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Schroedinger's streaming service just died

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Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#41

Post by yellowapple »

googlryas wrote: post #4

Is this just wordplay? When you click "Buy now", are you just buying a license? Is "ownership" just a byproduct of physical goods? If I say I own a record, the proof is basically in the pudding. But how do I prove I own an MP3 file? I'd probably need to do something like show a receipt for it. But then again, what if I have shown that receipt to 100 people I've sold "my" copy of the MP3 file to? With physical reality…

> But how do I prove I own an MP3 file?

The letters N, F, and T echo about in the background.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#42

Post by mpnordland »

wmf wrote: post #38
googlryas wrote: post #4

Is this just wordplay? When you click "Buy now", are you just buying a license? Is "ownership" just a byproduct of physical goods? If I say I own a record, the proof is basically in the pudding. But how do I prove I own an MP3 file? I'd probably need to do something like show a receipt for it. But then again, what if I have shown that receipt to 100 people I've sold "my" copy of the MP3 file to? With physical reality…

From a consumer perspective, ownership comes with first sale rights (e.g. the right to resell) but a license doesn't. There has been little progress so far on "owning" purely digital copies of anything because copyright holders oppose it and many activists oppose the DRM that would be required to enforce reselling. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

We don't need DRM to enforce reselling. Equipment and methods to reproduce physical media are widespread today and there isn't a way to prevent copying and then reselling. Other than the marginal cost of CDs, Vinyl, cassettes, etc.

Purely digital just drops that cost from a few cents to nothing. DRM free music stores have existed for over a decade and already de-facto operate in this manner.

There isn't a practical reason to require DRM in order to have ownership over a digital copy of a song.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#43

Post by function_seven »

Closi wrote: post #26
function_seven wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the labels paying the "sale" royalty to their artists if no such thing is occurring? Was the track sold or was it licensed?

They sold a license. This is like saying "Was a movie ticket sold or was it admission?" - you can purchase admission, so it's a nonsense question. The contracts will then define what a particular transaction means in a particular context, and what the royalty rate is. Without seeing the exact contracts and definitions of 'sale' and 'license', which are suspiciously absent in the article, then the whole premise of the…

Fair enough on the contract details. Neither of us know the language used in the artist contracts. I'm willing to bet many of those were drawn up in the age before digital distribution, hence the arguments.

I'm not confused by the concept of purchasing ("buying") a license. I get that! But if the label is using one concept to determine the royalty rate, but switching to a difference concept to determine the customer's rights, then there's still a problem. Again, I don't know the details of the artists' contracts. But I do know this is probably relevant for some subset of artists whose contracts don't deal directly with digital distribution. In those cases, when terms like "license" and "sale" are used to denote different things, there's a problem if the labels use "sale" on one hand, and "license" on the other hand. If they sell me a license, the artist should be paid the "license" rate.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#44

Post by Sebb767 »

yellowapple wrote: post #41
googlryas wrote: post #4

Is this just wordplay? When you click "Buy now", are you just buying a license? Is "ownership" just a byproduct of physical goods? If I say I own a record, the proof is basically in the pudding. But how do I prove I own an MP3 file? I'd probably need to do something like show a receipt for it. But then again, what if I have shown that receipt to 100 people I've sold "my" copy of the MP3 file to? With physical reality…

> But how do I prove I own an MP3 file? The letters N, F, and T echo about in the background.

Which will then contain a link to the file, since storing the whole file on the chain is too expensive. Still, you'll now pay >50$ for each file, 98% of which are transaction fees - surprisingly surpassing the already horrible pay ratio of music labels.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#45

Post by cco »

ghostly_s wrote: post #12

Except as noted in the linked BBC coverage, Four Tet's case was settled out of court (because he could not afford to fight it) and thus establishes no legal precedent for other artists to leverage.

I'm not a lawyer, so I don't know the appropriate term, but though not a precedent it certainly is a smell. Settling out of court might mean the label in question was of the opinion that they very well might lose if they went to court, this is bolstered by your point that the artist probably couldn't afford to fight it; this implies that the record label could have gone to court, confident they could bleed the plaintiff dry, but the risk of that strategy was too great.

So whatever the term is, it does crack the door open a little bit (hopefully).

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#46

Post by Waterluvian »

“but at least it's a law, created by a democratically accountable legislature.”

I feel like we need to stop lying to ourselves like this.

Copyright is getting ridiculously out of hand because lobbyists hold the power and the system is not really accountable anymore.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#47

Post by lelandfe »

Sebb767 wrote: post #44
yellowapple wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But how do I prove I own an MP3 file? The letters N, F, and T echo about in the background.

Which will then contain a link to the file, since storing the whole file on the chain is too expensive. Still, you'll now pay >50$ for each file, 98% of which are transaction fees - surprisingly surpassing the already horrible pay ratio of music labels.

You will also have to cross your fingers that your NFT's link to mediafire.com/MyMP3File stays live for, uh, forever.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#48

Post by EMIRELADERO »

Closi wrote: post #31
EMIRELADERO wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How else would digital media / sale of MP3's work without licences? Is the author suggesting that everyone should legally be able to freely transfer/distribute their MP3's to anyone with no legal limit? How about a simple purchase of a copy, with its use being limited only by current copyright law? A.k.a, no copying, redistributing, derivative work-making, etc. (Absent fair use cases)

How is this practically different to the current situation? (i.e. what can I do here that I can't do at the moment?)

Fair use I pressume.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#49

Post by zdragnar »

Waterluvian wrote: post #46

“but at least it's a law, created by a democratically accountable legislature.” I feel like we need to stop lying to ourselves like this. Copyright is getting ridiculously out of hand because lobbyists hold the power and the system is not really accountable anymore.

Congress doesn't even bother reading the bills they pass. Most of the actual details are deferred to the administrative bureaucracy.

That's where the real power is.

Re: Schroedinger's streaming service just died

#50

Post by flir »

lelandfe wrote: post #47
Sebb767 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which will then contain a link to the file, since storing the whole file on the chain is too expensive. Still, you'll now pay >50$ for each file, 98% of which are transaction fees - surprisingly surpassing the already horrible pay ratio of music labels.

You will also have to cross your fingers that your NFT's link to mediafire.com/MyMP3File stays live for, uh, forever.

Store the file's hash instead?
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