OnlyNDaUsa said:

Tremolina said:

Yeah, but seriously: What's the point of changing a law when there is NO NEED for it?

oh i thought it was a theoretical discussion

lawd lol

In any case, you reversed the discussion.

prince isn't asking to make compulsory licenses for movies possible. He wants it to be illegal for music!

Tremolina said:

OnlyNDaUsa said:

oh i thought it was a theoretical discussion

lawd lol

In any case, you reversed the discussion.

prince isn't asking to make compulsory licenses for movies possible. He wants it to be illegal for music!

i did not do it this time! it was rialb!

Tremolina said:

rialb said:

I'm certainly not of the opinion that there should never be another cover song but at the same time I can see Prince's point. Are covers still vitally important to the recording industry? I would say that no they are not. Obviously something like Glee would indicate that I am wrong but aside from that over the last forty years or so cover songs have become less and less prevalent. In the '60s it was common to have competing versions of the same song climbing the charts at the same time but today that is something of a rarity.

Can you give me a good reason why music should be different than any other art form? If you can't copy a book or a film why should you be able to copy a song? That is one big question that I have yet to hear a good answer to.

To be fair, I gave you a good reason already, two actually.

1) Without compulsory licensing in music, thousands of popular covers couldn't have been made. Whether covers were better (in your opinion) or more frequent before than these days, doesn't really matter, does it? People worldwide couldn't have enjoyed the many popular covers that made, otherwise relatively unknown songs, the well known hits that they are today. And I don't think neither me, you, Prince or anybody else would have liked that, would we?

2) Without compulsory licensing in music, there wouldn't be any popular music on the radio and TV. The music industry, hell the entire world, would have looked VERY differently without it. And I don't think neither me, you, Prince or anybody else would have liked that, would we?

3) (yeah I can give a third one too): Without compulsory licensing in music, artists wouldn't be able to play other people's songs live, including Prince. Cover bands would be illegal. Intentionally covering a song in concert would constitute copyright infringement, in essence a federal crime, and could get the artists fined or even emprisoned, and that's aside from the mega high, statutory damages the copyright owner could demand..

I get the argument about why books and films etc cannot be 'covered' legally without permission, but it doesn't hold up, because those are very different types of works, with different kind of histories and industries behind it. Can you imagine a 'cover version' of 'The Catcher in the Rye' for example? Or a cover of 'Pulp Fiction'? I don't think anybody ever even seriously contemplated such a thing, let alone has ever seriously done it...

I also want to stress that you may only cover an already legally published song and that a cover isn't exactly a 'copy', but - legally speaking - a 'derivative work', like every sound recording (recorded musical performance) of a song actually is. And that the author of a song isn't totally helpless, nor without rights in the case of a compulsory license either. If they fuck up your work or your name and reputation you can still sue. If they don't give you credit, also. (except when you gave up all those rights too, when you signed with that music publisher who was going to make you 'rich and famous'...)

I think that for Prince it's just hard to accept that he doesn't always have FULL control over his work and that he sometimes has to accept only standard royalties, especially when others take full advantage of it (like SOC). That's understandable, I probably wouldn't like it myself much either, but that's not a good reason to go and change the law, just for Prince's sake to always have full control and get his way. There is much more at stake with this issue than just that.

[Edited 4/29/11 8:47am]

I just do not think it is very fair that if I create a song that anyone can record it and do pretty much whatever they want with it, whether I want them to or not. Why should someone be able to profit from someone else's work? Sure, I will get royalties but shouldn't the creator of the work be able to say "no?" As I previously said I'm not saying that there should be no cover songs (which pretty much renders your arguments moot) but I do think that the songwriter(s) should have more control than they do. Your arguments basically boil down to "things have always been this way so why change them?" That doesn't seem like a very compelling argument to me.

I also want to stress that I am not a sycophantic fan of Prince that sees everything the way that he does. I was actually a little shocked to find myself agreeing with him. Most of the time when he goes into his rants I just grit my teeth and wait for it to be over but this time I found myself, at least partially, agreeing with him.