Thursday, July 01, 2010

A Copyright Story

A songwriter - Jason Robert Brown - took it upon himself to peruse a site where people "trade" files they have accumulated [though the word "trade" is a lie, as used here].

He emailed members of the site and asked them to stop giving away his songs - and then wrote about it.  It is an interesting read, and a good explanation of how this whole copyright thing plays out for artists - who still have bills to pay!

http://www.jasonrobertbrown.com/weblog/2010/06/fighting_with_teenagers_a_copy.php

His wife, Georgia Stitt, also wrote an interesting article about this problem:
I'll stop telling the story for just a minute to explain why I was getting angry. For starters, selling or trading copyrighted material to which you do not own the copyright is illegal. So we can start there. But further, selling or trading copyrighted material which I own and sell as part of how I make my living is totally invasive, violating, and well, illegal. If someone distributes a piece of music that I could otherwise have sold, that distributor has stolen directly from me -- taken money out of my pocket. And if that music is published (in my case by Hal Leonard), then you're stealing from them, too. When you're talking about one piece of music, $8 here or there, I suppose it's not a huge deal. But once you open up your sheet music files to the world wide web, we're talking about thousands of dollars at stake, and suddenly it matters.