With all this talk of copyright
Snabbu
sheets on the matter as applicable to Australia. Some interesting
things came to light. This could be pretty boring so unless your into
cultural/legal differences or an Australian artist it probably will not
be of interest.
In Australia infringement of copyright can be a criminal offense, for it
to be a criminal offense it has to involve commerce. For example if
Sony infringed my copyright in the United States, the moment they import
the CD master into Australia they have committed a criminal offense, if
they then press and distribute the CD they have committed a further
criminal offense. Purchasers of the CD have not committed a criminal
offense but they have no ownership of the CD as it is stolen goods and
must be returned to the rightful owner. What is really cool here is if
it can be proved that carelessness or a deliberate act is involved on
the part of the directors or the public officers of the companies
concerned then the directors vice presidents etc. of the company could
be personaly liable. The penalties for this crime is a 65,000 fine for
an individual five times that amount for a corporation and or five years
imprisonment.
The obvious advice for an Australian artist who is infringed say in the
US by a major lable would be to wait for the day of Australian release
then serve notices by registered mail on every executive of the company
concerned, all the major radio networks, all the major record store
chains. This means that any director of any company distributing
pressing importing broadcasting or selling this CD would be knowingly
committing a criminal offense and could face personal penalties
including jail. Their companies of course are also liable to separate
criminal prosecution. The lovely thing about this is that the CEO's of
most of the majors here are Yanks based in the States with titles like
"Pesident South East Asia" and could face extradition to face criminal
charges, to set all this in motion costs about $1,000.00 for the
infringement notices as they need to be written by a solicitor the
reason for this is that there is a high chance of a cross defamation
claim if the infringement action is not upheld and the notices are not
worded correctly.
The threat of a complaint to the Australian Federal Police would
certainly make me sit up and take notice as I understand the martinis in
jail are not up to the standard one expects, and cocaine is very hard to
come by.
I understand that in the US if you have library of congress registration
you are entitled to punitive damages. This is not the case here the
judge will decide on the damages based on how blatant the infringement
was so it's up to the judge. If we were to sue an infringer in the US
we would only get the normal protection provided to US citizens as if
the song had been written in the US, which I take to mean if it is not
registered be would not be entitled to punitive damages in the US, we
would be entitled to forgone royalties only.
However if in addition to launching our criminal action against the
multinational we also launch a civil proceeding in Australia and win as
well as the CDs already produced they have surrender the "plate" which
means they loose control of the master, now we can't do anything with it
as they have their P rights but internationally no more copies can be
made, so the whole recording session costs for the US company has gone
down the toilet.
And they have to deliver them to us at their cost.
Having a curious mind I rang my bloke and asked the obvious question,
given that Mp3.com could be considered very famous some would say
infamous in the music industry, given that they have search engines so
you can search by song if the infringement had the same title would it
be considered careless not to have done a search. The answer was
probably yes.
So I guess the point of it all is our intellectual property insurers
here are negotiating from a position of some strength, so it is no
surprise that infringements are usually settled out of court.
The other interesting thing is that we are about to get moral rights
legislation, which will protect us from unauthorised changing of our
work be it parodies or crap arrangements and performances if we can
prove it reduces out work or impugns our reputations.
This belongs to the writer not the publisher and can not be signed away,
so if my publisher wants to allow kelloggs to use my song for a corn
flakes commercial I retain artistic control and can object. I think
this is overdue.
There is no copyright for a song a such, the lyrics are copyrighted as
literature the tune as music as well as the recording and the
performance. So there are four seperate copyrights involved in
a typical RMMS song on mp3.com
Cheers
Gary
-- -- semper sume remedium ante casum
http://artists.mp3s.com/artists/188/gary_yeomans.html
Roger Häggström
Boooring!
;-)
Cheers,
-Roger
Arty Smokes
"Roger Häggström" <rog...@algonet.se> wrote in message
news:9eumor$i33$1...@zingo.tninet.se...
> Gary,
>
> Boooring!
>
> ;-)
Apart from the line (no pun intended) about cocaine, I agree. ;o)
--
Arty
http://www.smokindesign.co.uk
"I was looking for a job and then I found a job, and heaven knows I'm
miserable now."
Snabbu
"Roger Häggström" wrote:
I agree