Hello, I passed your question about copyrights on to Loreena's Business Affairs Consultant, Ian Blackaby, and here is what he had to say on the topic. Best regards, Stacey
"Either a creative work is protected by copyright or it isn't. There is no grey area. So The Mummers' Dance, Happy Birthday, Send In The Clowns, Crazy Frog are all equally protected until the copyright expires (usually 70 years after the death of the composer).
When you buy a cd or a DVD or a digital download and the accompanying legalese says you only have permission to use the music for "your personal use" that's exactly what it means. No broadcast, no theatrical, no public performance, no uploading, no copying etc without gaining a separate license to do so. This includes live performance.
If an event is open to members of the public, even an invited audience, then it is the responsibility of either the venue or the promoter to pay for a license that covers the rights of the composers songwriters. In the US those rights are dealt with by BMI and ASCAP.
Of course private parties are a grey area to which most in the industry will happily turn a blind eye. I think we all know that such a strict interpretation would bring into its clutches every party giver, every iPod owner, every mix tape compiler and everyone who has burned an extra copy of a cd or run off cassette copy of an album for their car or second stereo system. That would more or less make a pirate of us all but that does not diminish the songwriter's right to have their work protected or the fact that a copyright is a piece of property that should be just as defendable from theft as a car or a house. There are a number of rights vested in a piece of art and where there is a right the law has to provide a remedy and that remedy is copyright enforcement. For avoidance of doubt a web site is not a grey area. If you don't obtain permission from the entities that own the copyright in the recording AND the composition then you are over the line of legality.
My personal view is that once you have paid for a recording you should be able to do what you like with it for your own domestic listening pleasure. However if one actively seeks to obtain copyrighted music for nothing (unless the owners have explicitly permitted it to be given away) or one seeks to profit from making the music available to others, either financially or in terms of exchange or trade or kudos or self-promotion, then the line has been crossed. At times that's a very fine line indeed, especially when word of mouth has played such a big part in the growing of Loreena's audience, though it is our hope that a Loreena listener would understand the difference between proselytising her music in an acceptable and respectful manner and engaging in mass distribution.
At Quinlan Road we protect Loreena's copyrights as vigorously as the law and the available technologies allow us to. On the other side of the coin Quinlan Road prides itself on being quick to respond to all manner of unsolicited requests from any number of third parties for the use of Loreena's music and we grant gratis licenses to all kinds of individuals, bodies and associations to which the majority of companies operating in the music business would fail to give the time of day."
Posts: 42 | Location: Toronto | Registered: March 28, 2006
I think it is great what you are doing. I know of no one else that does what you do. I have been a member for about 1 1/2 years now and have benefited greatly. I got to sit ten feet away from you in Portland, Maine and watch your entire show from the second row because of how you run your business. I met with your band earlier that evening because they were simply sitting on the wall up the street as I was walking to the show. I met with you briefly in Boston earlier last year because you care enough to take the time to meet with us. I even spoke with you on the phone once on a Saturday morning when I had a question about ordering sheet music. I couldn't believe it was you that answered the phone. One unusual thing I've heard about in the music industry is that the band Radiohead sells their music on-line in their own way. They make it availalable through downloads. You pay what you want, get what you want, and that's how they make their money. If they sell a million of something at a dollar, they've made a million dollars. I'm not 100% sure of how it works, my son was trying to explain it to me. The music industry was the big losers in the music download explosion. Instead of embracing it, and trying to find ways to make it work, the big gready corporate giants took a big hit and now their trying to play catch up. There's to many categories now in music. I'm a baby booming rocker that is willing to listen to other things, because I do get bored very easily with "Classic Rock". I like country, blues, I like Brian Hughes' music very much. Right now I'm listening to alternative rock. Seether, Flyleaf and the Sick Puppies all in their own way very good, but all very new. I'm always looking for that "fresh new thing" because I love the music I grew up with but it get's to be "been there, done that" after a while. I know this is long winded but you asked for our input and that takes time. When you're back in Portland look me up.
Posts: 115 | Location: East Waterboro, Maine | Registered: January 09, 2007
The song "Happy Birthday to You" isn't free. It's seriously copyrighted with an expensive royalty attached to it. That's why you never hear it on a TV show for example. The Simpsons and Futurama have made jokes about it with off the wall variations. Does that mean we can't sing it at a birthday party? No, because it's not a "public" performance (that might not be true either...see the link below). How about if I'm doing a gig somewhere and there's someone celebrating a birthday. Can I get the band to play it for them and not end up in jail (pay the royalty)? I don't know, but probably not since I'm getting paid for the gig and the owner claims public performances are illegal unless the royalties are paid. So the question I have, and probably the CEO of Quinlan Road Records is probably the best person here who can really speak to this, is Mummers' Dance free (retorical question)? Is it in the same domain as Happy Birthday (it is...another retorical question)? Can I play it at a gig for a paying crowd vice just sitting around my front room? What if I bought Book of Secrets, peeled of Mummers' Dance and put it on my web page (LimeWire/YouTube??) as an mp3 for download? I'm not getting any money for this so is this OK? I'm too much a neanderthal to know how Ipod works. Mummers' Dance is published and copyrighted material, so what comes next? I could stand an education on this subject...
Hi Loreena, what a pleasure you on the message board!! Reading your post made me think that I couldn’t help answering your questions, particularly when you used the word “free”…I felt a bit involved, given my nickname! Joking aside, I think that it’s actually exciting, I speak for myself, to run in order to buy your music in a music store, even after a while of anxious wait; it isn’t that I want to be “traditionalist” at any cost, as basically I am not, but I believe that in a world where everything is so fast, everyday life is a run against the clock, is so “compressed”, at least time for music would be untouchable, unchangeable; I mean, time for music is rest, wait time for that rest is sacred, like for a holiday, you can’t compress it. I don’t like “all at once with a click”. Many times the harder challenge is trying to preserve ourselves from changes and keep our value. Something new is not necessarily righter or better. I like so much waiting for your albums’ release dates, a bit less when they are postponed for any reasons and that delay makes me feel so bad; nothing can’t really be compared to my joy when after so a long time, I take your new album in my hand and go to the checkout to pay. Odd? I’m happy as I must pay!
About costs, generally speaking albums should be less expensive, but I’m not referring to QR; actually, I have to admit that Quinlan Road has already done much; I refer to your first six albums in limited edition with DVD sold at the same cost of a CD. To be honest I appreciate this kind of choice rather than anything else, such as free music online,…..”despite my deep nature”!
I too personally want so much to keep in touch with you and it would be great to narrow the distance between us once more, but live concerts, chats, this message board and everything QR is capable to do and does is really more than I could expect, when I chose to join this group.
I don’t know much the current state of the music industry, so I’m aware that my opinion is quite irrelevant; here in Italy some say that it’s going through a crisis, because of the heavy decrease of sales. Causes are illegal downloads, illegal copies, financial problems of Italian families and so on; I don’t know how the music industry could save itself and if this kind of problem strikes Canada too. Anyway, if free music online might be a solution and a support to the music industry, if you judge more useful for you and your business to make choices in this direction, I’ll be happy to accept any decisions you make; the utmost is actually to continue to have the chance to listen to your music, in any format you prefer, and, possibly, see you live on a stage, which is absolutely amazing! (I hope to be able to go to Brescia in July, who knows! ..)
Kisses
freesoul
Posts: 531 | Location: italy | Registered: November 01, 2007
You are talented enough to not only peform music so well but to compose and arrange it. I listen closely to the movement in your compositions and some is so beautifully orchestrated and played that sometimes the vocals need not be there. It is an added bonus to hear you sing.
Such effort should not go unrewarded and in my opinion, it should not be free. I have paid for your CDs because it seems only right to do so. This world would be a dull place if it wasn't for performers of all kinds, they deserve payment. (Even a couple of gallons of beer after blowing down a Tuba for hours )
You already provide sound bytes on your web site to give an idea of the Albums, that's what I listened to before buying, so you appear to have some publicity issues already resolved.
You must be very proud of your success, rightly so and if I get the impression that you may want to perform for free, does that put food in the dogs' bowls ?
I'll happily keep paying, especially if you do some new songs
Posts: 28 | Location: Devon England | Registered: February 15, 2008
I've been thinking about this topic for awhile and I know I've asked some questions about this on other threads on this board and the OWL. To be honest I still have very mixed feelings about the answers to these questions. Of course, I would like to hear your feedback on this Loreena, seeing that this concerns your work, but for the interest of this debate I'll broaden my scope to the entire music industry/artists.
1. Should music be free? Well, on principle, the only way I personally feel comfortable with it being "free" is something like a free download off the official artist's website. I like it when I can go to an official site and they had a song streaming on their site that you could hear in its entirety. I think QR did that with Caravanserai in anticipation of AAM's release. Another option I've used in the past (not so much lately) is through a site like Myspace. I've seen artists set up an official site through their record company (Fergie, Nickel Creek, etc) and they'll put a few songs on their music player than people can either download or just listen to on the site which would then promote users to go to a place like iTunes or a free-standing store to buy the rest of the album. Which brings me to my next point - where I buy my music.
2. While it took me a few years to jump on the iPod train, I have to say that Apple has singlehandedly changed how I view music. Again, AAM proves my point. The morning AAM was available for release, I immediately went to iTunes and downloaded it on to my computer. By the time I would've been able to buy it in-store, I'd listened to the album about five times. Of course, I still went to the store and bought a hard copy because in this instance it's important to me. While I do miss going to the store and holding a hard copy of an album and flipping through the liner notes (a PDF just isn't quite the same), the price difference and appeal of keeping all my music in one spot beats out that impulse. Perhaps what the future will mean is more interactivity online to make up for the lack of appeal for physical CD cases. The redesigned Death Cab for Cutie website is one example I can think of off the top of my head.
3. Promotion. This is where I start to have a crisis of principle. Specifically, I'm thinking of places like YouTube, and this Loreena, is where I'm specifically interested in hearing your thoughts on how YOU feel about this. I guess my answer to resolving my discomfort of how I feel about seeing clips of things from NFTA, or "free" music where in theory people could go on a site like YouTube or Songza and listen away to most of your albums and never have to pay you a thing, is better Offical Artist Website management. Simply put, I would not mind watching something like the Visit EPK or a clip of you performing for the Queen or the Toronto market if it was on your website vs. the almost guilty pleasure I get from seeing it on YouTube. I have noticed with record company big name artists, either the time involved going after people who illegally put up videos on YouTube is too great to warrant all that effort, or they figure the cost difference in a little "free" promotion can't hurt as they're probably betting viewers will go and buy the album. But with the proliferation of listening to perhaps not all, but most of an album "free" online, how much cost are you really losing? And as a non-big-name record company artist vs, the Top-40 singers, how much of that cost difference impacts you really? I realize there is a lot of content to the QR site already, but putting in something like a "time capsule" feature where viewers would be able to watch bits from the Visit EPK or what have you would cut down on people doing it on Youtube. Perhaps that takes too much server space, I don't know. And perhaps all this is moot because no matter how well you run your ship, someone will always be trying to find a way to make it leak. I just hope for your sake, and other music artists' sake, that the ratio isn't unfairly tipped towards the "free" music consumers. We all know how little profit artists see under the big record company management and how hard it is for fledgling indie and underground artists even to be noticed without shows like American Idol it seems lately, that I just have a hard time advocating that they should receive even less payment.
Sorry for the length. I hope this addressed some of your questions.
First of all I think you have to be a strong person to be able to handle the pressure from the media, the fans, the frenzied life of touring and the fact that you will be recognized on the street.
As for the question about whether music shall be free... Free like the bird? No bonds (…or cages…) I know a lot of music which can make me feel free.
Well, off the track I went again...
I think that music is something that should be paid for. Unless of course the artist(s) pronounce that he/she(/it; eh sorry the old injury from my English lessons in school broke up again; they) will play for free. The reason I think it shouldn't be off charge is that like in other businesses you need to earn money for living. I'm not sure the fact making people happy with your music puts food on your table.
But from a poor students point of view… it surely is more economic to download free music. But then it is against the (Danish) law to download music from the net for free. Unless you download from some sites which have permission to give music for free for downloading. Which was announced recently.
I guess it depends on my mood if I go to the shore or order the music online.
And I do not truly think that the trends can be stoped.
Anxious 2
Posts: 919 | Location: Denmark | Registered: January 25, 2008
Hi Loreena...Should music be free....that's complicated. When you talk about changes in the business you are referring to the shift from traditional record sales to "free" downloads? In this case music definitely should not be "free". It's your livelyhood, and by extention, everyone who works for you. But I feel the Internet should continue to be free and open, so if someone puts one of your songs on a download engine, what can you do about it? Personally I won't even buy an LM CD from Borders, preferring to buy directly from QR. I don't know what the answer here is because it's new territory that people like you are trying to resolve. What are your thoughts? --Dennis-- Contests???
This message has been edited. Last edited by: dlaws99,
Posts: 235 | Location: Monterey CA | Registered: May 22, 2007
Joking aside, I think that it’s actually exciting, I speak for myself, to run in order to buy your music in a music store, even after a while of anxious wait; it isn’t that I want to be “traditionalist” at any cost, as basically I am not, but I believe that in a world where everything is so fast, everyday life is a run against the clock, is so “compressed”, at least time for music would be untouchable, unchangeable; I mean, time for music is rest, wait time for that rest is sacred, like for a holiday, you can’t compress it. I don’t like “all at once with a click”.
)
My dear Loreena,