Pirated finals videos

[Nex]

Theft is taking someone's property without their permission (whether or not payment is involved in the legal acquisition of the property in normal circumstances). The only problem here is that the "people involved in producing the original" don't get paid when DCI sells their DVDs either. I know I never saw a penny from when I marched. Now, if you mean the people who put in time to produce the DVDs . . . well, they didn't put in any time to make your recording, so they aren't owed anything. Again, you're using vague pronouns. Who, specifically, is losing money? Why are they losing it (specifically)? And how much are they losing? Furthermore, what is the actual property being taken? Without answering these, you cannot justifiably say there is theft going on.

[Kamarag]

Theft is taking someone's property without their permission (whether or not payment is involved in the legal acquisition of the property in normal circumstances). The only problem here is that the "people involved in producing the original" don't get paid when DCI sells their DVDs either. I know I never saw a penny from when I marched.

That's because you gave up any claim to those rights by becoming a member of your corps. The rights to the music are licensed by DCI and the corps (arranging, performance, and synchronization rights). You receive no residuals (unless your corps decides to distribute some of it's cut, which is highly unlikely). Drum corps composers and arrangers give up residual rights as part of their contract with the corps to write/arrange.

The recording company and engineers are paid on a contract basis by DCI. I cannot say if they have any residuals (perhaps someone in the know can comment).

[Dave]

The only problem here is that the "people involved in producing the original" don't get paid when DCI sells their DVDs either.

Yes, they do--as for who they are, that would be 1) the corps performing and 2) the composer(s) of the music being performed.

Boo talked about how the corps benefit from sales earlier in this thread, so I'll defer to him on that. You weren't signed onto the agreement as any sort of royalty-receiving individual and no corps would sign you on under that sort of agreement, but the corps do benefit, and royalties are also paid to those who wrote the original compositions and the publishing companies; the Harry Fox Agency handles things like mechanical licenses for instances such as this. For example, when my band covered Stevie Wonder's song Boogie On Reggae Woman, we made an agreement through that agency to pay a certain fee based on how many copies of the album were produced, which we did. Now from that point on, it was our choice to give away or not one of those copies of the recording because we'd already paid the fee, but if someone were to be able to demonstrate that we were generating other copies of the album and giving them away without updating that agreement, it could potentially result in trouble as well as damage our ability to secure future rights.

[Nex]

That's because you gave up any claim to those rights by becoming a member of your corps. The rights to the music are licensed by DCI and the corps (arranging, performance, and synchronization rights). You receive no residuals (unless your corps decides to distribute some of it's cut, which is highly unlikely). Drum corps composers and arrangers give up residual rights as part of their contract with the corps to write/arrange.

The recording company and engineers are paid on a contract basis by DCI. I cannot say if they have any residuals (perhaps someone in the know can comment).

Nowhere in my contract did it saying anything of giving up any rights, but you're concentrating on the wrong part of my post. I wasn't saying I was owed anything. You missed the point of my post entirely.

[Nex]

Yes, they do--as for who they are, that would be 1) the corps performing and 2) the composer(s) of the music being performed.

Boo talked about how the corps benefit from sales earlier in this thread, so I'll defer to him on that. You weren't signed onto the agreement as any sort of royalty-receiving individual and no corps would sign you on under that sort of agreement, but the corps do benefit, and royalties are also paid to those who wrote the original compositions and the publishing companies; the Harry Fox Agency handles things like mechanical licenses for instances such as this. For example, when my band covered Stevie Wonder's song Boogie On Reggae Woman, we made an agreement through that agency to pay a certain fee based on how many copies of the album were produced, which we did. Now from that point on, it was our choice to give away or not one of those copies of the recording because we'd already paid the fee, but if someone were to be able to demonstrate that we were generating other copies of the album and giving them away without updating that agreement, it could potentially result in trouble as well as damage our ability to secure future rights.

Again, you're giving examples of how sales of DCI's DVDs give money to corps and composers. I know quite well (at least as well as anyone not a copyright attorney) about copyright procedures. What I'm saying is that you cannot use the term "theft." The best you can say (and I'm not saying it's good) is "copyright infringement." The two terms are not interchangeable.

Now, if people were referring to DCI losing DVD sales due to bootleg recordings, THEN they might have more of a claim to the "theft" charge, but even then, they have to prove that DCI actually is losing sales period. Then they have to prove that it's because of bootlegs and not because DCI hikes the prices. Even DCI's ridiculous prices can't be taken to point to bootlegging as taking sales. There are just too many other small factors that have to be investigated to rule them out before you can definitively say that bootlegging is playing any part whatsoever (good or bad) in the big picture. I'm pretty sure no one has put out the cash for that research to be done.

I'm just saying that (1) illegal does not always mean wrong (2) "Theft!" can't be made into a meaningless word because you want to say something is morally wrong without proving it's either actually wrong or theft and (3) crying "loss of sales!" has to be backed up with data, otherwise you cannot make any claim as to the cause. It's the way the world works. Observe facts, report facts, draw conclusions from facts, find the truth (as much as it can be found). You don't observe personal opinion, make claims of speculation to support opinion, then draw conclusion from speculation that agrees with initial opinion and call it a day.

[Dave]

Again, you're giving examples of how sales of DCI's DVDs give money to corps and composers. I know quite well (at least as well as anyone not a copyright attorney) about copyright procedures. What I'm saying is that you cannot use the term "theft." The best you can say (and I'm not saying it's good) is "copyright infringement." The two terms are not interchangeable.

I'm not seeing the difference. One way or another the rightful owners of a piece of (intellectual) property have lost what is rightfully theirs: royalties from those recordings. That's precisely the definition of theft, not just "a physical item gets taken."

[Kamarag]

Nowhere in my contract did it saying anything of giving up any rights, but you're concentrating on the wrong part of my post. I wasn't saying I was owed anything. You missed the point of my post entirely.

No, I didn't. And yes, by becoming a member of your corps, you give up certain rights to things like audio, video and photographs of you as a performer.

[year1buick]

Except it's an unauthorized copy that doesn't compensate any of the people involved in producing the original. That's what makes it theft.

The performance itself is not copyrighted. (It's not in a fixed, tangible form.) The score that the corps is publicly performing (or, more accurately, basing their performance on) is copyrighted and they need performance rights to perform it publicly. (Just as someone would need clearance to play or upload their from-the-stands video.) If DCI records the performance, their recording of that performance is copyrighted. (Which makes unauthorized Youtube postings of their videos illegal.) But, since they don't own the rights of the music portrayed in the public performances that were recorded, if they intend to sell/distribute their copyrighted recordings said performances (which they certainly do) then they need to secure all those rights as well.

The person making the recording from the stands is violating their ticket agreement but not copyright--that would only happen if they tried to distribute, sell or play the recording publicly--they wouldn't have the necessary rights secured, as DCI does.

This discussion is getting a little mixed up because we're talking about two different things-- making copies and/or distributing them versus making the recordings. (Which are NOT considered "copies"--at least not the original recordings.)

Think of it this way: if you take a picture of an Ansel Adams print in a museum--and that's all you do...just take the picture-- you may have violated the museum's policies or the admission agreement allowing you to view the works, but you haven't yet violated copyright of the original work. Post it to your Flickr account or frame and sell it? >> copyright violation

(If you alter a work significantly -- say, as some rappers sometimes do-- you can argue that you don't need to secure any additional rights, but that's a whole 'nuther can of worms.)

Disclaimer: As I said in my previous post...any lawyers on here, please feel free to correct me on this. Not my field, after all...

[Nex]

I'm not seeing the difference. One way or another the rightful owners of a piece of (intellectual) property have lost what is rightfully theirs: royalties from those recordings. That's precisely the definition of theft, not just "a physical item gets taken."

Intellectual property is not property in the same sense that a car is. If I steal your car, you no longer have that car. If it's your only car, you have no car left whatsoever. If I write a piece of music and someone gets a copy of a score for free (say the choir premiering the composition doesn't give all the copies of the score back to me), I have lost a copy of the score, but I have not lost my work. In that case, someone stole the score, but not my work. Going further, if I get all of my copies of the score back and someone records the performance, I have still not lost my work, nor have I lost my performance. They didn't steal anything. I still have all the memories, the music, everything tangible. No actual property was stolen. Now if they then go and sell that recording without any permissions, then I am potentially out profits I could have made from having a licensed recording to sell, but if they keep the recording for their own use, I have lost nothing. In fact, as a composer, I have gained something. They think my work is worthy of recording and listening to again, possibly many times. Either way, they did not steal anything from me.

You're using "property" in too broad of a sense. That's why the law makes distinctions between physical and intellectual property. They are dealt with differently.

[Michael Boo]

...Boo talked about how the corps benefit from sales earlier in this thread, so I'll defer to him on that.

... but if someone were to be able to demonstrate that we were generating other copies of the album and giving them away without updating that agreement, it could potentially result in trouble as well as damage our ability to secure future rights.

I've stayed away from this thread because I truly have nothing more to add, but if DCI didn't attempt to enforce the rules that people sign off on when they buy their ticket, composers, publishers and licensing agencies could put up a real stink about it. And it has nothing to do what any of us believe is their personal right; it has everything to do with what are the rules.

Even composers of original music for corps have a vested interest in knowing DCI is trying to enforce the rules, as they get royalties from the official recordings.

I now hope to disappear from this thread for another week.