So, in an effort to keep my students from pirating all the reggae songs that I plan to listen to and discuss in my class, I've been contacting record labels about licensing the songs in order to find out if I can burn some CDs for them to buy, and then send the money to the labels.
I've been told:
"We only entertain licenses of a minimum 25,000 units"
"You have to get rights to the publishing and the audio recordings, we license the recordings, and ASCAP/BMI licenses the publishing."
"Man, this is going to be very difficult to do."
That the music industry doesn't have a webpage wherein I can go and and purchase songs to use, like iTunes, and then burn them to CDs that my students buy, or that my students can just do on their own is a reason why the industry is dying.
Copyright law is too strong in this country. I can claim fair use in my classroom, but I'm trying to encourage these kids to make an investment in the music and support that artists. The industry doesn't want to entertain my request because I'm too small. At least ASCAP/BMI says "9.1 cent flat rate per song."
The music labels want a king's ransom just to do what I want.
I'm leaning towards just creating a webpage with links to last.fm and Youtube videos of the music.
The life of the artist + 70 years is out of control. I'd like copyright to be like a patent. Elvis died when I was a little kid. I'll be 74 before his music comes into the public domain if the law doesn't get amended to make it even longer before then.
I own one copyright, and I'd license it gratis for academic purposes.
I've been told:
"We only entertain licenses of a minimum 25,000 units"
"You have to get rights to the publishing and the audio recordings, we license the recordings, and ASCAP/BMI licenses the publishing."
"Man, this is going to be very difficult to do."
That the music industry doesn't have a webpage wherein I can go and and purchase songs to use, like iTunes, and then burn them to CDs that my students buy, or that my students can just do on their own is a reason why the industry is dying.
Copyright law is too strong in this country. I can claim fair use in my classroom, but I'm trying to encourage these kids to make an investment in the music and support that artists. The industry doesn't want to entertain my request because I'm too small. At least ASCAP/BMI says "9.1 cent flat rate per song."
The music labels want a king's ransom just to do what I want.
I'm leaning towards just creating a webpage with links to last.fm and Youtube videos of the music.
The life of the artist + 70 years is out of control. I'd like copyright to be like a patent. Elvis died when I was a little kid. I'll be 74 before his music comes into the public domain if the law doesn't get amended to make it even longer before then.
I own one copyright, and I'd license it gratis for academic purposes.
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