Enough already Fox. Are we EVER going to see WKRP released? - Page 17

TravisR · 04-26-2007, 04:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corey3rd

It's the law that when I play a Vanilla Ice song or a Beatles song on my radio station, I pay the same amount. If I go to iTunes, they don't charge twice as much for Ice Ice Baby versus a cover of a Beatles song (since they still refuse to let Apple put out their music).

They also should make a law that makes comic books or baseball cards or stamps all one price as well. Something tells me that if you owned Action Comics #1 or that Honus Wagner rookie card or a Beatles song and wanted to sell it, you would find a problem with the government telling you how much you were allowed to sell it for.

Albert_M · 04-26-2007, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Has anyone here written a song? It is a very personal artform. Who are people on the outside to tell you how much that song is worth? Why should laws dictate that the work of say Vanilla Ice be worth the same as the Beatles?

Hm, I don't see much of a varience of the suggest retail price of a new cd.

Or even most catalog titles. There are a few tiers in pricing, but thousands of titles are in each tier.

Quote:

They also should make a law that makes comic books or baseball cards or stamps all one price as well. Something tells me that if you owned Action Comics #1 or that Honus Wagner rookie card or a Beatles song and wanted to sell it, you would find a problem with the government telling you how much you were allowed to sell it for.

I didn't realize that there were infinite numbers of comic books and baseball cards. If there were, this might be apples to apples, since they are not comparable, it's not a good analogy.

David Rain · 04-26-2007, 06:05 PM

Ultimately whoever owns a song can charge whatever they please. What they don't seem to realize is that if they charge so much that their song ends up not being used at all then they don't make anything. It also means less exposure for their song.

Jon Martin · 04-26-2007, 07:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corey3rd

It's the law that when I play a Vanilla Ice song or a Beatles song on my radio station, I pay the same amount. If I go to iTunes, they don't charge twice as much for Ice Ice Baby versus a cover of a Beatles song (since they still refuse to let Apple put out their music).

You can't compare them.

A song on the radio is essentially advertising for people to buy the CD. It is played on its own.

A song on a TV show or in a movie is enhancing that other artwork. The song is secondary to the visual impact, in most cases.

Yes, artists may get exposure, and sell some albums from it, but that isn't the reason for the song being used.

David Deeb · 04-26-2007, 07:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Rain

Ultimately whoever owns a song can charge whatever they please. What they don't seem to realize is that if they charge so much that their song ends up not being used at all then they don't make anything. It also means less exposure for their song.

Great point.

We need a compromise for old shows. 30 years ago, no one knew we would buy whole seasons of TV series. And as someone else pointed out, a short snippet is not going to satisfy anyone that wants to buy the whole song for their collection anyway.

For new films, owners can set whatever price they want. If the film producer wants it, he'll pay it. Licensing a Beatles or U2 song for a new film would likely command a higher price than a new artist's song.

TravisR · 04-26-2007, 10:24 PM

EDIT: Skip it.

Corey3rd · 04-26-2007, 11:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon Martin

You can't compare them.

A song on the radio is essentially advertising for people to buy the CD. It is played on its own.

A song on a TV show or in a movie is enhancing that other artwork. The song is secondary to the visual impact, in most cases.

Yes, artists may get exposure, and sell some albums from it, but that isn't the reason for the song being used.

But see you're wrong. A song on the radio is being used to enhance the advertising being run on the station. You'll listen to that ad for Dunkin Donuts if you know the Led Zep six pack is on the way. With the way a Clear Channel radio station is programmed, you have no need to buy the song since you know they'll be playing it again in a few hours. And they play the whole song. Radio isn't there for the music - they're ads machines with music chosen to attract the demographic promised to the sponsors.

On a TV show, they play a few seconds of the song. Did WKRP play every minute of Pink Floyd's Dogs? How long did Hot Blooded play? But if you hear the songs and enjoy them, you'll pick up Animals and The Foreigner greatest hits CD.

The music rights situation is getting out of control. I've met documentarians who have had to dump amazing movies about bands because the publishing rights were going to cost more than the budget. And these were projects that the bands wanted to make.

TravisR · 04-27-2007, 06:33 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Corey3rd

The music rights situation is getting out of control.

I agree. However, does that means that people shouldn't be allowed to charge the price they want for what they own?

Corey3rd · 04-27-2007, 09:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TravisR

I agree. However, does that means that people shouldn't be allowed to charge the price they want for what they own?

A majority of times, the people that are setting the prices aren't the people who wrote the songs or performed them. They don't know what's really good for the artist as far as exposure. To limit the discourse, I'm addressing music that already has a history with a show. By overpricing the publishing and forcing the songs to be removed, an artist is losing out. Radio is giving up on most of these people. Oldies stations are a vanishing breed. They view their fans as dying and they don't want to be background to after funeral parties. Around here they've turned them into modern country stations.

I'm not yelling for government regulations, but there needs to be some sort of normalcy in the industry when it comes to pricing structure.

The concept of making it easier for owners of the DVDs to purchase the complete songs via iTunes might help the publishers see DVDs as a selling tool. But from my past experiences, most of the publishers want that "Start Me Up" score.

Tony S · 04-27-2007, 09:29 AM

In my opinion, the law should be changed that a dvd company can play a few seconds of a song for free. The older the song is, the more seconds they should be able to play for free. The whole point of patents & copyrights is to insure that the artist or inventor can make money off their work without someone else doing the same with their work. Patents only last for 34 years, I think, but copyrights last many years longer. Why is this? Shouldn't the copyright laws be the same as patent laws?

At some point the overall good of the public as a whole has to come into play. Allowing someone to own the rights to a piece of music for the rest of our lives, in my opinion, is allowing that person to own a monopoly. If the government can stop companies from merging with anti-trust legislation, then why does it allow these musicians to own monopolies for the remainder of thier lives?

I agree that they should have exclusive control over their work for a few years, but there should be a point where enough is enough. I mean Beatles songs have been around for over 40 years and the Beatles made millions. The copyright served it's purpose. But now it's 40 years later. Two of the Beatles are dead and we have to deal with Michael Jackson if we want a Beatles song on a dvd. Ridiculous.

There are emminent domain laws in this country that allow the government to take someone's land if it serves the overall good. What about the overall good of allowing the public watch a tv show on dvd in its' original form?

I am a republican and detest the government's interference. But the government interfered in the first place by creating these ridiculously long copyrights.

Radioman970 · 04-27-2007, 04:34 PM

I work in radio but I don't really know all the music rights laws. I'm wondering what if anything do musical artists have to pay for sampling songs? Seems like it'd be difficult for them to do so.

It's a real shame Shout Factory wasn't allowed to take care of this one. It'd certainly be near the top of my 2 buy list along with the SCTV releases. They really did good work on those.