Letter from Tresona

[Stu]

hey but they cost little.

so as a deisgner...do you jack up the budget for the corps and create headaches for the circuit, or do you go with what you know you can use?

It is a cost thing. Okay; how much would it cost a designer to gain permission to arrange one of the thousands (nay hundreds of thousands) newer pieces of music that are open sourced by the artists/composers on the internet, or even creatively arrange one of the older charts in public domain, or even, oh my, compose their own music? Uhhhh… Zero, Zilch, Nada! So there goes that excuse in the name of redoing, retooling, recycling, and rearranging all of these same ole charts year in and year out. You are correct, however, in that they likely choose the stuff they already like and listen to, and then from those choose to arrange the ones they already know will come with easy and/or inexpensive permissions instead of taking time to expand their own musical tastes and horizons (and there is a word which describes that type of behavior, but I am in a nice mood at the moment).

Edited April 27, 2016 by Stu

[Stu]

Frank Zappa eventually owned all his master tapes and there is an effort to preserve the vault. These record company P**cks only come to skim the cream.

Composers/bands, whether symphonic, jazz, rock, punk, country, etc… have three choices in hopes of making a living at their craft: 1) Open Source their material on the internet, book their own live shows, and pray that enough fans will purchase tickets to see them perform live; 2) Invest their own money up-front in recording, publishing, marketing, touring, and other things to keep their own copyrights; (and that up-front investment can run into the thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars) ; or 3) Ask publishing, recording, and marketing companies to make that initial up-front investment (which is a huge, large, mammoth risk on the part of those companies) in return for the composer/band then turning the copyrights over to those companies . Most ultra-successful artists did not complain when the music industry companies took that huge financial risk in supporting them when they were poor saps that nobody even cared about; so I have little sympathy for artists who complain about those companies who risked that investment in them after they make it to a successful level.

[cixelsyd]

also...look at the archives....nothing under 13th place existed on the old fan network. why? cost even before everything blew up

Not as I remember it. Before the blowup, the Fan Network years were retained online in their entirety, from top to bottom. If there was a cost issue back then, they would have thinned the herd back then.

The legacy years only had top 12 video, but that is likely because that is what was easily accessible. Open class finalist video was also online for a couple of pre-FN seasons.

[Kamarag]

Composers/bands, whether symphonic, jazz, rock, punk, country, etc… have three choices in hopes of making a living at their craft: 1) Open Source their material on the internet, book their own live shows, and pray that enough fans will purchase tickets to see them perform live; 2) Invest their own money up-front in recording, publishing, marketing, touring, and other things to keep their own copyrights; (and that up-front investment can run into the thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars) ; or 3) Ask publishing, recording, and marketing companies to make that initial up-front investment (which is a huge, large, mammoth risk on the part of those companies) in return for the composer/band then turning the copyrights over to those companies . Most ultra-successful artists did not complain when the music industry companies took that huge financial risk in supporting them when they were poor saps that nobody even cared about; so I have little sympathy for artists who complain about those companies who risked that investment in them after they make it to a successful level.

I don't know of any composers that open-source their music (that's really a bad term for this subject anyway, it implies he's making a score or individual tracks available for others to pick apart...which does happen, just not in the manner you're thinking. Open Source is really more of a programming term that applies to code). You may be thinking about releasing music under a Creative Commons licence.., which is common, but still comes with restrictions based on the composer's wishes.

[Stu]

I don't know of any composers that open-source their music (that's really a bad term for this subject anyway, it implies he's making a score or individual tracks available for others to pick apart...which does happen, just not in the manner you're thinking. Open Source is really more of a programming term that applies to code). You may be thinking about releasing music under a Creative Commons licence.., which is common, but still comes with restrictions based on the composer's wishes.

On the internet you will find thousands upon thousands of indie composers uploading (their own music) which they intend for anyone to download and use free of copyright; and the public can do as they please with those compositions. Aka open sourcing.

[Eleran]

On the internet you will find thousands upon thousands of indie composers uploading (their own music) which they intend for anyone to download and use free of copyright; and the public can do as they please with those compositions. Aka open sourcing.

And I imagine that in many instances, you get what you pay for

[Kamarag]

On the internet you will find thousands upon thousands of indie composers uploading (their own music) which they intend for anyone to download and use free of copyright; and the public can do as they please with those compositions. Aka open sourcing.

That's not what open source means.

What you're talking about is free music inspired by Creative Commons licence and the *idea* of open source software. You'll find a lot of that sort of music at sites like this. Music *always* has a copyright (according to US law). It's how the owner of those rights chooses to distribute his music that matters (which is why Creative Commons came about). That's why there's a major difference in terminology. A new player in this field is the concept of Copyleft. Well, it's not new, but it's recently be gaining in popularity and use.

I've been dealing with copyright as it pertains to arranging and performance since for a long time. Believe it or not, what may seem like semantics when it comes to the terminology involved is actually pretty darned important. I've seen rights requests denied because someone wrote the wrong word on the application.

Thankfully, Tresona actually alleviates that for the most part...it's really hard to screw it up now.

Edited April 27, 2016 by Kamarag

[Stu]

And I imagine that in many instances, you get what you pay for

There are just as many instances of low quality vs. high quality works within the copyrighted world of music!!! Take a few hours and peruse through the internet for free of copyright music uploads; some of the charts are quite well done and even rival charts like Cvalda by Borjk which The Cadets took to first place in 2005. The point is that there are some very good pieces of new music out there free of copyright; you just have to want to expand your listening habits and take time to search for them.

[Eleran]

There are just as many instances of low quality vs. high quality works within the copyrighted world of music!!! Take a few hours and peruse through the internet for free of copyright music uploads; some of the charts are quite well done and even rival charts like Cvalda by Borjk which The Cadets took to first place in 2005. The point is that there are some very good pieces of new music out there free of copyright; you just have to want to expand your listening habits and take time to search for them.

On the hand, corps no doubt feel there is a benefit to using music which at least some portion of the audience may already be familiar, in order to make an immediate "connection" with them. Shared cultural touchstones, and all that. The balancing act is not to rely on the same tired touchstones, and to weave in between some exposure to unknown pieces.

[Stu]

That's not what open source means.

What you're talking about is free music inspired by Creative Commons licence and the *idea* of open source software. You'll find a lot of that sort of music at sites like this. Music *always* has a copyright (according to US law). It's how the owner of those rights chooses to distribute his music that matters (which is why Creative Commons came about). That's why there's a major difference in terminology.

Okay, I will not use that term. However, I am not talking about sites that still use Creative Commons Licensing which allows for otherwise copyrighted materials to be distributed free of charge; but with the restriction that those charts cannot be altered. I am talking about uploaded music on the internet by thousands and thousands of indie composers on their own sites or YouTube in which they allow the public to do with as they please.