Jump to content

A Very candid interview with Dan Acheson


Recommended Posts

Reliable Rondo sit down with Dan Acheson and put this video up. Very candid. yes, he toots their horn, and in many cases he should! But he also addresses the licensing issue head on.

go to the DCi web page, it should be the top news story

THIS is the kind of thing DCI needs to do more of

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Reliable Rondo sit down with Dan Acheson and put this video up. Very candid. yes, he toots their horn, and in many cases he should! But he also addresses the licensing issue head on.

go to the DCi web page, it should be the top news story

THIS is the kind of thing DCI needs to do more of

Here is the link: https://youtu.be/zqDCHzTBQ44

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's a link to the video:

http://www.dci.org/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=965782&SPID=166025&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=33500&ATCLID=210584650

I didn't hear anything new there that hasn't been discussed here, but YMMV. It's a 25-minute interview. If you want to hear Dan's reaction to a particular topic, here are the approximate times each topic begins on the video:

0:00 Review of the 2015 season on the field

9:10 Licensing of disk media

15:00 DCI Live and on-demand replay streaming

17:00 Planning for 2016

21:00 DCI beyond 2016

23:00 Dan's feeling about 20 years as head of DCI

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree.

LOL, sorry. I misread your post. I thought you were saying Dan said on-demand playback is gone, and he didn't say that--he just said not now. But I have to agree, the product line he and DCI are least likely to offer in the foreseeable future is the past archives because of the adverse ratio between the time and cost required to acquire those rights and the number of people who are willing to pay to see it. I know we have some very vocal forum members here who want it very much. It's probably not practical for DCI to do, as Dan seems to be saying.

If the forum had an X to delete a post that hadn't been answered, I'd have used it. The only option when one realizes they've misread things and stepped in it is to erase the post, substitute a period, and hope a mod deletes it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is that a real office (and if so, whose) or a studio?*/**

*(Edit: at the end, Acheson thanks Rondinaro for "hosting . . . at French Lake Resort"--which Google says is in Wisconsin.)

**(Edit redux: if I'd only checked my email first, I'd have seen that the discussion took place at "Indiana's historic French Lick Resort".)

In the discussion of media products and licensing, which runs from 9:10 to 16:55, much simply restates what was recently announced, but these seem to be two key sections:

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ACHESON: so here's the thing. In the last eighteen months, we've learned that all of our diligence still falls short. We have have more to do. We have more work to do to make sure that we're in full compliance and we have engaged professionals, legal and copyright experts to help us navigate that, but one of the things we have to recognize is we don't just stage events, we stage music events, so we're in the music business. We need to be very, very in tune with the changes, and there are changes. There are some things that are the same that we just need to do better, but there are changes. The internet is the wild, wild west. And the music industry: all you have to do is look at any music magazine and you'll see that there's something in there about what's going on with an artist and copyright law and being paid and those types of things. It's changing all the time, because media is being delivered a lot differently than it was in 1976 when the Copyright Act was put into place. So we have to adjust to that, and that's the point: we have to get better at taking care of that business, and that's what we're trying to do right now. We're trying to make sure that we have new protocols in place. We launched an audit of all of our internal procedures; we put in some new protocols. We have a long way to go though to make sure that we have everything in place that we need.

RONDINARO: You thought though in good conscience you were dotting your i's and crossing your t's.

ACHESON: The corps themselves, Drum Corps International, and the people we work with all were under the understanding that everything we were doing along the way was the right thing to do. And in fact, we've spent hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars on royalties paid for products sold and those types of things. There's details to get into: timing and those kinds of matters related to compliance for various licenses and so forth. And then there's details related to interactive streaming that have changed--the rules have changed in the past few years--that we have to adapt to. So, yeah, there's a lot to this that we thought: we're rolling along. But then again, we need to take a harder look at this on an ongoing basis, not just on a once-in-a-while basis, like any good business would.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

ACHESON: It took a little bit longer this round, because we're making sure that absolutely everything is in place before we release that, so that royalties are paid, all the permissions are correct, and there's no question that when we release this product, everybody who's engaged at whatever level of permissions and royalties and whatever else is being taken care of.

RONDINARO: And if I understand this right, if you don't do that, the organization and the corps face risk of a huge financial liability that could put us out of business. Is that overstating it?

ACHESON: You are not overstating it at all. I mean, we're in an environment where there's a lot of sensitivity, even for what we would consider to be educational groups. You know, there's a lot of myths out there about "Well, it's education, so therefore they don't have to get licenses". No, because the way the publishers look at it, and the copyright holders, is: it's a business, it's a commercial enterprise. We can say "non-profit" all we want; the bottom line is, somebody's making money, therefore money needs to be shared with those who are entitled to it.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I wonder who in the corps Acheson is paraphrasing about the "myth".

A final key point Acheson makes about the music industry: "We're just a micro-microcosm of their business."

Edited by N.E. Brigand
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is that a real office (and if so, whose) or a studio?*

*(Edit: at the end, Acheson thanks Rondinaro for "hosting . . . at French Lake Resort"--which Google says is in Wisconsin.)

French Lake or French Lick? French Lick resort is a bit south of Indy and would make more sense.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...