

Copyright: The Elephant in the Middle of the Glee Club - sstrudeau
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2010/06/copyright-elephant-in-middle-of-glee.html

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dkimball
There's always been a folk culture, including folk songs -- with "folk" and
"songs" as separate words, "songs part of the popular consciousness" as
opposed to "songs sung in an Appalachian dialect with a banjo, a long beard,
and highly un-Appalachian politics."

We have a folk culture at the present day, too; the problem is that all songs
used by the folk are copyrighted. Read _Sound Targets_, on music in the Iraq
War, for another illustration of this; if every occasion of piracy mentioned
in that book produced a $150,000 fine, the RIAA could field its own armed
forces with the proceeds. (I hope I didn't just give them an idea.)

I'm not sure where we go from here. This situation can't continue, but "the
laborer is worthy of his hire," to use the medieval form of the expression. If
only the music industry weren't a gang of thugs (for a list of RIAA members:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_RIAA_member_labels>), we might already
have a solution for this...

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mhartl
I'm sympathetic to the argument in this article, but like virtually all such
articles it misses the underlying problem. Copyright law isn't the way it is
because of misguided lawmakers or greedy corporations, or, rather, those are
only the proximate causes. The ultimate cause is that representative
government is unstable against the formation of special interest groups.
Explaining very clearly to people why they're a bad idea, and even convincing
them that you're right, won't solve the fundamental problem. The Mickey Mouse
Protection Act and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act passed for the same
basic reasons that ethanol and mohair subsidies persist: those who benefit
have a concentrated interest to game the system; those who suffer have a
greatly diluted interest to resist.

By the way, you may be aware that the infamous mohair subsidies ended in 1995.
Alas, this was not the equilibrium, and you can see the grinding of the
implacable gears in this sad story:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohair#US_subsidies_for_mohair_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohair#US_subsidies_for_mohair_production)

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balding_n_tired
High school teachers know about this stuff. A drama teacher I know always
knows exactly how many tickets she needs to sell to break even after
licensing.

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alanh
Things are about to get a lot worse with ACTA. Imagine you Internet access
being shut off for sharing an unauthorized, amateur remake or mashup like
those disccussed in the article!

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wazoox
Fortunately India an China will do their best to torpedo this monstrosity.

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tjmaxal
You have to remember that Glee is backed by the RIAA, they make money off of
the show so I doubt they will cover an issue that makes them look like the bad
guys.

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sliverstorm
Interesting...

Obviously the actors aren't liable if they have RIAA's support. But if the
RIAA is promoting mash-ups and stuff in what effectively would amount to
propaganda (regardless the reason why) and then sues people for doing exactly
what they were promoting... That's got to be some kind of illegal, right?

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pbhjpbhj
>But if the RIAA is promoting mash-ups and stuff [...] ... That's got to be
some kind of illegal, right?

Just immoral unfortunately.

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jbarciauskas
Ehm, I think most schools have agreements with ASCAP and BMI that cover this
scenario... perhaps through something like this:
<http://www.ascap.com/licensing/pdfs/imla_rate_schedule.pdf>

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natrius
The article talks only about recordings and mashups. The former aren't covered
by such an agreement, and it's not clear if the latter are.

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jbarciauskas
Huh? It's talking about glee clubs, and in particular the glee club on Glee,
who mostly do live performances. The article begins, "For a show that
regularly tackles thorny issues like teen pregnancy and alcohol abuse, it’s
surprising that a million dollars worth of lawbreaking would go unmentioned."
But this premise seems to be faulty - there's no indication that there is a
million dollars worth of law-breaking involved in performing songs live as
part of a glee club which is most likely covered by the absurdly cheap
school/town ASCAP, BMI etc license.

Certainly I haven't heard of them talking about releasing a recording on Glee,
although I missed a couple episodes...

EDIT: I see that the article discusses in particular the videos that were
created which would constitute "recordings". On the mashup issue, presumably
they aren't actually recording mashups but writing them to be performed live -
these aren't lip syncing groups, and most glee clubs probably don't make
videos either so it seems fairly moot.

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DrSprout
>and most glee clubs probably don't make videos either so it seems fairly
moot.

Half of them are carrying video recorders in their pockets. Sure, it's very
low-fi stuff, but you're remarkably out of touch if you think that teenagers
don't record themselves performing and upload it to YouTube and Facebook.

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pigbucket
_So you tell me — what promotes knowledge and learning: letting people
rearrange music and learn to use a video camera, or threatening new artists
with $150,000 fines?_

Since this is a relatively cheap rhetorical question, let's play devil's
advocate: 1) forcing people to make new content is obviously good in the way
of promoting learning; 2) you can learn technique without using protected
content 3) there are already some exceptions in place for educational and
religious use of protected content (right now if you do "Like a Virgin" as an
allegory of being born again as a Christian, do it in the Church hall, and
don't make any money, you should be okay).

The exceptions are probably too few and too narrow. A more useful discussion
would explain how they should be broadened.

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MichaelSalib
It is not a rhetorical trick: copyright is only constitutional BECAUSE it
promotes knowledge and learning. The fact that there are ways to learn and
develop knowledge without infringing on an absurdly over-broad copyright are
irrelevant.

And to be honest, I'm not sure it is physically possible to learn such things
without committing _any_ infringement. You might be able to do so without
committing any infringement that a powerful copyright holder cares about, but
how many stories can you think of right now that don't bear substantial
similarity to _some story_ that _some author_ wrote in the last century?
Jessica Littman wrote in her book on copyright that you infringe upon
copyright whenever you watch a movie and then imagine the same film with a
different actor playing the lead. Obviously, that's not a practical problem,
but if so much basic intellectual activity qualifies as infringement, even the
transient creations needed to learn new skills might be difficult.

~~~
pigbucket
_The fact that there are ways to learn and develop knowledge without
infringing on an absurdly over-broad copyright are irrelevant_

It's relevant to the extent that it would have to be true in order to argue
that the $150,000 fine promotes learning. The fact that I make that argument
as "devil's advocate" and that I've got to sing "Like a Virgin" as an allegory
of finding Jesus means I accept the law might be absurd. I would like greater
insight into and specificity concerning the nature of that absurdity (the
burden of the argument I quoted was being carried by a rhetorical question),
and, for that reason, and for what it's worth, I find your comment more
interesting and more substantive than the original post.

~~~
MichaelSalib
The author is actually a friend of mine; if you want more substance, you check
out the slides for a longer form presentation on copyright reform that she
did; see <http://cmmulligan.com/?page_id=27>

Alternatively, Jessica Litman's book _Digital Copyright_ is short and a good
exposition of these issues.

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billturner
I have a feeling that printing, filling out, and then mailing off a mechanical
license for every song, and then waiting by the mailbox for the results won't
make for compelling television.

I understand the message behind the weblog post, but I think it's asking a
little too much for them to tackle copyright on Glee.

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axod
You're missing the point, but it would actually make a pretty good episode.
Here's my attempt:

    
    
      * RIAA baddies turn up in suits demand money
      * Glee club hasn't got the money
      * Will asks for money from Sues budget. Obviously she
        says no way. She needs to save for the hovercraft.
      * They decide that Glee club can no longer sing copyrighted music
      * Your task for the week? "Original song". Compose an original song.
      * They all do cool funky new tracks
      * Turns out the RIAA guys were listening,
        and have a change of heart they work out some deal or something.
        Maybe the original songs are *so* hot that the RIAA want in on profits.
      * Yay! all is good.
    

They can then sprinkle in as many of the issues and arguments about copyright
as they see fit/are allowed to.

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abstractbill
I'd prefer a script where the RIAA gets some kind of comeuppance, but your
version is probably more believable ;)

~~~
axod
Yeah I agree. It depends on how brave they feel as to how far they push. But
it's definitely something that _could_ be worked into the Glee formula.

An alternate scenario would go something like Rachel is sharing her singing on
youtube and gets a court order served for copyright violation. Will decides to
represent her in court since it's something he believes in passionately (And
he has to be the hero). They go to court and Argue how repressive copyrights
are and how they prevent people from expressing their true selves (Something
Glee club is there for) and showcasing their talent.

You'd have to end with a non-heavy/funny bit though, so perhaps the copyright
owner bursts in court and says he's a massive 'Rachel' fan and she can sing
any songs she likes of his with no charge.

For double Glee comedic value and irony, the artist would be someone who has
been ridiculously outspoken in favor of the RIAA and copyrights in real life.

(I've watched Glee too much lol)

Actually, I'd say you could combine this with my previous idea in the same
show and maybe even intertwine the story lines a bit.

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prawn
Here's another instance of the article (Yale Law School's Information Society
Project site) with a few comments that might be worth reading if you're
especially interested in this topic:

<http://yaleisp.org/2010/06/copyright-and-glee/>

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LeVerne
A strong break needs to be made between the reality of life and that of
television shows.

In the reality of Glee the RIAA may not exist, copyright laws could be
drastically different. Given that a sixteen year old looks and sounds like he
is in his mid-twenties this is entirely conceivable. We would also all have
amazing hair and teeth.

If we pull this into our reality, then I would believe that the production
company Fox owns the rights to the songs being sung, or has enough influence
over the owning bodies to use them without concern.

For actual high school performances and their rights, I will reference
jbarciauskas's comment.

