Jason Robert Brown Battles Music Copyright Infringment- Page 2

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 3:46pm

He's posted on here before, hasn't he? I thought I remembered him being kind of a douche.

But yeah, photocopied sheet music is just as illegal as sheet music you download. It's just harder to trace.

[chellie]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 3:52pm

I feel like his point about the library was that it's a last resort. Like, if you absolutely can't afford a few bucks then you can take the book out of the library and use it once. I don't think he meant to copy it.
Updated On: 6/30/10 at 03:52 PM

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 3:52pm

Yeah...this issue kind of confuses me. This business would grind to a halt if all illegal disseminations of a song were to be stopped. I mean...how many times have I PDF'd a song to a friend so they would have it for an audition? Or have had a PDF or copy sent to me. What about all the coaches in this city (or is it just one) who charges for each copy of a song made...sometimes $5 to $10 a song. Who gets that profit? Not the songwriter.

I actually get that housing a song in an online database cuts into the potential profits to a composer. And I'm very sympathetic to that. But the response seems to not take into account the need to have a book of audition songs...and that they are almost always a photocopy. Gotten at a library. Or online.

[sondhead]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 3:52pm

I in general find it troubling how much people (not just teenagers) make up copyright laws. The one I hear the most often is you don't have to get rights to produce a musical if its educational and you're not charging admission. It's educational! No rights!

MADE UP! Might have been nice if it was like that, but it's completely fictitious. Where did this come from? The amount of stuff you can show educationally and be protected is limited and certainly not an entire work.

NOW--are people going to fight these things? God knows people show things educationally all the time that are technically against the law, and if its part of a class there aren't many people out there who care. However, when it comes to presenting a show with an audience and such.. the fact that it is school affiliated does not alleviate one from paying for grand rights.

[sondhead]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 3:55pm

"But the response seems to not take into account the need to have a book of audition songs...and that they are almost always a photocopy. Gotten at a library. Or online."

There are tons of legally available songs to sing for auditions. No one can force you to sing a specific song (obviously sometimes things are specifically asked for... and they usually provide you with the music) and no one can force you to audition. I fail to see how this practice going away would grind the business to a halt. People certainly got along before the proliferation of the internet and even xerox machines.

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:02pm

Question...you play for actors, right? As a coach or teacher?

How often do you come across music that isn't photocopied or downloaded (recognizing that you can pay and download a song from the interwebs)? Do you say anything to them about it?

I mean...how much music have I copied at Lincoln Center in my life? How many classes have I taken where the teachers give you photocopies of the music?

Though my 'grind to a halt' was clearly hyperbolic, cracking down on photocopies of music for auditioners would be really bizarre. And difficult.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:02pm

You mean like when teachers show movies and stuff? I guess someone has to report them.

I feel like his point about the library was that it's a last resort. Like, if you absolutely can't afford a few bucks then you can take the book out of the library and use it once. I don't think he meant to copy it.

Most music books I've seen in libraries have been hardbound by the library itself. Even if it is a book of vocal selections, if you don't photocopy it, then you'll have to break the binding and most likely mark it up, which means you're defacing the library's property.

[newintown]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:04pm

I wonder if Michael Lavine gives a percentage of his fees to the composers whose work he copies for his clients?

Does anyone know?

People can argue the legality or morality of this issue for ages; the practice isn't going to change.

Personally, I can understand Brown's frustration - he sees hacks like Allee Willis get rich from "co-writing" songs like "The Neutron Dance," while his shows flop and his royalties add up to maybe $35 a year. (Yes, I exaggerate. I don't know if he gets any royalties.) But meanwhile, his work does get produced - it might be more attractive to focus upon that.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:07pm

Xerox has proliferated since the early 80s, though, so you're talking a good thirty years of people copying sheet music.

[sondhead]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:14pm

"How often do you come across music that isn't photocopied or downloaded (recognizing that you can pay and download a song from the interwebs)? Do you say anything to them about it? "

If I'm coaching / teaching, I certainly do say something about it if they have a clearly illegal copy of music that there is no excuse for not having legally. Not only is it a legal issue, it is a your-pianist-being-able-to-read-it issue.

Photocopying is obviously a much more difficult issue. I have photocopies of lots of things that I own so that they can be in a notebook independent of their original binding.

There isn't any clear easy answer to all of this, but I don't buy the argument of "it's a necessary illegality." It's the way people have been doing it for a while, and no one wants to change. And as you can see from the girl JRB was talking to, a lot of people don't give the issue a thought from the perspective of the men and women who spend lots of time writing the music we all love so much.

It also needs to be said that its important that we as a theatre community SUPPORT theatrical products. We love that theatrical products are made. Published vocal scores have higher standards of editing than unpublished scores that make the trading circuit. Cast recordings make scores thousands could never hear known across the world. However they are PRODUCTS and if they don't make *any* money, then there will be a day when they no longer are released.

I would be intensely hypocritical to say anything that suggests I only have legally-obtained music. Like most people in this business, that's of course not true. And perhaps its a rationalization, but I do make a point to support the release of things I want to be released with my wallet, and its been my experience that this is becoming the minority of people in this business. Updated On: 6/30/10 at 04:14 PM

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:24pm

But aren't photocopies and pdf's essentially the same (when it comes to legalities)? I honestly don't know. I did a show off-Broadway over a decade ago and a friend needed a copy of the song for a cabaret he was doing. The score was never published, so I pdf'd it at work (our scanners at work are impressively good, so the quality of it was pretty terrific). I do suppose he could have gone directly to the composer...but I'm not sure he ever would have heard back.

Though...thinking over this issue, it seems that composers can actually benefit from this. Most have their own websites. I imagine most of the (realively) younger ones have electronic copies of their music. Would it behoove them to offer (for a price) the ability to download copies of their music?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:26pm

I guess it would all depend on if the composer owned the publishing rights to their music, though.

A photocopy and pdf would be the same thing in this instance.

[Eris0303]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:28pm

I have photocopies of lots of things that I own so that they can be in a notebook independent of their original binding.

This is a different case though. It's like when Jason described buying the CD and then putting it on his iPod. When you photocopy a piece of music for the reason you just stated it falls under "fair use" the way I read it. You're photocopying it for your personal use and because it makes more sense than to carry the whole book around with you. You're not selling it. You're not trading it.

You have paid for the original song book. What you do with it after that that falls under the category of "fair use" is okay.

That's my understanding of it at least.

ETA an example:

I do counted cross-stitch and I buy the books that have the patterns in them. But, I like to cross out lines that I've already completed so I don't accidentally do them twice. Instead of writing in my books and making the patterns unusable in the future I make a copy and write on the copy. I'm not selling it or giving it to anyway. It's for my personal use.

Updated On: 6/30/10 at 04:28 PM

[SonofRobbieJ]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:29pm

AH! Good point.

Perhaps it's time to do a cost/benefit analysis of actually granting the publishing rights (as opposed to retaining and selling your music yourself).

[binau]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:43pm

RE: The Rolls Royce analogy

[sondhead]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:51pm

Yes, but piracy does result in someone getting something whose creator didn't get compensation for. So you have cheated them their compensation by making an illegal copy.

Photocopies of music you own legally are legal under fair use as I understand it, which is why photocopies present a huge hard-to-police gray area.

When 10 people come in with "People Will Say We're in Love" with the same artifacts and markings all over them, I pretty much assume it's an illegal PDF.
Updated On: 6/30/10 at 04:51 PM

[sondhead]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:54pm

There's also the issue of unauthorized editions. As I understand it, Pasek and Paul were not happy with the Edges score that was circulating some time ago because it had outdated versions of the songs they didn't want out in the public.

Do a cost/benefit analysis of using publishing houses all you want, but I think its the content creator's right to decide how and if their creations are distributed, no?

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:55pm

Do a cost/benefit analysis of using publishing houses all you want, but I think its the content creator's right to decide how and if their creations are distributed, no?

Only if they have the distribution rights.

[newintown]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 4:55pm

And Adam Guettel, Mary Rogers, and the Hammerstein grandchildren certainly need and deserve every cent that Daddy/Grampa made for them. (This is, of course, a whole 'nother can of worms...)

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 5:46pm

While I'm not entirely in agreement with JRB as he disregards fair use, the bratty child who believes "my parents won't let me use their credit card" is the equivilant of a "starving artist" definitely needs to be smacked upside the head (and with a lawsuit so it will sink in)- especially since she's crying starving artist to an artist who would be starving if not for people legally buying rights to his music.

[JudyDenmark]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 6:02pm

I'm one of the people he contacted...and while I was more than happy to take his music down from my trade list at his request, it was the piano-conductor scores of his four shows - none of which are available commercially. So...kind of hard to buy them, right? I don't trade books that are available for purchase. These are different. As the composer it's certainly within his rights to ask people to stop sharing his printed music because he's losing money - but this is a separate issue since there are no sales to be lost. Either way, the girl who complained back to him should be slapped.

[iflip4musicals]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 6:16pm

As a side note.... did the first few exchanges remind anyone else of Everyday Rapture? That was the first thing I thought of as I read the exchanges.

And JRB is totally right.

[heo1128]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 6:28pm

^ Haha yes, I was surprised no one else mentioned Everyday Rapture! I think some of the lines in those first messages are verbatim in the show (swap JRB with Sherie Rene Scott).

[B3TA07]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 7:32pm

My favorite part is that he explained an inter-library loan in his reply.

[MissAnneThrop]

Posted: 6/30/10 at 7:35pm

just curious how did The Neutron Dance come into the conversation and what makes Allee Willis a hack?