us will be dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow.” The panel’s subheading, which obliquely warned away both lusty women and pirates, led a small contingent of slash fans to shake off Saturday night’s convention revelries unreasonably early and implement a plan of their own for Sunday’s panel. As many fan conventions encourage costumes, known as “cosplay,” one of my friends and research participants happened to have been dressed as Captain Jack Sparrow of Pirates of the Caribbean that weekend, so I entered the piracy panel with Captain Jack and a motley crew of slashers, some of them intent upon commandeering the discussion.
The clash that followed exemplifies a structural fault line between various types of fan communities regarding their shared norms and beliefs about copyright law, the relationship between fans and producers, and appropriate fan behavior.
If you want to find out how this clash played out–well, you’ll just have to read the book. 😀
–Francesca Coppa, Fanhackers volunteer
#fanhackers#author:francescacoppa#anne kustritz#early digital fandom#slash#piracy#fannish culture clashes
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i don't generally comment on discussions abt AI art -- mainly because im not a fan of the rampant ableism in a lot of the arguments against it, nor am i a fan of expanding copyright law -- but it is a bit intriguing to me that like... there is, i suppose, an emerging "style" of AI art characterized by what sorts of visual renderings AI tends to be good at, which tends to be hyper rendered stylized realism or, like, busty anime girls
& with one of the main arguments for AI being that it enables people to express themselves, its just interesting to me that it's ended up cumulating in these... bland, overly complicated and fussy compositions that look like if you compressed a marvel movie into 5 messy illustrations that look oh so slightly different from each other
#not rly trying to discredit AI art in the broader sense i do think it has its uses#this is me being petty in that AI art has evolved to depict a specific art style that i already wasnt a fan of#theres just... certain creative decisiojs i dont know if AI can ever fully emulate. yk?#I hesitate to say a element cus that just feels#well. a bit silly. humans coded the AI after all#but. hm! maybe youll understand ehat I mean#text#sorrythat one tag is supposed to say decisons and the other one is supposed to say human element
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cracks knuckles
okay so copyright infringement is kind of messy because a lot of litigation related to copyright law is entirely up to how the judge feels that day (/half joking)
but in general, lawsuits work like this (this is abbreviated and humorous bc Law Scary sometimes and i am actively trying to simplify):
1. Bad Thing happens that causes damages to plaintiff (the one suing) because of action or inaction of the defendant (the one being sued)
2. plaintiff files a complaint against defendant
3. defendant gets served papers (often by a process server but not always, side tangent process servers have AMAZING stories if you can ever talk to one they are so funny)
4. defendant has a limited amount of time to file either a document called an "answer" to the complaint OR file a motion to dismiss the case
5. case may be dismissed if a motion to dismiss was filed and the case was a pointless dumpster fire, if not, here comes The Discovery
6. discovery is the fun part because here is where ALL the facts come out to play. both sides can file requests for productions of documents/info (which fun fact can include things that you absolutely would not expect such as medical records), subpoena people and business involved to get even more info, depose parties (not fun and is kind of like an interview but with intense stress), and even let the lawyers argue in front of the judge about whether or not info is relevant to the case and the opposing counsel is being a whiny baby or not
7. someone may file for a summary judgment which is basically saying "hey court can u give out a judgment before trial based on these facts that we all agree on" and if that's granted everyone celebrates and goes home
8. also many courts require u to like. try again to settle ur dispute before the big day so there may be mediation involved. if the mediation and summary judgment didn't work then everyone gets to go to court (yay!!)
9. ideally if u are the plaintiff u will be awarded a judgment. however the judgment is just a piece of paper tbfh. my business law professor literally brought us a copy of one that he put in a picture frame lol
10. what i mean by "just a piece of paper" is that if the defendant declares bankruptcy and has no liquid assets or anything they can give the plaintiff then u may just be SOL depending on ur specific situation but hey at least u got ur paper!!!
anyway onto ur specific little copyright anon person, there have to be DAMAGES for someone to sue u. granted damages do not have to be financial and can be things like an intentional infliction of emotional distress case (more than just "hurt feelings", there's criteria that determines if something is IIED such as the action being outrageous and one that could be expected to severely impact the plaintiff's mental health)
if there were damages of some kind yeah that's the start, but also there are some cases where damages matter a lot less (such as if u are involved in a defamation case but everything u said was 100% factual and proven, the damages that person suffers as a result of their own words or actions is not ur problem as much anymore)
anyway onto copyright infringement
i did not see the screenshot in question but there are two scenarios here:
1. the screenshot was of a conversational message sent to u or someone else or posted somewhere
2. the screenshot was of something protected by ip law (like a logo or an essay or art)
in scenario 1 it kind of depends on the jurisdiction but generally the "truth will set u free" and it is probably not illegal to share
in scenario 2 yes you have probably committed copyright infringement UNLESS what u did falls under fair use. fair use doctrine is widely and wildly misunderstood and also very complicated but here is a VERY generalized version:
1. thing is used for educational purposes (very likely as this is a syscourse blog)
2. thing is being criticized (also likely here)
3. thing is being used in news reporting (for instance think about protests and how many signs r present in news reels, those r protected by copyright law and news stations can't exactly go ask every single person w/ a sign whether or not they r allowed to use the footage they have of the protest)
4. thing is being used in a parody ("u can't steal work but u can make fun of it", basically)
5. thing is otherwise just being commented upon (also likely here)
those are not ALWAYS considered fair use but are generally accepted as such in most cases, again it depends on how the judge feels about it.
fair use is determined by four (4) factors
1. purpose and character of ur use of the material (was it transformative in some way or did u just copy paste and claim as ur own)
2. nature of the copyrighted material (was it published already? does the author have any rights over its appearance? was the work fictional or strictly academic? etc)
3. amount and substantiality of what u took (did u take the most important part? did u take a LOT of it or just a little or somewhere in between?)
4. effect of use on the market (is what u did going to severely damage the author's prospects in some way and/or are u hijacking a market like that one photograph case that i cant currently remember the name of?)
so yeah. what u did is probably not going to land u in any hot water, and even if it did, they would be kind of not smart to try and serve u considering how much MONEY AND EFFORT goes into litigation and finding where u are to even serve u in the first place. also due to The Sick, the courts are backed up so bad. i am talking like two or three YEARS.
sorry this was long!!
sources: us copyright law, a music industry course i took that focused heavily on ip law, a business law course i took, and the (unfortunately for him) many many hours i have spent bothering my law professor (a still-practicing attorney) about random questions
if a legal professional sees this and i got any of this wrong or a bit to the left please absolutely correct it u are the experts and i am still in the middle of applying to law school + it is late and i am sleepy
Thank you for taking the time to type all of this out. The screenshot was just a little blurb on a post about endogenics and the witchcraft community. When I made the post I cropped the sections I wanted to highlight, and captioned it with "very important note on this post by this person" and then I said for ppl to follow them for informed posts about the topic.
Incredibly weird tbh and just made me laugh but this ask is very informative
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YouTube Now Makes AI Music?
In the midst of the boom in generative AI tools in social media, YouTube has just taken a major leap into the controversial grounds of AI music. Partnering with 9 big name artists including Charlie Puth and John Legend, YouTube’s new element called “Dream Track” allows users to create their own music featuring select artists’ AI generated voice for their Shorts from a simple text prompt.
youtube
The world of AI music copyright laws are still opaque and incredibly complicated. It was only just a few months ago when the viral AI-generated Drake song was taken down from YouTube due to copyright complaints and Spotify still appears to be in the process of deciding exactly what to do with this new form of music content. Still, YouTube seems interested in leading the charge of AI music as they partner with record labels to establish rules for how AI-generated music is treated and monetized.
Although this still continues to be a messy scene regarding rights and concerns, this new experiment led by YouTube looks quite promising in delivering some clarification on the subject while embracing the changing landscape of AI-generated content. Their partnership with record labels aim to harness creator-led innovation while offering monetization for the use of artists’ voices which may just result in a win-win for all parties involved. While this approach certainly won’t fix the entire problem, it definitely provides a clearer distinction between approved and unapproved variations.
Word Count: 239
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Bob Ross' Basilisk
Bob Ross' Basilisk
I’m glad I didn’t rush into this conversation.
This is about generative art, using predictive models, which you might hear lumped together as ‘AI art’ these days. I don’t want to use that term for it (though, you know, no promises I don’t mess up and do that), and I don’t want to fall into the trap of that, of treating it like ‘an artificial intelligence.’ It’s not. The term I use for it is Generative Art, which media you can feed into a machine, and then make that machine spit out results based on composing those pieces.
There are two big reasons to use this term instead of ‘AI art.’ The first is that it’s just not AI. AI implies an intelligence, which this absolutely is not and cannot be. There cannot be intention behind the accumulated behaviour of a statistical average. Calling it AI is a cloak thrown over a system – a very clever system! – that’s able to divine fuzzy trends in how people sort and categorise things. The other thing is that calling it generative art connects it to previously generative art – institutions of technological systems designed to make artistic forms in a way that complicates the intention of the artist. This is a tradition that reaches back a long way, and sure, it includes things like these generative art systems, but also random graphical output demos on disks back in the 90s, noise generators in Photoshop, messy blurs, picrews, and even things like tie-die art, and when you can put them in that context, you’re going to be able to extract it from a lot of hype about it, both positively and negatively.
Let’s talk about it, then.
‘sad alex jones in a forest, in the style of bob ross’
There are two basic ‘problems’ presented by generative art, both for and against. The problem of generative art that talks about how great and perfect it is, is that it’s so good, it will replace the job of artists, because someone will instead use this system to pump out artwork for things, at a high standard of skill, destroying the livelihood of artists that are already existing in tenuous spaces. The other side of it, which points out how terrible this art is, is that this art is very easy to make and floods the marketplace and now we’re going to have to wade through generative art that is, itself, heavily influenced by other generative art. Both of these problems can be spiralled into a heavily apocalyptic form and whichever side of that you fall on, but neither of them are, inherently, wrong or not problems.
The first one looks to me like artists are economically unsafe. The second looks to me like the internet is undermoderated, which is two problems I already considered a thing. Then there’s this whole argument about copyright, which gets to exist with a bunch of astersisks on it, where people who do not like or believe in current modern copyright law are still against Generative Art systems because they are violating copyright law, probably or kinda or maybe. Like almost by definition, this is transformative artwork based on engaging with the existing artwork. This is a bit thornier than it looks, because on the one hand they’re kind of not, but on the other hand, we do know that these systems aggressively sought to circumvent anti-copying methods. One of the first things these softwares were taught to do was to remove watermarks from existing images, because they wanted to train on things like Getty Images and not be confused by the watermarks on those image archives, and like, Getty thing it’s okay for you to use their images if you use the versions with the watermarks.
So they used the version they were allowed to use, then used that version to make it look like the version they weren’t allowed to use, and like, honestly, the fact that the rules there get stupid is kind of one of those things about how copyright law, as it functions is, itself, broken… especially when you know Getty watermark images that are public domain and not theirs to exclusively distribute because you know, they’re allowed to use public domain images for what they like, and they decide to add their watermark and distribute them as now, their images, which is to say, this is a great example of a shithead fighting a shithead.
But also also: once this tech for removing watermarks is in place, anyone who isn’t operating at Getty’s scale is now impacted by this toolset available and artist who were already dealing with the art theft on the mass scale of the internet were already in a losing arms race with shitheads at large. I dislike this and it’s one of the reasons why I think of the problems in this system as being primarily about ethical corpuses.
For a lot of these systems, hypothetically, you can dump nothing but public domain art into them, then, with guidance from the right people enough, it will generate in evolutionary models, art that’s close enough to the other corpuses to start generating the stuff that looks indistinguishable from the unethical corpus. And that’s… awkward too, because at that point the only difference between this entirely hypothetical model and the current disrespectful models is a bit of lead time. That’s a problem.
‘the interior of the enterprise, in the style of bob ross’
There are other, more specific problems which seem to me to be kind of uh, extensions of existing problems. For example, it’s possible to use generative art to mimic the style of other, well-known, famous artists, and you could even claim that that art was made by that artist. And while that may feel icky – because this tool sure feels icky and people are scared of it – it’s an existing crime. It’s called counterfeiting. Falsifying the provenance of an artwork is known as a problem, and hiring artists to copy an art style – assuming you don’t claim otherwise – is a known business choice. Heck, it’s important to entire industries – Disney’s entire model of movie making starts with someone drawing artwork and then getting an entire order of people to mimic that art style in subtly different artwork… and those people aren’t paid enough or respected enough and their entire industry gets farmed out now to countries with lax labor laws and that sucks too, but that’s not a new problem.
Were you already able to know the provenance of art you see attributed? I love Rumiko Takahashi’s art in Ranma 1/2 but she had assistants and I don’t know how much of the art in that series is hers and how much is the assistant’s. The idea that I know the provenance of any given Ranma 1/2 page is itself running up to a black box where credit is already improperly distributed. Not saying it’s not a problem to fail to credit, and we can fix that problem, but we already accept a lot of people being inadequately credited for their art and inadequately compensated for it.
What I think is that this is a technological development where my resistance is literally no impact. I don’t comission art of my OCs, even when I try to, but I know my position is a little odd. I would like to have a large supply of low-effort art that I could use for game prototypes and concept work, so the idea of it is desireable. On the other hand, talking about it in public would result in people being irritating. And I am being asked to teach a class, about these tools and how to use them and how to get the best out of them. One major component of this class is the importance of provenance; of making it clear when what you were doing was generated this way, whether with generative visual art or generative text media. So I’m being paid to understand these things and impart a good use case for these tools on an audience of students, which doesn’t give me a strong looking philosophical position to argue for or against these tools. I’m kind of alright either way.
I have played with these tools. I say play, specifically. I think they’re good toys. I think they’re really interesting for creative forms of media. I have a longstanding model that all things that get made out of either horny or spite; either they satisfy a want in you or someone did a bad version and you want to do something better. I find generative art gives me something to argue with, something to complain about, no, you fucked up, you did a bad job, you can improve this image or this text with this and that point of resistance is useful, for me, to be creative.
This kind of thing is a toolset that to me just looks like another method for generating artwork that people are going to develop as a skillset, and be able to get distinct, meaningfully interesting results out of… as well as a lot of crap. There are a lot of bad artists out there. There’s a lot of free bad art out there. Have you ever browsed the public domain or free art resource websites? There’s tons of garbage out there, really just shocking amounts. Right now if I want to avoid generative art because it’s a bother to get into arguments about it then I actually cut myself off from a lot of art assets that are meant to be available for poor indie developers because I can’t be sure they’re not generated art.
‘godzilla in a waterfall, in the style of bob ross’
There are however three things around this movement that I think are worth holding on to, things that I think of as ‘positive developments.’
The first is, if you’re a tenuous industry which involves artists, like, say, board game developers or TTRPG developers with the money to do so, take a stand on paying current, conventional artists for their work. This is a good principle in general at the best of times. Businesses that pivot wholesale to generative art are doing a disservice to an existing group of workers, and it’s harmful. Even if you don’t have a philosophical position against generative art, you should be treating the conventional artists you cultivated like they’re your actual workers and make sure that they’re getting paid. Honestly, generative art looks like a useful tool for conventional artists to generated poses for reference and general blocking or framing for possible scenes, in much the same way photobashing is a great skillset with a particular style. In the TTRPG space, which is a small pool, seeing big movers say ‘no, we’re not using generative art for final products’ is a good thing.
Second, playing around with generative art should not be seen as a moral failing or as participation in a dreadful sin. These are interesting digital tools and toys, and particularly, if you were interested in generating artwork of (say) your OCs, you’re going to run into limits of generative art, like places where you can’t get the artwork to do specifics you want, convey specific vibes. The generator may get you a lot closer than you ever imagined, it might even get you to imagine things you never would have considered without it, and that’s good, but if you want the next step, an artist is probably going to be your best bet, and being able to show them ‘this is the kind of thing I want, BUT,’ is really valuable, and it’s really valuable if they can look at what you’ve generated without going ‘ew’ or making you feel ashamed.
Third, this is making people pay attention to and get involved in provenance more. Sourcing where you get artworks from, including being able to say ‘hey, I generated this from <this generator> and here are my prompts’ is a really interesting form of provenance, and the willingness to do that is, itself, part of a push towards sourcing and recognising origin points. I grew up on an internet where you linked people to just images and part of that was because they’d often be on things that loaded slowly, so just the image was often faster for getting people to see what you were talking about. But over time I’ve realised that linking to artists tumblrs and twitters for the embeds is just a better way to do things… and if we’re going to be seeing more of this middle-of-the-road generative model media, being able to and willing to point to it – just like with shutterstock model and video content – is a good thing.
Pay workers, support artists, recognise the value of these tools, and if someone out there is working on a machine which does have an entirely public domain corpus, I would love to see it, if nothing else, out of sheer curiosity.
Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!
#Media #Politics
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TW: rape
‘I May Destroy You,’ Michaela Coel’s gimlet-eyed exploration of trauma and its myriad ripple effects follows Arabella (Coel) — a funny, messy, sharp-as-hell London writer — after a dizzying night in which she’s drugged and raped by a stranger. At first, she dismisses the hazy memory as just an upsetting image in her head. Soon enough, though, Arabella reluctantly comes to understand it as the truth, and tries to work through that horrifying reality without coming apart. [...]
Not every part of Arabella has a direct line to Coel, but the series’ catalyzing experience, unfortunately, does. In 2016, Coel took a break from a marathon writing session for the second season of “Chewing Gum” to grab a drink with a friend, and was drugged and assaulted by a stranger. She’s been sifting through the emotional wreckage ever since to find some kind of clarity, if not peace. Now, with “I May Destroy You,” she’s doing it for all the world to see. “As a fellow android exploring what it means to be human,” says Coel’s friend Janelle Monáe, “watching Michaela be vulnerable on-screen as she walks in her truth gives me and so many the bravery to walk in ours.” [...]
Coel began writing “I May Destroy You” in February 2017, in between acting in TV projects like the “USS Callister” episode of “Black Mirror” and Netflix’s limited series “Black Earth Rising.” She took solo mountain trips and wrote draft after draft of what would eventually become “I May Destroy You,” spilling her stories and tangled guts onto the page, rearranging them into shapes she could better recognize. In August 2018, she spoke about her trauma publicly while delivering the Edinburgh International Television Festival’s James MacTaggart Memorial Lecture, a prestigious assignment the festival has otherwise bestowed on a cadre of white British television mainstays (as well as no fewer than three Murdochs).
The majority of Coel’s speech, delivered to a room of the U.K.’s most powerful entertainment brokers, traced the constant racism and classism she endured on the way to that Edinburgh stage — a theme subtextually underlined by the fact that Coel was, and remains, the only Black woman to have that platform. She spoke about turning her solo play “Chewing Gum Dreams” into a “Chewing Gum” TV series (which aired 2015-17 on the U.K.’s Channel 4), a transformative time that taught her the technicalities of making television and confirmed just how disinclined certain white gatekeepers are to trust a poorer Black woman’s vision. Toward the end of the 50-minute lecture, Coel revealed her assault and elucidated the industry’s inability — or unwillingness — to handle such a human emergency when pages are due. As for her recovery, she said, “It’s been therapeutic to write about it, and actively twist a narrative of pain into something with more hope, and even humor.”
When it finally came time to translate it all to the screen, “I May Destroy You” was so close to her bruised heart that Coel took on the challenge of playing several roles throughout the series’ development: creator, writer, actor, producer, director. Netflix offered her a total fee of a cool $1 million to make and star in the show, but the proposed contract wouldn’t grant Coel even a tiny percentage of the rights. She hadn’t fully realized how much claiming legal proprietorship over her work mattered to her until the prospect of not being able to emerged, at which point it became crucial.
Then, after some Googling, she realized that her CAA agents would also be profiting from the deal via the endangered practice of packaging. Stung and surprised, Coel walked away from both her agents and the offer. “I’m not anti-Netflix,” she’s quick to say now, “but I am pro-‘the creator, writer, director, actor should probably have a right.’” She’s hyper-aware of how much this project required of her, and how comparatively little granting her “a right” might cost a powerful network like Netflix. “That’s not quite fair, is it?” Coel muses. Creating the show, after all, took almost everything she had.
With the BBC, a million-dollar paycheck might not have been in the cards, but more important to Coel, she didn’t have to fight half as hard to claim ownership. (As a matter of industry course, it’s far more common for British studios to afford creators rights to their work than it is for American equivalents.) They struck a deal, and Coel got to work.[...]
“When you’re restricted,” she explains, “sometimes that’s where you find great things: in the lack of possibility.” She attributes this rather Zen approach to Hugo Blick, the “Black Earth Rising” showrunner who showed her the value of keeping a cool, empathetic head on set. Blick’s ability to step away from a gnarly situation for even 30 calming seconds is one that Coel has worked to hone for herself, especially while steering a series with such fraught ties to her history. No matter how sideways things might go, she never wants to forget just how much she loves the collaborative act of building a television show, wild complications and all.
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From Forbes:
I May Destroy You’s Michaela Coel Rejected Netflix’s $1 Million Offer In Favor Of The BBC Because Of Ownership
The creative, who stars as Arabella and wrote all 12 episodes, started pitching the programme in the spring of 2017 with one of her first ports of call being Netflix who picked up her prior series Chewing Gum.
Though Netflix offered a generous upfront fee of $1 million (£800,000), the sum had strings attached, including full rights ownership away from the creator, something Coel pushed back against. Coel recalls a moment during the interview where she is speaking with a Netflix development executive on the phone, asking if she could retain even a very small 0.5% of the copyright to her show.
“There was just silence on the phone. And she said, ‘It’s not how we do things here. Nobody does that, it’s not a big deal,’” Coel recollected. “I said, ‘If it’s not a big deal, then I’d really like to have 5 % of my rights,’” Coel added, stating that she even went down to 2%, and then 1% and even as a final compromise to 0.5%.
Coel remembers that the executive said she would have to run it passed her superiors, before adding, “‘Michaela? I just want you to know I’m really proud of you. You’re doing the right thing.'”
“I remember thinking, I’ve been going down rabbit holes in my head, like people thinking I’m paranoid, I’m acting sketchy, I’m killing off all my agents,” Coel says. “And then she said those words to me, and I finally realized — I’m not crazy. This is crazy.”
Coel discovered her agents, Creative Artists Agency (CAA) were set to make an undisclosed amount from the series if she took the deal with Netflix. She reveals that the agency pushed her to take the deal prior to her finding out and their subsequent dismissal as her U.S. representation.
Taking the project to British broadcaster the BBC later in 2017, Coel found the corporation to be supportive with her maintaining creative control even with the explicit depictions of sex, sexual assault and drug use. Plus, as the broadcaster had to adhere to terms of trade, Coel had no problem with retaining the rights also. The broadcaster also brought HBO to the table as another co-producer to help subsidise a portion of the budget.
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This isn’t about just “knowing your worth;” it’s about knowing the business (your business) and never settling just to secure “something.” A million dollar offer, no copyright ownership and no creative control is beyond disrespectful. Learn the business in whatever field you’re in and stay acclimated with jargon and new, current and old practices. Know your shit.
It’s like when people say “Get a lawyer” to handle negotiations and look over your paperwork. You pay a lawyer to do a job, but it does not mean you should be oblivious to aspects of law and contract jargon among other things because “that’s what they’re there to do.” You can’t say someone (sometimes lawyers included) screwed you over after you’ve signed the dotted line. They’re protecting and looking out for themselves. Commit to do the same for yourself.
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i don’t wanna start any discourse on your blog so feel free to ignore this but why do you think poker pair isn’t pedophilia? i know that the definition of pedophilia is sexual attraction to prepubescent kids and allen’s obviously not prepubescent but doesn’t the age gap between them bother you?
It’s okay, Anon. I’m used to discourse, and tbh, this is something that I think I should talk about/explain.
First, asking “Why don’t you think it’s pedophilia?” and then listing reasons why it wouldn’t be considered pedophilia is confusing. Let’s look at why your comments rub me the wrong way.
Allen is 16 years old. He’s not a prepubescent child, as you also pointed out. Therefore, any relationship he’s in is not pedophilia.
Age Gaps do not equal pedophilia. Like, full stop.
You are conflating pedophilia with “ship I am uncomfortable with/don’t like.” Which is one of the reasons I’m fucking pissed with antis’ use of such a serious term. How am I or anyone else supposed to know if someone is an actual pedophile when idiots go around calling any ship they don’t like pedophilia and labeling shippers pedophiles for it?
Calling fictional ships pedophilia creates alarm-fatigue. This makes ACTUAL CHILD PREDATORS have an easier time finding ACTUAL CHILDREN to abuse. Antis have made it easier for real predators to hide and have not done one single thing to help kids in need. While they’re out harassing shippers, they’ve created such an unstable environment where we can’t trust each other when it comes to such a serious issue as child abuse.
Second, asking if age gaps bother me is a complicated question. Let me lay out some information for you.
Anything I read/write/consume in fiction DOES NOT MEAN I CONDONE IT IRL. This is true for anything, not just relationships. I may ship a teen with an adult in fiction, but I would not necessarily condone that relationship IRL. Life is messy, muddy, and things are never black and white.
Age Gaps are not inherently abusive. My own parents have a 10 year gap in their age (and before you ask, my mother is the older one), and they’ve been happily married for over 30 years.
My taste in ships is not related to whether or not they have a gap in age. Some ships that have age gaps click with me. Others do not. It’s not an all or nothing scenario.
Thirdly, whether or not a ship bothers me doesn’t mean shit. My opinion is not right or wrong. It’s simply that–my opinion. I know many people hate Poker Pair. But I also know many who love it. And after spending years in fandoms, I can tell you a few things about shipping in general.
YKINMKATO (AKA: Your Kink Is Not My Kink And That’s Okay). It’s okay if you think Poker Pair is squicky and the age gap bothers you. THAT IS TOTALLY FINE. But what you might find squicky and gross, other people absolutely adore. We’re all different people with different tastes and needs when it comes to fiction. As long as we respect each other’s boundaries, it’s fine. No one is putting a gun to your head and telling you to read a fic or look at fanart. Block tags you don’t like, use xkit, or hell–block users who produce what you don’t want to see. That’s what those tools are there for.
People ship things DIFFERENTLY. Look up any ship for any fandom, and you will find and endless amount of fics on various topics. Some are fluff pieces. Some are hardcore smut. Some are riddled with angst, violence, and abuse. When you look at Poker Pair, you automatically see it as something that makes you uncomfortable. I don’t know if you dislike like it because of the age gap only, or if there are other factors, but parsing down a ship and calling it abusive because of an age gap is really shortsighted and uncreative. Tyki is a villain, and fandoms have been shipping heroes and villains since the dawn of time. Ain’t nothing stopping that train. But what you may not understand is that, while some people see Poker Pair and want to highlight the unsavory bits of the relationship, others might want to explore softer sides. AND BOTH OPTIONS ARE OKAY! Personally, I love writing Poker Pair fluff because I think that if these two weren’t enemies, they would have such a different life and I’m so weak for that.
Censorship is bad. Full stop. It doesn’t matter if I like something or if I find it repulsive beyond all measures. No one is qualified to decide what is and is not allowed in fiction. I studied library sciences in college, and we had an entire course on censorship and copyright. (BTW, librarians are badasses.) Once you censor something because you find it abhorrent, the slippery slope begins. Anything can be considered unsavory, and once you give a person or a group of people powers to censor art, you’ve lost your freedom of self expression. All you need to do is look at China and their censorship laws in place right now to know that once you start down that path, there is no stopping it. So, even if I thought the age gap with Poker Pair was unsavory, I would still support people’s rights to ship it and make art/fic of it. I, nor anyone else, have the right to judge it.
I have a complicated history with Poker Pair. When I first joined the fandom, any ship with Tyki in it bothered me. I couldn’t read fics with him and I couldn’t bear to look a shippy art with him. Part of it was my own personal hangups. Part of it was the content I found for the ship.
But after a while, I grew to appreciate Tyki as a character. I started shipping him with Lavi, then Allen and Lavi in an OT3, then I was able to ship him with Allen solo. The change happened when I read some of my close friends’ fanfics–people who shipped Poker Pair and adored Tyki and Allen. Reading those fics basically opened my eyes. I could see the ship in a new light. It helped pave the path for me to open up to other ships, and eventually gave me the confidence to be the multishipping/rarepair queen I am today.
Look, Anon. I’m not saying you can’t be uncomfortable with age gaps or Poker Pair or anything else for that matter. Some things will bother you, and you’ll never change your mind. And that’s okay. All I’m saying is that opinions and views can change, and the way one person sees things is never the same as someone else.
I’m okay with Poker Pair and you seem to have a different opinion. And that is fine. All I want is for people to be respectful, keep their hate out of fandom tags, and stop harassing others over what amounts to lines on paper.
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The Intersection of Archives and Video Games: Telltale, the Death of a Studio, and What Happens When Games Disappear?
by Paula DuPont
Clementine is sad af. Photo Source: Telltale Games
Telltale Games closed up shop in October of 2018, but that sounds a lot less messy than what actually happened. Toxic management and “crunch culture” pushed some developers to leave on their own before a new CEO in 2017 laid off 25% of Telltale’s staff. Ten months later, 90% of the remaining staff were laid off, with just 25 core employees kept on to fulfill the company’s development obligations. Telltalle began assignment proceedings the following month—which is a bit like bankruptcy—and started the process of liquidating their assets.
Which all really sucks, but really bad bosses and 400 people losing their jobs, though terrible, isn’t what I want to talk about. What I want to talk about is what happens after. What happens after the studio closes? What happens after everyone has moved on? What happens to the games?
Please, don’t misunderstand me—inevitably someone’s going to misunderstand me—I care very much for everything the developers working at Telltale went through while they were there and since, as well as everyone else, the office managers, and the receptionists, and the administrative assistants, too. They worked together, all of them, to create something of value, and that something is in danger of being lost.
That’s what I want to talk about.
Tales From the Borderlands is no longer available to purchase at the Steam store, and Good Old Games (GOG) has announced that all titles from Telltale Games will be “delisted” from their marketplace on May 27. There’s no word from Steam just yet, but it’s not a leap to assume Telltale titles will be removed for purchase from the Steam store, soon, too.
Where do games go when studios die?
Digital-only releases complicate a question that used to have a pretty straightforward answer.
With physical copies of games, all that is lost when a studio fails is the studio itself. Players still have the game, and as long as the medium and console to play it hold out—more on this in a moment—the game will exist indefinitely. If you own a physical copy of a game, you can even legally resell it.
But when the studio is gone and the game is removed from circulation at digital points of sale, what does that mean for a game that can’t be resold, that can’t be passed from player to player? Does the game die along with the studio?
Enter the Librarians!
Well, archivists, really, but we can be very similar and have a lot of crossover.
Video games have had a place in library collections for going on forty years—and if this is news to you, get to your local library—but there hadn’t been a consolidated effort to collect and preserve video games until recently. Projects like the Internet Arcade, the National Videogame Museum, the Video Game History Foundation, and myriad college and university video game archives, have sprung up to collect video games not just as playable entertainment but as cultural objects that should be preserved. These projects, however, have suffered from opaque copyright law and legal questions surrounding intellectual property, as well as unstructured collection development policies and uncoordinated or incidental accessions.
For much of their—admittedly short—existence, though, video game archives have had it relatively easy when it comes to acquiring new titles: Buy the title or receive it as a donation, make sure you have a system that plays the disc or cartridge, and done. I said I would get back to the working lifespan of consoles: Older titles may take a bit of digging to find working systems, and both older video game media and their systems will likely require conservation work to get everything to function. In some cases, archives store ROMs and emulators in digital archives rather than the physical media themselves. But it’s a (relatively) straightforward process, similar to acquiring any other archival object.
Photo Source: National Videogame Museum (UK)
Video game archives are going to start running into a problem when they go to acquire new titles, though, and that brings us back to the question of Telltale Games and their imminent disappearance from online retailers: How do video game archives preserve games that are never distributed on physical media?
Steam’s Family Sharing may provide a route around a lack of physical media for some libraries wishing to circulate games, but it’s not clear how that shakes out legally, and it wouldn’t hold up for archives at all, because an archive wants their own copy of the game. What you purchase through Steam is essentially a license to play the game, full of all kinds of DRM nastiness. An archive holds a copy of the game, whether that’s a physical copy or a copy of the code, so that if everything else falls apart, the game will still exist. If the game is licensed through Steam, though, and Steam or its parent company Valve were ever to fold like Telltale, the archive could lose access to that game just like everyone else would.
We’re going to need to find a better solution, one that keeps these games available, ensures that no one’s legal toes are stepped on, and preserves games as the cultural objects they are. I’m not sure what that system will look like, but I know it’s going to require intentional developers and archivists working together to preserve games from the earliest stages of the dev cycle. The model we’re working with now, archivists cobbling games together as they are able to years or decades after the fact, is untenable, and it will only become more so as other much loved developers inevitably come and go the way of Telltale Games.
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Tough Love: Rift Between Spotify, Music Industry Growing
A contentious relationship from the beginning, the streaming industry and the rest of the music business have been increasingly at odds of late. Even as recorded revenues continue to rise, artists and publishers have grown increasingly frustrated with streamers like Spotify and Apple, creating a rift that shows no signs of healing. Spotify Premium APK is one online music streaming application where you can easily interact with all the songs that are existing in the music industry.
Guest post by Sergey Bludov, SVP, Media & Entertainment of global technology consultancy DataArt
As the way in which music is consumed evolves, the rift between streaming platforms and the music industry seems to increase every year. you can simply download the Spotify Premium APK application on your mobile phone and enjoy the music you want.
In 2018, revenues from recorded music in the U.S. rose by 12% to $9.8 billion in estimated retail value. According to the RIAA, this growth was driven primarily by revenue from paid subscription services such as Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, and others. These services had over 50 million subscribers in 2018. It's hard not to argue that streaming platforms have revolutionized the way in which the public listens to music and have had a demonstrably positive impact on music industry profits.
So with revenues up, this must be good news for everyone, including platforms, labels, and artists, right?
Unfortunately, it's not quite that simple. While the music industry is trying to fix the value gap, there's a complicated and growing schism between streaming platforms like Spotify and publishers and artists. It doesn’t appear likely that the problem will be solved any time soon.
Labels, streaming services, and artists are all struggling to determine royalties in this new landscape. It's the creators and their support system versus the distributors. The creators want to figure out what kind of data the distributors are using. The main issue is that the distributors may also be struggling with that same question. From a technical perspective, these streaming platforms are capable of providing more advanced analytics and metrics than musicians have ever enjoyed access to in the past. That gives artists and copyright owners more information than ever with which to claim they should be receiving a larger piece of the royalty pie. As the industry catches up to the technology, however, it can be difficult for both the platforms and publishers to accurately analyze this data. At the same time, increasing dependency on streaming services gives more power to platforms, which could be a cause of concern for both labels and artists.
Legislative developments in the industry have led to more disagreements over royalties. In October 2018, Congress passed the Music Modernization Act. The MMA's goal was to bring copyright rules into the 21st century, paving the way for artists to received more royalties. This led to a proposal for creating a group known as the mechanical licensing collective that will grant a blanket mechanical license for all digital on-demand services. This group will also be tasked with determining how the streaming services can organize the metadata collected from various touchpoints in which songs are downloaded or accessed.
Across the pond, the European Union has proposed a Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (more commonly known as Article 13) which "requires the likes of YouTube, Facebook,and Twitter to take more responsibility for copyrighted material being shared illegally on their platforms." This is meant to protect artists whose work is being accessed online without compensation.
While every member of the music industry has not individually marched in lockstep behind both of these pieces of legislation, they have both received fairly broad support from industry coalitions. This is clearly representative of how the industry is beginning to unite in the name of concrete, actionable legislation holding the streaming platforms accountable for figuring out how streaming data is used and how that translates to royalties.
A recent ruling by the U.S. Copyright Board will see songwriter payouts rise by 44%. In another example of platform and industry discord, Spotify, along with Amazon, Pandora, and Google, has appealed the ruling. Apple Music is the only major online music distributor not to participate in the appeal.
The music industry has not taken this appeal lying down. David Israelite, head of the National Music Publishers Association, declared this a "war on the songwriting community." That statement is representative of how heated this ongoing feud has become. With this level of intensity and rhetoric shared on both sides, it doesn't appear that it will subside any time soon.
In fact, legal action seems to have grown in both intensity and magnitude. Take, for example, the recent case of Spotify's attempt to branch out to India. Warner Music Group challenged Spotify's legal right to play their music on its platform as the two bodies had not yet struck a licensing agreement. After the two were unable to strike a deal, Spotify attempted to circumvent Warner's participation by relying on an old Indian copyright law provision stating that “broadcasters can obtain a license for copyrighted works even if the copyright owner denies use."
While Bombay's high court allowed Spotify to launch, they still do not have the rights to music from Warner's catalog. While the matter is far from resolved, the issue itself represents something even bigger than whether Spotify or Warner wins the dispute: both the industry and the platforms are willing to get involved in messy legal battles to gain an advantage over the other. The India case could set a dangerous precedent the industry may see repeated in other markets.
The final consideration is this: how far can this rift between platforms and the industry go? How will this impact the way in which streaming platforms distribute music? Will they adapt in ways that are less than favorable for the creators? What role will the publishers play in all this? So far, they've been defensive of the songwriters and artists, and more than willing to fight in court.
These are tough questions, and the industry is certainly in for a bumpy ride as they navigate these issues. But on a larger scale, both sides remain at an impasse. Neither one can operate without the other. Streaming services have little to offer without the songwriters and musicians, but the platforms have become integral for those artists to distribute and amplify their work in the most efficient way possible. If these type of legal battles continue, which side will blink first?
Source: https://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2019/05/tough-love-rift-between-spotify-music-industry-growing.html
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Twitch And Music Copyright Laws: An Ongoing Story
By Lakin Greene, Murray State University Class of 2021
March 5, 2021
Copyright laws in the realm of music are a confounding, complicated subject to many outside of the legal field. From the details of royalties to the particulars of copyright licenses – and the number of those licenses – issues are bound to pop up now and again when lines are blurred and people don’t take the care to look closely at what music they are using. This has, of course, been the subject of controversy among many.
Twitch is one of many such cases in the legal field where copyright infringement is a torrid subject. A platform hosted by Amazon, it caters primarily to live-streamers of video games and commentary, the majority of which often host music in the background during their livestreams. As a result, in late 2020 Twitch was assailed by a collection of DMCA strikes for violating copyright laws. [1]
The sudden avalanche of DMCA strikes is not a sudden thing. Earlier in the year, Rolling Stone reported that Twitch had only acquired licenses for livestreaming content, and that instead of going forward to acquire other licensure, the platform developed its own music playlist service. Developing this service is reportedly a way to circumvent costs, and the music service gives music publishers suspicions as to whether the featured artists are being given the appropriate royalties according to law. [2]
The subject of copyright towards music is a tricky one, because music is not beholden to just one copyright rule. Compositions - the actual song in writing - have a type of copyright license, while the music itself is subject to its own copyright laws. [3] Add in the contracts many musicians have with record labels, or the lack thereof, and the many organizations that record labels and musicians are part of which act on their behalf, things become messy.
It is easy to see the problem in this instance. Live-streamers have the ability to play any kind of music they wish on their platform, whether it be a common song under standard license or something less well-known, or perhaps music from abroad. Of course, there are certain kinds of licensure that the company could acquire to circumvent the issue – buying licenses from music organizations and publishers, for example, of which their members are a part as with ASCAP Licensing. [4]
But what about music made by those outside of these organizations? Twitch would need to make deals to pay either masters royalties or composition royalties to composers and record labels. With livestreamers playing any kind of music, this might be considered a legal impossibility. Thus, much to platform consumers’ frustration, Twitch has elected instead to begin taking down videos featuring such music.
It is not a surprising development, and indeed more common than many might think. Radio stations are a prime example of playing without paying, as it were, and in response, legislature was introduced to attempt to circumvent such actions, although not without criticism. [5] Furthermore, the pushback from streamers regarding this decision also has an impact with other musicians seeking to make their brand known. Indeed, the process of attempting to avoid copyrighted music regardless of origin has become an issue of its own.
According to Wired, the process by which Twitch takes down copyrighted music is automatic. Thus, many tracks that use remixes of others, and indeed original tracks themselves, are sometimes copyright struck for being assumedly a licensed work. [6] This, according to one DJ is one of many instances of copyright abuse.
Entertainment and copyright law in the music industry is complicated as it is, but even many Internet and digital radio stations have acquired licensure from organizations and music groups to play music on the whole.
The Twitch platform, considering the amount of people performing and recording videos on their platform, would be better off streamlining the process and acquiring licensure for its own ends. While the cost would be more, the copyright violations would be much fewer and the platform would be much less legally susceptible to music organizations in the future.
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[1] Spangler, Todd (November 11, 2020) “Twitch Says It’s in Talks to License Music, Tells Users to Delete Videos With Unauthorized Tracks,” Variety. From https://variety.com/2020/digital/news/twitch-music-licensing-copyright-delete-videos-1234829256/.
[2] Blistein, Jon (October 1, 2020) “Twitch Licenses Music Now. But the Music Industry Says It’s Skirting the Rules,” Rolling Stone. From https://www.rollingstone.com/pro/features/twitch-soundtrack-licensing-sync-1069411/.
[3] PQ, Rory (May 30, 2020) “HOW MUSIC ROYALTIES WORK IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY,” Icon Collective. From https://iconcollective.edu/how-music-royalties-work/#19-the-breakdown-of-copyright-and-licensing.
[4] “ASCAP Licensing,” ascap. Retrieved February 26, 2021 from https://www.ascap.com/help/ascap-licensing#general.
[5] Anderson, Eric (September 19, 2019) “Can I Sue My Radio Station for Playing My Music Without My Consent?” E.D.A. Law. From https://www.edalaw.com/can-i-sue-a-radio-station-for-playing-my-music-without-my-consent.
[6] Diaz, Ana (February 24, 2021) “Twitch’s DMCA Takedowns Threaten to Drive Musicians Away,” Wired. From https://www.wired.com/story/twitch-coronavirus-musicians-dmca-takedowns/.
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7 Answers To The Most Frequently Asked Questions About Concrete Walkways To Front Door
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Review & Excerpt Tour for IT BEGAN WITH A LIE by Michele Pariza Wacek!
Title: It Began With A Lie
Author: Michele Pariza Wacek
Release Date: September 10, 2018
Publisher: Love-Based Publishing
Series: Secrets of Redemption #1
Genre: Psychological thriller, romantic suspense, paranormal
Page Count: 282
Synopsis:
A fresh start. That was what Becca hoped the move from New York to Redemption, Wisconsin, would be for her troubled family—a way to get her crumbling marriage back on track, and to bond with her difficult 16-year-old stepdaughter.
But instead of a new beginning, Becca is thrust into a mysterious past she barely remembers … a past that includes complications from interacting with her teenage crush, Daniel, as well as living in her aunt's old house (aka "The Witch House," according to locals).
But is the house really haunted? Or is there something far more sinister out to destroy them?
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IT BEGAN WITH A LIE Excerpt
Copyright © 2018 Michele PW
Chrissy gave me a withering look as she furiously pounded on her iPhone. I opened my mouth to say something—I had no idea what … something to bridge the gap that yawned between us—but Mia's voice interrupted me. "Daniel! Look who's here! It's Becca!"
I closed my mouth and turned to look. A police officer was standing at the counter watching Mia fill up a to-go container with coffee. Could that be Daniel? I searched the room, but only saw only a handful of people finishing up their breakfast. It had to be him.
I looked back at the cop. Broad shoulders and dark blonde hair—Daniel. Mia glanced at me and winked. I made a face back at her.
He turned. He was older of course, but yes, it was most definitely Daniel. He wouldn't be considered traditionally handsome—not like Stefan with his almost pretty-boy looks. Daniel's face was too rugged, with sharp cheekbones and a crooked nose. But his lips were still full and soft, and his eyes were still the same dark blue. I found myself suddenly conscious of my appearance. I hadn't taken a shower in two days, and I was wearing an old, faded New York Giants tee shirt. I had scraped my unruly mass of reddish, blondish, brownish hair back into a messy ponytail in preparation for a full day of cleaning and organizing. But I quickly reminded myself that I was being silly. I was a married woman, sitting with my stepdaughter, and he was engaged.
Besides, he had made it more than clear years ago he wasn't the slightest bit interested in me.
"Becca," he said coming over, his face friendly, but not exactly smiling. "Welcome back to Redemption." It didn't sound much like a welcome.
“Thanks," I said, mostly because I couldn't think of anything better to say. Instinctively, I reached up to smooth out my hair, since as usual, a few curly tendrils had escaped and hung in my face. "Not much has changed."
He studied me, making me really wish I had taken an extra five minutes to jump in the shower and dig out a clean shirt. "Oh, plenty has changed."
"Like you being a cop?"
He shrugged slightly. "Pays the bills."
I half-smiled. "There's lots of ways to pay the bills. If I remember right, you always seemed more interested in breaking the law than upholding it."
"Like I said, things change." He lifted his to-go coffee cup and took a swallow, dark blue eyes never leaving mine. "I take it you're still painting then."
I dropped my gaze to his chest, feeling a dull ache overwhelm me—the same pain I felt when I heard the name Becca. "As you said, things change."
"Ah." I waited for him to ask more questions, but instead, he changed the subject. "So, how long are you staying?"
I shrugged. "Not sure. We've actually moved here."
His eyebrows raised slightly. "To Charlie's house? You aren't selling it?"
“Well, yes. Eventually. That’s the plan. But, at least for the foreseeable future, we’ll be living in it.” I sounded like an idiot. With some effort, I forced myself to stop talking. Why on earth did I share so much detail? How was this any of his business?
He looked like he was going to say something more but was interrupted by a loud snort. The two pant-suited women both scraped their chairs back as they stood up, glaring disgustedly at all of us before heading to the cash register.
"What's with them?" Chrissy asked. I had forgotten she was there.
I shrugged, before remembering my manners and introducing Chrissy to Daniel. I made a point of gesturing with my left hand to flash my wedding ring.
His head tipped in a slight nod before looking back at me. "Will you be around later today? I'd like to stop by and talk to you."
There was something in his expression that made me uneasy, but I purposefully kept my voice light. "What on earth for? I haven't even unpacked yet. Am I already in trouble?"
The ends of his lips turned up in a slight smile, but no hint of warmth touched the intense look in his eyes. "Should you be in trouble?”
I let out a loud, exaggerated sigh. "Why do cops always answer a question with a question?"
"Occupational hazard. I'll see you later." He dipped his chin in a slight nod before walking away. I noticed he didn't give me the slightest hint as to what he wanted to talk to me about. That sense of unease started to grow into a sense of foreboding.
About Michele PW:
Michele Pariza Wacek (also known as Michele PW) taught herself to read at three years old because she so badly wanted to write fiction. As an adult, she became a professional copywriter (copywriters write promotional materials for businesses, nothing to do with protecting intellectual property or putting a copyright on something) and eventually founded a copywriting and marketing company. She grew up in Madison, Wisconsin and currently lives with her husband and dogs in the mountains of Arizona. You can reach her at MicheleParizaWacek.com. She’s published two novels, “The Stolen Twin” and “Mirror Image,” both psychological thrillers/mystery/suspense books.
Follow: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Newsletter | Amazon | BookBub | Pinterest | Instagram
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#Michelle PW#Michele Pariza Wacek#Secrets of Redemption 1#paranormal#romantic suspense#psychological thriller#Barclay Publicity
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‘I’ve seen people cleaned out’: Divorce later in life comes with its own special set of problems
Divorce at any age can be emotionally and financially taxing, but for those above the age of 50 and especially for retirees, the stakes can be even higher.
Such so-called “grey divorces” have been on the rise for decades in Canada, and as the baby boomer generation ages, they are only becoming more common.
While statistics Canada doesn’t record current data on age-based divorce rates, the median age for divorce rose between 1991 to 2008: for men it jumped from 38.3 to 44 years, women jumped from 35.7 to 41 years.
Toronto-based Shulman Law Firm spoke to the Post recently about their own internal data, which they say bears out the change.
Solo retirement is on the rise — here’s how you can mitigate the risks
If you think retirement will change your spousal support obligations, you might want to think again
‘You should do it right’: More couples are signing postnuptial agreements despite being on shakier ground
A decade ago, about 10 per cent of their clients were 50 and older. But the firm now says the demographic “constitutes approximately 40 per cent” of their clientele. Interestingly, the age group of 60 and older saw the most significant change, nearly doubling over the past 10 years — although it still remains the minority of cases at the firm.
Getting divorced later in life poses problems that other age groups frequently do not experience. Older couples who split up have often been married for longer periods, which means there can be more assets and liabilities to sort through, complicating the process.
Limitations on future earning potential, especially for those in their 60s and 70s are also a challenge.
“The concern I always have when I’m dealing with a woman or a man in their late 60s (is) they don’t get another chance. They don’t get another career in which to make money,” said Mary Jane Binks, of Ottawa-based Augustine Bater Binks LLP.
With so much at stake from a personal finance perspective, here are some things those who are going through a divorce later in life should keep in mind:
Everything is on the table
While most people know that major assets such as the marital home will be divided, other assets that build up over the course of a marriage are also in play.
“Often the biggest asset in the family is someone’s pension. It’s not the house, It’s the pension,” said Greg Evans of Winnipeg-based Evans Family Law. “Baby boomers tend to have really good pensions.”
The realization that it can be divided can be a tough pill to swallow, according to Diane Isaac, a family lawyer at Shulman Law.
“With married couples because they thought, ‘This is something I’ve worked for, why are they getting half of this?’ and we obviously have to explain that as a result of the marital dissolution by divorce, all this is subject to division,” Isaac said.
Similar to a pension, both parties also need to share their liabilities. If one person had debt that wasn’t disclosed in the marriage — for example if they had a gambling problem — or spent money that was meant to be saved, all of a sudden it becomes a problem for both people.
Secondary properties, such as a family cottage, can also be up for division as well. Even an heirloom cottage that was handed down through the generations on one side of the family is often treated as a shared recreation property when the time comes to divide assets.
There is an emotional toll
While all divorces are entangled in emotions, grey divorcees tend to come following marriages that have lasted for long periods of time.
“We use counsellors to help people deal with their emotional stuff,” said Evans, who says the majority of cases he deals with are grey divorces. “(If) you’re disappointed or upset, or you’re feeling a betrayal perhaps in some situation (it) can cloud the way that you approach the financial issues.”
A grey divorce can take a huge emotional toll because they tend to come after long relationships.
In Canada, it does not matter whether one partner’s conduct was more to blame for the breakdown of the marriage when it comes to splitting assets.
“Because we have no fault divorce in Canada, whether or not my spouse cheated on me doesn’t change the way property is divided,” he explained.
Evans said that bringing a couple’s children into the process only adds to the potential emotional toll, even if the children are in their 30s or 40s.
“I think people forget that they’re still their children,” he said.
It doesn’t hurt to be prepared
Obviously no one plans to get a divorce when they’re getting married. But getting a marriage contract can prepare individuals just in case they end up in a messy separation situation. If someone inherits money from their parents as a gift, but would like to keep that money from entering the marriage, they can include that in a marriage contract as not belonging to their spouse.
“Well I’ve seen some people unfortunately in their 60s and 70s left with very little after a bad relationship, I’ve seen people cleaned out. And it’s a shame, if they don’t have a contract that protects their interests it can be very dicey,” said Binks.
“Let’s say your husband had a gambling habit and has gone through the family assets, what do you do when you’re 72 or 73? There’s very little to be done. The time to protect yourself is upfront. The financial ramifications of marriage or cohabitation are extremely important.”
Getting a marriage contract can prepare individuals just in case they end up in a messy separation situation.
Entering a second marriage, a contract can be essential. If there are children from a first marriage, it might be important to make sure that the money kept aside for the children (for school, or a home) is kept safely on the side for them, rather than being shared between both parties.
“People have asked me at what juncture do you ask this? Obviously not on the first date,” said Isaac. “But I think that it you’re candid and you know this person is the person you would like to spend your life with and you intend on moving in with this person and becomes very serious I think you should have that preliminary discussion.”
There are some ways to reduce the costs
Once a couple reaches a state where their marriage cannot be saved, there are still things that can be done to minimize the pain and costs of a divorce.
While collecting decades worth of financial documents accrued throughout a marriage can be tough, being organized and open with everyone involved can save money. When couples can give the lawyers all the information they need up front, and make decisions on their own without fighting in court, it’s even better for their wallets.
“There are some people who have no idea what they have, or they let the other spouse control this,” Isaac said. “There are some people who don’t even know what their spouse earns. But I think the more you organize your own information, A) it’s more cost effective and B) It helps to strategize how we’re going to move forward.”
Rates can also change depending where a couple lives. Focusing efforts to stay out of court is also helpful, because hiring a lawyer can cost anywhere from several hundred to hundreds of thousands of dollars. When couples are retired and have no new income, that can represent a major difference in their future quality of life.
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Understanding Music Copyright, Licensing and Syncs with Virginie Berger
Understanding Music Copyright, Licensing and Syncs with Virginie Berger: via LANDR Blog
The legal aspects of music can give any musician a headache. But understanding that side of the industry is crucial if you’re working as an independent musician.
Knowing your rights means knowing when you’re owed money for your music.
Music licensing in today’s music industry has become complicated and messy. Where do you even start? Copyright, licensing and syncs… What do they all mean? How are they different?
Virginie Berger has the answers. Berger is the of CEO the music licensing hub Armonia, the first pan-european effort of its kind. Their goal? To make online music licensing and processing simpler to ensure a fair deal for everyone.
Below, Berger shares everything you need to know about copyright, music licensing and syncs to make sense of how to get paid for your music.
What is copyright in music?
Copyright (or Author’s Rights) is the right to the intellectual property of a work, based on two principles:
1. Moral right:
The recognition of ownership of the work and respect for the integrity of the work. It will always belong to the author. Unfortunately, the US doesn’t recognize moral rights.
2. Economic right:
The authors have exclusive right to authorize the exploitation of their work through public performance or reproduction and to be compensated for the use of their work. An author may entrust a collective management society to manage their economic rights.
What is music licensing?
Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music for public performance rights.
Music licensing is the licensed use of copyrighted music for public performance rights. A license must be obtained from the songwriter or publisher each time a recording of the composition is played as part of a broadcast.
The owner of a copyrighted work has the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, display and adapt the copyrighted work. This includes the right to authorize or refuse to authorize others to exercise those rights.
This means that for most music included in mainstream broadcast programming, a license must be obtained and license fees must be paid. For different uses, different kinds of licenses will be necessary. Also depending on the type of use, a license may be needed from the music publisher, the record label, or both.
Who takes care of licensing?
Performing Rights Organizations (PROs) and Collective Management Organisations (CMOs) are responsible for licensing public performances.
Rather than licensing each song separately, broadcasters enter into ‘blanket’ licenses with each of the PROs/CMOs that authorize the use of all musical compositions in their repertoire. The blanket license authorizes the music to be played on the air—but also on streaming platforms (Spotify, YouTube, etc.).
That’s why it’s so important for musicians and songwriters to be members of a PRO or CMO. Thanks to their deals, they collect money on behalf of the artists and give it to them.
That’s why it’s so important for musicians and songwriters to be members of a PRO (organizations like ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, SOCAN) or CMO in Europe (SACEM, SIAE and GEMA). Thanks to their deals, they collect money on behalf of the artists and give it to them.
Streaming and downloading require licenses on both mechanical rights (the right to record, manufacture and distribute another copyright holder’s musical work or sheet music) and performing rights (right to perform music in public including concerts, restaurants, nightclubs, etc.) with an applicable split set by each collecting society for its own territory.
For instance in France, the split Mechanical/Performing is:
90/10 for downloading
75/25 for on-demand subscription streaming with offline caching
50/50 on-demand ad supported streaming
For Anglo-American repertoires, the mechanical right is held 100% by the publisher.
What are syncs?
Sync licenses are agreements for the use of music in audiovisual projects. Syncs (synchronization rights) are one of the most used licenses in the market.
When music is reproduced as part of the soundtrack of a film, TV program or similar media, the reproduction is called a synchronization.
Certain uses of music in broadcast programming may involve not just the public performance of music, but also the reproduction of the song and master recording. In these cases, additional licenses covering the reproduction must also be obtained.
When music is reproduced as part of the soundtrack of a film, TV program or similar media, the reproduction is called a synchronization. A license known as sync license must be obtained from the music publisher or songwriter that owns the composition.
Specifically, a synch license allows the reproduction of a composition in timed relation to moving images in an audiovisual work. The producer, not the broadcaster, is typically responsible for obtaining the sync license.
Similarly, when music is synchronized with moving images for television or other audiovisual productions, a license must be obtained for the use of the recording. This license is referred to as a master use license, which like the synch license, is usually obtained by the producer, not the broadcaster.
In certain limited situations, copyrighted music may be used without a license. Under the doctrine of fair use, the use of limited portions of copyrighted material may be permitted for purposes such as teaching, research, criticism, news reporting or parody.
Unfortunately, the law does not clearly indicate exactly which uses constitute ‘fair use’ and which do not. It is always prudent to consult with an attorney before using a music content under ‘fair use.’
What are the main challenges in the industry regarding licensing?
The number one challenge in the licensing system today is the identification of works.
The number one challenge in the licensing system today is the identification of works. Collecting societies rely on metadata to identify works. Very often, the information available is not qualitative enough to properly match a work with its rights owners.
Moreover, the international licensing system relies on two types of information: the sound recording data, associated with the International Standard Recording Codes (ISRCs) and the publishing data, associated with the International Standard Work Codes (ISWCs). Today, there is no system in place to reconcile the two, and third-party tech providers often don’t have access to it.
To remain relevant, collective societies understood the importance of cooperation, and their future strongly depends on the success of such initiatives.
Technologies like audio fingerprinting, metadata enrichment or blockchains have been developed to reduce over time the number of unidentified works. Still, thousands of new works are added every day to thousands of music databases existing within the publishing industry—which makes the task very complex. Initiatives of centralized repertoire databases emerged in the past, but without success so far.
To remain relevant, collective societies understood the importance of cooperation, and their future strongly depends on the success of such initiatives. Not only on the licensing side, but also on the technical and technological aspects, to address collectively the challenges the industry is facing right now regarding the crazy volumes of data to process, the identification or works, the matching of sound recordings (ISRC codes) with publishing data (ISWCs codes) and transparency with blockchain technology.
Common initiatives are flourishing lately with the ASCAP/BMI joint song database plan, the SACEM/PRS/ASCAP blockchain project, the R&D initiative of the Nordic music copyright societies Polaris Future Lab, ASCAP/PRS/STIM partnership with Swedish startup Auddly… At Armonia, our common back office system is cleaning and enriching metadata at a speed of 2 gigabytes per minute and deals with big data, processing about 0.5 TB of data in hundred of files each month.
Follow Armonia on Facebook and Twitter.
The post Understanding Music Copyright, Licensing and Syncs with Virginie Berger appeared first on LANDR Blog.
from LANDR Blog https://blog.landr.com/music-licensing-vberger/
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