NMA Copyright Policy

[franconian]

Hello comrades,

I'm from Germany. This year a couple of german regional elections affording a new party.  It’s the “Piratenpartei”. You may already have heard about, here are their English companions
http://www.pirateparty.org.uk/blog/2009/aug/11/party-registered/

In my eyes the impressive succeses in Germany are a result of punishing votings. The program of this party primarly contains a general revolution of Copyright. They fighting against assigned layers who are (supposed to) charging downloaders actively. It shall be legal to download everything for free.
To the point: they are calling into question the intellectual property of developers, writers, artists, musicians.
Some of their  arguments are as follows (extracted):

-Some people say, copyright rules have to be deleted or re-organized because in nowadays world wide web it is naive to believe that copyright rules can stand this. Downloading will always win sooner or later and copyright rules are no longer effective.
- Some people say, artists will earn more, because there is no chance for record labels to rip off the artists.
…

If you try to think about such stuff you will find out that it is all but easy to come to a result. NMA has its own label. What do you think are the consequences, if robbing the NMA intellectual property is legal?
In my opinion there is nothing to be done. It is correct that NMA-records include copy protections. I work with authors and I want to respect intellectual property. I  buy every NMA album and I visit many of NMA concerts.
But many people don’t think so. What does NMA-Community think about?

Btw: please give me a feedback to my english writing abilities. 

[szmurf]

I thought there would be more discussion on this by now.

The Pirate Party seems like a joke to me.  How does one deduct that "artists will earn more, because there is no chance for record labels to rip off the artists"?  So , by not having a label to promote a band, they will somehow get noticed out of the 50.000 other bands trying to put a song out on Spotify?  And by one downloading their without paying, the label will have less to steal from the artist?

If one creates art. be it a physical painting or a virtual (easily copied/traded) piece of music, then they should be paid for it.  Let's say Picasso were around today and making a mint.  Without copyright laws, any one could mimic his style and throw HIS signature on a piece of art that he had nothing to do with and try to sell it as a Picasso.  His only option would to be to beat the salesman to every potential client and inform them that he did not paint it.

I know a lot of people push open source collaboration, and I've heard of open source music, but would we really want someone taking a NMA song and making it better?  I've heard enough remixes to know my answer to that question.

[Christoph]

I think the Position of the Pirates is infantile at the least. Right now every artist has the choice to publish his stuff free, open source, whatever. And he has choice to sell it. Following the suggestion of the pirates would, in my humble opinion, eliminate that freedom of choice and be in total contrast of their ultra-liberal agenda. Furthermore it would completely devaluate arts from a profession to some kind of hobby. In the long run there will be a lot less professional music, because only a select few would actually be able to give up their normal career to be a professional musician.

NMA has always been very generous with their copyright, giving away songs for free with the last releases. But this has always been their choice. I don't need a political party to enforce them to do so.

As german singer/songwriter/author Sven Regener put it : A society that doesn't value its artist isn't worth much in itself.

[szmurf]

Right now every artist has the choice to publish his stuff free, open source, whatever. And he has choice to sell it. Following the suggestion of the pirates would, in my humble opinion, eliminate that freedom of choice

Great observation.

[Quartz]

Totally agree with the above 3 posts.

[Neily]

Due to piracy nobody is saying yet, but apparently the brilliant RoadRunner record label has folded in UK and Canada. Now apart from their really irritating habit of re-issuing cds 3 months after original release with 4 extra tracks and a gatefold cover / DVD , they are home to the majority of brilliant noisy bands.
Piracy / economic times / technology / bad management ?

Sad whichever way you cut it.

[franconian]

Following the suggestion of the pirates would, in my humble opinion, eliminate that freedom of choice and be in total contrast of their ultra-liberal agenda.

Yes, thats it. In my point of view they are  very self-righteous.

Thanks for your answers. It would be very cool if New Model Army themselfes would say a few words about it. Is someone of the band active on this board?

[Mike]

Historically the opinion of the band (such as there is) has been that they'd prefer people to buy their album than to download it for free and the inevitable torrent of a new record prior to release day is always a disappointment to them.

One has to wonder where the buzz for a new record might come from these days, though. In the past I'd get a copy of a new NMA record from a PR firm and play it on local radio in Coventry, people who'd never heard them before would get it pushed at them. There's still some small-scale exposure for the band through similar means but many people who would tune into a show to hear new music now prefer not to be at the mercy of programming, DJ tastes and payola and to trawl sites downloading anything that looks interesting. Certainly the attitude NMA take is noticeably dissimilar to that of comparable UK bands like Show of Hands and The Wildhearts, both of whom have said to me in person that they like people to spread copies of their albums and see it as a better way of getting new fans than relying on the media.

Personally, I got into NMA when someone gave me a pirate tape of two of their albums. I went on to own everything they ever committed to record, as much bought new as possible, tens of shirts, hundreds of gigs... and going out of my way to help the band in any way possible from giving them airplay to lugging equipment about to filming performances and so on. The vast majority of this money and effort would have gone elsewhere had it not been for that pirated tape. I'm probably an extreme case, but I can only speak for myself.

The issue is very fragmented these days because the line between unfeeling, cynical industry and heartfelt song by honest chap is very blurred and opinions vary from artist to artist. The public buy CDs that won't play on their computers, download tracks that can't play on certain devices and so on, and they think "**** this, I'd sooner get a DRM free version from TPB and buy a gig ticket". Then they get gouged on "Booking Fees" and so on. It kills goodwill stone dead, regardless of how skewed someone's view of the situation might be. Once music is a business, people will always go towards the best service available for the money. And despite not paying for an individual track the computer, storage, web connection all cost money. People do see pirate sites as something they have paid for.

Nothing any band can do to change that, and while certain artists might stop bothering, and some records might not get made, it won't kill music and music consumption, only change it. Because as soon as any cottage industry shows signs of doing well, someone will try and invest in it to get rich.

[Mike]

Due to piracy nobody is saying yet, but apparently the brilliant RoadRunner record label has folded in UK and Canada. Now apart from their really irritating habit of re-issuing cds 3 months after original release with 4 extra tracks and a gatefold cover / DVD , they are home to the majority of brilliant noisy bands.
Piracy / economic times / technology / bad management ?

Sad whichever way you cut it.

See, you look at that as an irritating habit, the next guy thinks it is a downright offensive and greedy ploy, and vows never to pay for a Roadrunner Record again after he finds his collector's instinct taken advantage of.

Personally I reckon they should have spent less money on shit bands.

[szmurf]

Hi Mike - Your logic works for people 'of our generation', as we still prefer to own a physical copy of a CD or LP.  The youngers prefer to just download everything and stuff it on their media device.  And most (at least I'd say), don't even consider paying for it.

Also - Bootlegging in our day was a lot smaller scale.  Friend to friend, mostly.  I remember getting into NMA when someone copied Ghost for me, but again, I wanted the LP and eveentually got it.

[Mike]

I disagree with your generalisations. Ownership of physical media is still popular amongst young people because it is a yardstick of fandom, something young people care deeply about measuring.   Even the homeless youths I work with insist on having the CDs of the bands they love.

On the flipside I am 35 and couldn't give a stuff about physical media anymore, I'm sick of the clutter and just want a cleaner, tidier, more spacious house nowadays. If I could click my fingers and swap my CD collection for a hard drive full of lossless CD quality audio of the same, I'd do so and gladly be rid of at least two thirds of my collection. Alas I have thousands of CDs and have given away thousands more over the last decade, so it'll not happen any time soon. I still enjoy sticking vinyl on, and certain CD ownership, but on the whole it's a ball-ache and I need more shelves.

Equally, I think there's a certain disparity in the consumption of freely downloaded stuff and things people have invested in, whether digital or physical. If I've paid for an album and it doesn't grab me within two listens, I persevere for another few then give it away or keep it. If I've downloaded a record, it's got two plays to get me interested, tops, and probably months apart at that. If it makes it beyond that point, the artist is probably going to get some money from me.

The chief executive of EA, the worlds biggest distributed entertainments company says a download does not equal a lost sale, as do many recording artists of various fortunes. I'd go one further and ask what percentage of downloaded stuff ever gets 'consumed' in anything like the same way as a iTunes or record shop purchase? To many it's more akin to listening to the radio when they pull lots of stuff down form the web than buying something, or even being given a mixtape or album on cassette.

Good music is worth backing financially though, obviously. I'm a bit bored of bands releasing poor albums and complaining that the internet has cost them sales, when people would have been glad to support the band if they were still as good as they used to be.



tl;dr: Adult and youth consumption isn't as clearly demarked as one might think, and while Joe Bloggs might download the new Bon Jovi album to save himself money, there's probably ten people out there checking to see if it's shit, ignoring it forever after and artificially inflating the 'download instead of buying' figures that are bandied about.