Okay, now that that one guy left, I have an idea that I thought might be worth talking about. All of us have violated intellectual property rights (remember I asked you to leave, if you haven’t) from one time to another. Whether we download from Usenet or burn copies of CD’s or even buy a bootleg of an unreleased score, we have infringed on somebody’s copyrighted material.

Now I am not talking about why we do it or even if we should. What I want to talk about is a way that we could support the artists that we love and still get all our goodies. (It would also help assuage my conscience)

How? Well, suppose there was an organization similar to ASCAP or BMI that composers, musicians and producers and the like belonged to and that organization sold SULA (Single Use License Agreement) to us for a couple hundred a year. In return, we could download, acquire trade scores, whatever and the fees we paid would be divided amongst the people that actually produce the music.

The percentage could be based on the amount of work contributed in the previous year and everybody would get a little piece.

It seems like a small amount, but if enough people (not just soundtrack guys) joined I think artists might actually make more than they could through a conventional release structure.

My concern is not with whether anybody cares, but rather about making sure the people who make the scores will love get paid for their work. A man's (or woman) work should be worthy of his hire.

I don't know if I could be so sanguine if it was my work that was being widely distributed.

On the other hand, I am an addict for the film music experience and like a drug taker whose fix is not socially sanctioned or is illegal, I understand the need for a black market. Also, along these lines, the studios and the unions have shown over time, despite isolated tracks and new soundtracks of older material, that they'd rather let this music rot and deteriorate rather than spend money to restore it or release it. As I've said before, I often feel that my public desire and demand for film music vs the studio's policies about it is a custody battle between a caring parent and a careless one.

Guys like Lukas Kendall abhor the bootleggers but remember he's a record producer with a record producer's attitude. And don't think he doesn't have a huge stash of unreleased studio tapes himself--I know he does. He said the Tsunami bootleg of Marnie led Varese Sarabande to decide not to release the original tracks in stereo as they planned. Maybe so. But this is a lousy argument against bootleggers. If Varese were to go ahead and release the soundtrack anyway, I would have bought it. And, I would have preferred that they did this rather than re-record the thing.

I think we owe the bootleggers and pirates an incredible debt of gratitude. They are willing to break the law to feed the black market and add to the saving and experiencing of filmmusic. It's unfortunate that we need to rely on pirates. I'd much prefer a legal set-up with a much more responsible supplier. But until the powers that be can become the suppliers they should, my money is going to those who are willing to take the risks to obtain and then press the material I want to have.

I feel guilty and I certainly don't want to go to jail for possessing "stolen goods," but this is how I ultimately feel about it.

NP-Randy Miller promo ***/*****

As for producers, someone has to make everything work and find good copies of tracks, round up art, re-record when necessary, get linar note written and all the other things that it takes to produce a quality releases.

This is not about whether bootlegs, CD-R's are good or bad or about who's a hypocrite and who isn't. It is about trying to find someway to compensate artists for thier work.

What this topic is about is whether you would be willing to support an organization that compensated artists and legitmized your boots and copies, at least ethically.

Well I'll let you guys in on a little secret. James Horner got a percentage of the profits on both his Titanic soundtracks. So he got his base salary and more thanks to the profits on the album.

And MW there is one organization that supports the cause of artists' rights. It's called AGENTS!!! Without them a composer's work will not get credit or nor the composer be paid for it. So there's the answer to the riddle.

Besides, the workman is worthy of his hire. He should be entitled to the income from his labor.

Going back to MW's thoughts. Are you kidding me that the musician's and composers not rolling in the dough. Let me tell you this they definetely are, no matter how one looks at it. Okay, first off, the composer already have a set salary based on the music budget package that a composer is given to them by the studio wether it's 20th Century-Fox, Paramount, Miramax, etc. Also within tha budget is the salary structure of the session musicians. Session musicians get a starting base salary, which last I heard is somewhere in the neighborhood of 200.00 to 300.00 which is doubled if the musician performs more than one instrument. (eg.Thomas Newman scores) And that salary continues for every 15 minutes of music that's recorded throughout the sessions. And after the score is completely recorded no matter how long it is, the reuse fees start at zero, which means that you have to pay for those 15 minutes again and continue from there. That is why record label's like Varese have to contend with this and still you guys bitch and moan as to why their score releases are so damn short. As Robert Townson once said, "No matter who brilliant a composer's score is, it has to be at a length within our budget constrants." Don't you think that Townson wants longer scores you bet your ass he does, but he can't do it because if released one complete score recorded in L.A., Varese would be outta business. Perfect examples are Jerry Goldsmith's Air Force One and Elliot Goldenthal's Sphere. Goldsmith wanted an even longer release and he even wanted to include that precious Russian choral piece every one wants. The problem is a 90 piece union orchestra on top of a choir overdubed 3 times. And that piece alone would've cost about 20,000 to put on the album, if i'm not mistaken. So no dice on that one. Goldenthal's Sphere was a case where the score was recorded in two different places, New York and San Francisco. Which are both union orchestras, so if you wanted to release a complete score for Sphere it would be impossible because of the San Francisco sessions reuse fees would start from zero and double the album's cost. So no way jose on that one. Oh by the way, the New York sessions are what is contained on the release of Sphere.

If a composer records a score overseas or with a non-union orchestra, the reuse fee is already payed and a record label can be able to release as much as possible or whole damn thing if they really wanted to. But this isn't always the case because at one point there was reuse fees and that is why scores like Great Train Robbery, Heavy Metal and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome are so short. The cases with Heavy and MMBT were that they were recorded with the Royal Philharmonic which at the time was the most expensive orchestra to record with in Europe. We were lucky to have a 38 minute release of Heavy Metal, but we weren't so lucky with MMBT because there was supposed to be a planned 2 LP set that was to contain the brunt if not the whole entire score which Maurice Jarre was totally in favor of. It would've been impossible for Capitol Records to do this and make all their money back mainly because they would have to pay bout 25,000 for a 20 minute block of the score. So an hours release of the score would've been about 75,000 and that's too big a risk for any record label, Sony Classical being an exception.

Still, that doesn't change my basic desire to find some to compensate the artists when we get our boots or Usenet scores.

There may not be a good way to do this now, But if I had a way, I would happily cut a check for Jerry Goldsmith or John Williams to help "legitimize" my stuff.

For me it is not a question of legalities, but of my own ethical code, which I am violating with all this stuff. It bothers me, and I would love to fix it.

Thanks for all good opinions guys!

As for Napster, I'm surprised it went on this long. I don't like the idea that the internet is still seen as a public space. But even if I post an MP3 for a friend to download, I'm still violating that copyright. Just as I do it if I dub a video or CD for someone.

DVDs aren't even the end of where all this technology is going, they're just the beginning, and frankly, thinking about where it's all going to wind up is exhausting ...

Your friend is right. I don't know what time frame he is talking about, but unless he means the next ten years or later, he may be off.

There are several issues that need to be overcome. None of them involve the science or the engineering, but rather socio-economic aspects.

1. First, broadband to support the kind quality that is necessary does not exist yet. DSL and Cable aren't gonna do it. You need something like fiber optic. At this time, the companies that could implement that technology haven't recovered expense and made enough profit on DSL/Cable to make it available at a reasonable price. There are also serious infrastructure issues regarding how much copper are you going to pull up to put in fiber optic.

2. No decent business model has been established that will actually deal with charging for this data. For example, once it has been paid for, can the user keep it or is it a single use license kind of deal?

3. The impact of a hardcopy-less society is staggering. No more videotapes, DVD, cassettes, books. That’s just the beginning. All the ancillary providers are effected too. No bookstores, music stores, video rental places, no audio equipment stores. There will be economic displacement and education issues to deal with. Why bother owning any of this stuff if it is available 24 hours a day on the net?

4. I think it will take quite a while before decent copies of everything ever recorded or written can be converted.

H Rocco,
It can be exhausting, but I actually brought this up on the old board and nobody seemed very concerned about it. The gist seemed to be that not very many people had DVD's and you couldn't take them with you to play them elsewhere. But as you can see from my reply above, there are many exhausting issues to deal with, not the least of which is what happens to the soundtrack industry.

My feeling is that older films will not be able to take advantage of this method of distribution. Second, there are many who oppose this form of distribution (Mr. Thaxton, for one) and some new things will not come out that way.

An additional point to consider is that there are those, myself included, who don't want to invest that much time into a single score. I mean, I loved The Mummy score, but I wouldn't want to listen to 2 hours plus every time I had a hankering for it. The release does well enough for me.

NP: Under Fire (by that Auricsmith guy)