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The Problem with Music (1993)

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Re: The Problem with Music (1993)

#91

Post by dbalatero »

msla wrote: post #77
atoav wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. I as a musician that practised for years to play the right note in the right way the right moment will truly appreciate it when the unique style I developed with my band over years of work and sweat will be cloned in mere seconds by a multi-national corporation and their AI. Or it could be a 13 year old teenager that has the AI create music in the style of someone else. Not that I am against sampling and remixi…

And I'm sure all of the musicians you "took inspiration from" are happy about you stealing from them.

How are you so sure? You've never even heard their music.

Re: The Problem with Music (1993)

#92

Post by Kranar »

lisper wrote: post #68
Kranar wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're way out of your league here if you're saying that there is nothing illegal under contract law to sign a contract to rob a bank. Not to mention that you've now gone from trying to be pedantic about the fact that there's no such thing as a legal contract, to now saying that it's actually just a synonym for binding contract. If all you cared about was the overall intention and meaning instead of trying to…

> I think you're way out of your league here if you're saying that there is nothing illegal under contract law to sign a contract to rob a bank. Could be. Like I said at the beginning, IANAL. But if you are any less out of your league than I am, it would be pretty easy for you to cite the specific provision of contract law that would make it illegal, and how it would be prosecuted. Would it be a criminal offense? Fel…

This is really just bad man. It's why people shouldn't get legal advice from places like HN.

First, the vast majority of contract law is common law, not statutes. Second, you seem to think something being illegal means it's criminal or civil. No the contract itself is an illegal contract by its very nature. In fact any contract whose purpose is to acheive an illegal end is an illegal contract. This is not in any statute but rather a common law principle:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_agreement

Please, I get people don't like my tone, I'm rude, people want to downvote rude people and that's fine... but for anyone reading this please do not get your legal advice from HN. It's really just a very misinformed and poor place to try to understand the law.

In this very thread we have someone saying you can unilaterally modify a contract just by striking sections out with a pen. That just doesn't fly even if you do manage to trick the other party into signing it. And now we have someone who tried to be all clever and pedantic about the difference between a legal contract and a binding contract (before completely walking back on that distinction) and thinks there's nothing illegal in contract law about a contract that requires someone to rob a bank.

Be very skeptical about what you read on this site on matters other than programming and technology. That's all I ask. Too many people pretend to be experts on matters of consequence, and it creates a great deal of noise. Downvote away.

Re: The Problem with Music (1993)

#93

Post by lisper »

Kranar wrote: post #92
lisper wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think you're way out of your league here if you're saying that there is nothing illegal under contract law to sign a contract to rob a bank. Could be. Like I said at the beginning, IANAL. But if you are any less out of your league than I am, it would be pretty easy for you to cite the specific provision of contract law that would make it illegal, and how it would be prosecuted. Would it be a criminal offense? Fel…

This is really just bad man. It's why people shouldn't get legal advice from places like HN. First, the vast majority of contract law is common law, not statutes. Second, you seem to think something being illegal means it's criminal or civil. No the contract itself is an illegal contract by its very nature. In fact any contract whose purpose is to acheive an illegal end is an illegal contract. This is not in any stat…

> I'm rude

No, you're pedantic. Not that that's much better, but the first step in addressing a problem is achieving clarity about what it actually is.

Go back to the original question I was responding to:

"why in the world is that kind of contract legal?"

The intent of that question is pretty clearly "why does the law not sanction people who draw up that kind of contract in the same way that it sanctions people who (say) rob banks or sell heroin or falsify business records?" And the answer is: because that kind of contract is not illegal in the same sense that robbing banks is illegal or selling heroin is illegal or falsifying business records is illegal. Yes, it is true that as a term of legal art there is such a thing as an "illegal contract" but the word "illegal" in that context has a very different meaning. There are no legal sanctions for drawing up or even signing an "illegal contract". They are simply unenforceable [1].

You are absolutely right that people should not take anything said on HN as legal advice. But by the same token nothing said on HN should be critiqued by the standards of legal advice, especially when the person you are critiquing has explicitly disclaimed being a lawyer. There is a reason that IANAL is a thing.

---

[1] https://www.upcounsel.com/types-of-illegal-contracts and note that 1) this page appears on a site offering legal services, and 2) the link for the word "illegal" takes you to a page describing "unenforceable contracts".

Re: The Problem with Music (1993)

#94

Post by blippage »

lisper wrote: post #66
Kranar wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contracts absolutely can be legal or illegal. Binding/unbinding contracts are a related but separate concept. A legal contract is a contract whose terms do not violate the law or public policy and whose terms are enforceable. A binding contract is legal contract that has been signed by all parties involved. It is perfectly valid to question whether a contract is legal or illegal, regardless of whether that contract i…

"Legal", "enforceable", and "binding" are all more or less synonyms in this context. Yes, it's true that a "legal" contract is a thing, but it's really just a synonym for "enforceable", which is really just a synonym for "binding". None of these things mean the same thing as "legal" in the sense that it is, say, "not legal" to rob a bank. There is nothing illegal under contract law in signing a contract to rob a bank…

IANAL, and apropos of nothing in particular, there is a fun English case Everet v Williams [1725] (also known as the "Highwayman's Case").

They were highwaymen who agreed to share the loot. A dispute arose between them, and Everet decided to petition the court. This turned out to be a Bad Idea.

According to https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/92239/strange-case-evere... :

> [Consequently] An order was issued for the arrest of Wreathock and White, Everet’s solicitors, on a charge of contempt of court for even bringing the case to the court’s attention at all. And for his part in the fiasco, barrister Jonathan Collins was ordered to pay all the costs himself—earning him a unique place in British legal history as the only barrister ordered to pay the costs of a failed case.

Both Everet and Williams were eventually tried and hanged.

> [The case] is frequently cited as an example of the legal principle ex dolo malo non oritur action—“no right of action can have its origin in fraud.” Or, in other words: You can’t expect the law to help when what you’re doing is illegal in the first place.

Wreathock, the solicitor, was convicted of robbery in 1735. He was sentenced to hang, but it was commuted to transportation to Australia.

An aside joke ... An Englishman goes to apply for a job at an Australian company. Australian: Do you have a criminal record? Englishman: I didn't know you still needed one.

Re: The Problem with Music (1993)

#95

Post by blippage »

freedomben wrote: post #71
lisper wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your question makes a mistaken assumption about contracts. Contracts are not "legal" or "illegal", they are "binding" or "non-binding". And a contract that stipulates that you will sign something else later is generally non-binding. The people who ask you to sign such contracts are counting on you not knowing that. There are several criteria that a contract needs to meet in order to be binding. Interestingly, being w…

> Verbal contracts can be binding. Yes this is true, although most jurisdictions impose fairly low upper limits on the amount of consideration that a verbal contract can cover. As of 2012 the most common value was $500 or less (and probably is still the same level or close to it in most areas). Anything involving consideration valued at more than $500 USD was not binding unless written.

> Verbal contracts can be binding.

Furthermore, contracts can be implied. IANAL, and I can't quote the UK case, but IIRC correctly it boils to whether there was "an intent to create legal relationships". The case involved a lottery pool in which the pool won. There was one named winner, and he decided not to pay out the winnings to the other participants. The other participants sued to obtain their share of the payout, naturally. They won the case because although no verbal agreement was made, there was an implied legal contract.

Re: The Problem with Music (1993)

#96

Post by AlbertCory »

dbalatero wrote: post #90
AlbertCory wrote: post #11

> That’s why few self-respecting engineers will allow themselves to be called “producers.” btw, HN'ers, I'm preparing a new Substack post about "music movies you haven't seen" and one of the ones I saw when it came out was about a recording engineer ! Imagine that. I think Tom Dowd is the only engineer anyone would make a movie about. It's Tom Dowd and the Language of Music and now I can't find it anywhere. Can you?

email me at my username at gmail.com.

Done.

Re: The Problem with Music (1993)

#97

Post by AlbertCory »

kencausey wrote: post #15
AlbertCory wrote: post #11

> That’s why few self-respecting engineers will allow themselves to be called “producers.” btw, HN'ers, I'm preparing a new Substack post about "music movies you haven't seen" and one of the ones I saw when it came out was about a recording engineer ! Imagine that. I think Tom Dowd is the only engineer anyone would make a movie about. It's Tom Dowd and the Language of Music and now I can't find it anywhere. Can you?

This is the cheapest copy I could find in 30 seconds: https://www.ebay.com/itm/155484714542?epid=30902174

My Monday morning inspiration: maybe I can get it uploaded to YouTube! They have lots of movies there that probably get fewer views than this would.

I need to find the copyright owners.

Re: The Problem with Music (1993)

#98

Post by mb7733 »

bombolo wrote: post #70
mb7733 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't imagine radio is relevant at all to an up and coming musician at this point.

Exactly my point. But it's relevant to listeners :)

What I mean is, the radio listeners are not relevant to a new musician in 2023.

Re: The Problem with Music (1993)

#99

Post by AlbertCory »

dbalatero wrote: post #90
AlbertCory wrote: post #11

> That’s why few self-respecting engineers will allow themselves to be called “producers.” btw, HN'ers, I'm preparing a new Substack post about "music movies you haven't seen" and one of the ones I saw when it came out was about a recording engineer ! Imagine that. I think Tom Dowd is the only engineer anyone would make a movie about. It's Tom Dowd and the Language of Music and now I can't find it anywhere. Can you?

email me at my username at gmail.com.

Finished watching it. So much great music that he was responsible for!

Now to see if I can get the owners to let me upload it to YouTube. They can keep all the ad money (if there is any).

Re: The Problem with Music (1993)

#100

Post by somesortofsystm »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #60
somesortofsystm wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>people calling themselves producers The music industry has just as big a headache with imposter syndrome, the Flynn factor, and the Peter principle, as any other industry. The issue is that the music industry is extremely exploitative, while being undeniably competitive. You don't get coders going to the extremes that members do, for their art. (Not sure if that is a good or bad thing, personally.) >producers and ar…

If you're going to apply that argument you should apply it to everything - music, art, software, money, property of all kinds. But you won't, because the argument always comes to down to "Stuff I want should be free because I want it. Stuff that profits me personally should have legal and moral protections unless I personally have the luxury of choosing otherwise." That aside - it's skill too. Of a specific kind. Pro…

>Some musicians are just too talented for the mainstream.

The mainstream is a limiting factor in all talent. Not just music. This is because: information wants to be free. It is the mainstream which sets those restrictions.

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