Re:Reasonable Anger In Europe Over Ridiculous Copyright Exte...
by jasonlotito on Wednesday September 14, 2011 @04:03PM
(#2997655)
> So if I express myself by writing I get life + 70, but by playing I get a flat 50? Why the differing value judgment?
Within this context, I believe the logic is you are playing someones written composition. If it's yours, then it's protected as normal. If it's not, then you merely performed a creation.
Re:Reasonable Anger In Europe Over Ridiculous Copyright Exte...
by eftpotrm on Thursday September 15, 2011 @05:25AM
(#2999459)
If you think performers are merely mechanically repeating someone else's composition, I would suggest that you're not a musician...
Re:Reasonable Anger In Europe Over Ridiculous Copyright Exte...
by jasonlotito on Thursday September 15, 2011 @10:05AM
(#3000373)
No, that's not what I said, nor implied.
If you inferred that from what I wrote, I would suggest... nevermind. It's too easy, and pointless.
Re:Reasonable Anger In Europe Over Ridiculous Copyright Exte...
by bmelton on Thursday September 15, 2011 @08:45AM
(#3000043)
I don't believe that's what he meant to imply.
Specifically though, if you decide to record Beethoven's Fifth, which I believe is in the public domain, YOU get a 50 year copyright on your performance of it. Whatever unique aspects of it you added, whatever nuance, that's yours, and belongs to you, licensable, sellable only by you, for the period of 50 years. Nobody else can duplicate your performance exactly, unless in doing so, they are also duplicating the original performance exactly.
I'm a firmly amateur musician so this isn't relevant to me, but as it happens I do as much improvisation as formal writing; there is a distinct anomaly exposed here, to my mind.
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the copyright system, I strongly feel that the level of rights a creator receives should be equal regardless of their means of creation; the moral logic for preferencing one form of publishing over another in law seems entirely absent, to me.