The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum

Assorted items => YouTube performances => Topic started by: guest140 on June 05, 2013, 08:44:21 pm



Title: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: guest140 on June 05, 2013, 08:44:21 pm
Pianist Krystian Zimerman noticed the dark side...

Article in The Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2013/jun/04/krystian-zimerman-youtube-protest)


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: BrianA on June 05, 2013, 10:08:45 pm
On a similar but different note, does ANYBODY pay attention to copyright on youtube???  Yeah, I enjoy these numerous channels that promote our cherished unsungs as much as anybody else, but I am frequently astounded by just how many of these performances, albeit of music by lrss well known composers, are nevertheless performances taken from currently available, in print, commercial recordings!  Does some pious statement about promoting the works of unknown composers really excuse or justify that?


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: guest2 on June 05, 2013, 10:16:06 pm
. . . commercial . . .

There's the key. The real problem is the corrupt system of capitalism. In an ideal society the artist would not and should not have to concern himself with "sales".



Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: BrianA on June 06, 2013, 12:45:45 am
Well, I gotta say, that's not necessarily an answer I anticipated.   ???

I wonder if Krystian Zimerman would agree?   ;)


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: guest140 on June 06, 2013, 05:25:33 am

There's the key. The real problem is the corrupt system of capitalism. In an ideal society the artist would not and should not have to concern himself with "sales".




Sounds a bit like "If everything will be different, everything will be different"...


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on June 06, 2013, 11:46:07 am
On a similar but different note, does ANYBODY pay attention to copyright on youtube???  Yeah, I enjoy these numerous channels that promote our cherished unsungs as much as anybody else, but I am frequently astounded by just how many of these performances, albeit of music by lrss well known composers, are nevertheless performances taken from currently available, in print, commercial recordings!  Does some pious statement about promoting the works of unknown composers really excuse or justify that?
Anyone can pay attention to that if so they wish; I have done so myself, followed the correct procedures as advised by YT and had hundreds of copyright infringing items removed from YT only recently.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on June 06, 2013, 11:51:24 am
. . . commercial . . .

There's the key. The real problem is the corrupt system of capitalism. In an ideal society the artist would not and should not have to concern himself with "sales".
Notwithstanding the corruption that burgeons within capitalism - which indeed it does on a grand scale even though it need not do so - the fact that artists might not be directly concerned with "sales" does not mean that they'd be unconcerned about theft of their work; it's not all about money, as is evident from the fact that most people who post illicit videos on YouTube don't do it for financial gain. In any event, an artist still has to make a living, so someone has to concern themselves with the sale of his/her work in order to ensure that this happens.

More composers than ever self-publish today, not least because technological advances have enabled them to do so; how many of them who do so, however, can afford to delegate the distribution of their work to someone else in order to free them from the commitment to its dissemination? We don't have the ideal society of which you write and we aren't about to get it either.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: JimL on June 06, 2013, 03:22:28 pm
One aspect that seems to have been forgotten here is advertising.  YT is the greatest tool available to advertise commercially available CDs of unsung composers by posting one or two of the works on it, or to enlighten potential customers about the existence of CDs from difficult-to-access sources.  This actually constitutes free advertising, which is nothing to shake a stick at.

After having read the article, there seems to be two issues at work here.  I consider YT to be no more dangerous to commercial CD sales than radio was to LP, or even 45 single sales in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s.  Same thing - broadcasting stuff to the general public for free that was available for them to own if they purchased the single or entire album.  If somebody wanted to own it for next to nothing, they could record the performance off the radio with a cassette recorder, or perhaps rig their radio to record stuff.  It was doable even back then.

Recording live concerts and posting them on YT, on the other hand can scuttle potential recording projects, and that IS damaging. 


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on June 06, 2013, 04:46:39 pm
One aspect that seems to have been forgotten here is advertising.  YT is the greatest tool available to advertise commercially available CDs of unsung composers by posting one or two of the works on it, or to enlighten potential customers about the existence of CDs from difficult-to-access sources.  This actually constitutes free advertising, which is nothing to shake a stick at.

After having read the article, there seems to be two issues at work here.  I consider YT to be no more dangerous to commercial CD sales than radio was to LP, or even 45 single sales in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s.  Same thing - broadcasting stuff to the general public for free that was available for them to own if they purchased the single or entire album.  If somebody wanted to own it for next to nothing, they could record the performance off the radio with a cassette recorder, or perhaps rig their radio to record stuff.  It was doable even back then.

Recording live concerts and posting them on YT, on the other hand can scuttle potential recording projects, and that IS damaging.
As an interested party in this issue (in general terms, not just re Zimerman), yes, the opportunities available for uploading short extracts as samples is great, in principle and could indeed sometimes result in the effect that you suggest; however, most copyright material is uploaded to YT by others without permission being sought or a care in the world about anyone else's interests. Composers, record companies et al could upload sample extracts from copyright material by agreement and this would be no problem at all as far as I'm concerned; indeed, I'd welcome it. The fact remains that uploading entire works or entire CDs has the opposite effect, as one might expect.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: guest140 on June 06, 2013, 09:39:44 pm
Another anecdote: I recently heard from violinist Tasmin Little that she came across a video on YT of her own playing - with more than 1 million hits and not a single word in the title or description that she is playing!
I don't know if that is right and how much it is, but I heard that someone who posts a video with that many hits gets money for it. So in that case Tasmin Little does get neither the money nor the fame.

Tobias


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: guest2 on June 06, 2013, 11:17:00 pm
. . . not a single word in the title or description that she is playing! . . .

That is as it should be. Compositions are the property of their composers. The executants are mere executants and as I see it have no rights at all. Far too much attention is accorded to performers these days. All glory should go to composers.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on June 06, 2013, 11:49:56 pm
Another anecdote: I recently heard from violinist Tasmin Little that she came across a video on YT of her own playing - with more than 1 million hits and not a single word in the title or description that she is playing!
I don't know if that is right and how much it is, but I heard that someone who posts a video with that many hits gets money for it. So in that case Tasmin Little does get neither the money nor the fame.
I have also noticed that many people who upload material to YouTube do not credit the artist/s involved; I wonder why?


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on June 06, 2013, 11:51:18 pm
. . . not a single word in the title or description that she is playing! . . .

That is as it should be. Compositions are the property of their composers. The executants are mere executants and as I see it have no rights at all. Far too much attention is accorded to performers these days. All glory should go to composers.
As you've written elsewhere. No. Compositions are the intellectual property of their composers but to be shared with whomsoever will listen. Do not undermine executants; some of them might be the composers themselves!


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: Gauk on June 07, 2013, 07:48:48 am
I have also noticed that many people who upload material to YouTube do not credit the artist/s involved; I wonder why?

Laziness, I imagine. I notice in some blatant cases of posting recent commercial recordings, the performers are given in detail.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: BrianA on June 07, 2013, 04:30:17 pm
One aspect that seems to have been forgotten here is advertising.  YT is the greatest tool available to advertise commercially available CDs of unsung composers by posting one or two of the works on it, or to enlighten potential customers about the existence of CDs from difficult-to-access sources.  This actually constitutes free advertising, which is nothing to shake a stick at.

After having read the article, there seems to be two issues at work here.  I consider YT to be no more dangerous to commercial CD sales than radio was to LP, or even 45 single sales in the 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s.  Same thing - broadcasting stuff to the general public for free that was available for them to own if they purchased the single or entire album.  If somebody wanted to own it for next to nothing, they could record the performance off the radio with a cassette recorder, or perhaps rig their radio to record stuff.  It was doable even back then.

Recording live concerts and posting them on YT, on the other hand can scuttle potential recording projects, and that IS damaging. 

Perhaps I'm a bit out of step with contemporary practices?  If I truly love a piece of music I will leave no stone unturned to get my hands on a professionally performed and produced commercial recording. I have discovered much wonderful music through this and similar sites (and yes, youtube as well).  But my vast collection of downloads are never more viewed by me as more than interim measures, hopefully to be eventually replaced by professionally produced recordings.

Case study: one of my great discoveries of recent years has been the music of Mikhail Nosyrev, which I initially downloaded from, yes, youtube.  At the first opportunity, however, I replaced my downloaded versions of the first two symphonies with the Arkiv reissue (of the very same original Olympia recordings), and I will do the same with the third and forth as soon as Arkiv gets around to reissuing them or I can find a decently priced used copy of the Olympia disc.

Nobody, I think, is out royalties or profits or income as a result of my downloading activities since downloading will never prevent me from purchasing the first commercially available recording to come along.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: guest140 on June 07, 2013, 05:47:46 pm
True story. But I presume the complete true story went this way...?

"Case study: one of my great discoveries of recent years [after downloading hundreds of OK to boring works] has been the music of Mikhail Nosyrev, which I initially downloaded from, yes, youtube.  At the first opportunity, however, I replaced my downloaded versions of the first two symphonies with the Arkiv reissue (of the very same original Olympia recordings), and I will do the same with the third and forth as soon as Arkiv gets around to reissuing them or I can find a decently priced used copy of the Olympia disc [but I do not replace the recordings of the OK pieces, only keep the downloads]."

 ???


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: BrianA on June 07, 2013, 11:50:06 pm
Not exactly.  ;D  My downloads tend to be of music I know to be otherwise unavailable.  If there's a choice between buying a commercial recording of Arnold Cooke's 5th symphony and downloading a copy of Arnold Cooke's 5th symphony, it's a no brainer.

I hope this is not starting to sound too sanctimonious.  Sound quality has at least as much to do with it as morality.  But generally speaking if I'm interested in a composer, I will seek out whatever commercial recordings are available before hitting the download circuit.  And yes, if the download is worth keeping, it's worth replacing as soon as a commercial recording becomes available.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: dyn on June 08, 2013, 06:50:27 am
I suspect this may be an unpopular view around here, but i believe that the already-flawed concept of "intellectual property" should not be appropriated by agencies other than the creator for profit. Thus, i will buy music directly from the composer/performer if that is an option, but not from record companies or publishers or the composer's estate. Though pirating commercial records has a negligible effect on music profits (in fact, none, as nothing is actually being stolen), i do it anyway in the hope of undermining the music industry so that it can be replaced with a more fair system, one that favours creators and artists, not wealthy executives and marketers. (In a typical recording contract the composer may make as much as 7 cents per $15 CD sold!) I believe creative works should enter the public domain immediately upon the death of the creator, and hope most creators will have the foresight to release at least some of their works under e.g. CC or some other form of copyleft during their lifetimes.

With all that out of the way... i like to rant the quality of the audio on youtube is typically too low to make it a good substitute for even an mp3 download, let alone a cd/flac. YT is no substitute for a high quality recording. It does work well as free advertising for classical composers/performers, although i feel it works better at this when used to publish videos of works that have been made commercially available in multiple versions already, since the classical audience is less likely to be satisfied with just a single recording of a composition.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: Gauk on June 08, 2013, 08:30:59 am
That depends on what you are going to play it on. You won't run a You Tube download through your hi-fi, but for listening via PC or similar, it may be adequate. Also, people have different attitudes to recording quality. If your main aim is to hear the notes as written, sound quality may be secondary.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: dyn on June 08, 2013, 09:49:17 am
That's true, but one thing i have observed is that classical listeners on the whole seem to enjoy comparing and contrasting different interpretations of works. Even if sound quality is a secondary concern to a classical listener, he or she will not necessarily be satisfied with listening to the one version of a composition that might be available on youtube and seek out versions recorded by different interpreters. Similarly, hearing an interpreter on youtube one likes may lead one to purchase other albums from that interpreter's discography that are not available for free. YT's free advertising potential only fails when the upload is the only available recording of a composition, or represents the complete catalogue of a particular performer, or similar.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on June 08, 2013, 06:42:03 pm
I suspect this may be an unpopular view around here, but i believe that the already-flawed concept of "intellectual property" should not be appropriated by agencies other than the creator for profit. Thus, i will buy music directly from the composer/performer if that is an option, but not from record companies or publishers or the composer's estate.
But that would surely obligate the composer to make his/her own recordings as well as self-publish his/her scores, would it not? - and also to be alive, so from whom would you expect to purchase recordings or scores of a composer's work if not from his/her estate or its representatives?

Though pirating commercial records has a negligible effect on music profits (in fact, none, as nothing is actually being stolen), i do it anyway in the hope of undermining the music industry so that it can be replaced with a more fair system, one that favours creators and artists, not wealthy executives and marketers. (In a typical recording contract the composer may make as much as 7 cents per $15 CD sold!) I believe creative works should enter the public domain immediately upon the death of the creator, and hope most creators will have the foresight to release at least some of their works under e.g. CC or some other form of copyleft during their lifetimes.
The problem with copyright expiry upon death is that a composer's last works and any others that may not have been performed during his/her lifetime will have little or no copyright term. Much contemporary "classical" music today and much other such music that's still in copyright would do very little to swell the wallets of "wealthy executives" anyway.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: Gauk on June 08, 2013, 09:13:37 pm
YT's free advertising potential only fails when the upload is the only available recording of a composition, or represents the complete catalogue of a particular performer, or similar.

Well, that is true of most of the repertoire we discuss here on this forum.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: guest54 on June 09, 2013, 04:18:55 pm
Suppose for the sake of argument I wanted to write a set of "Variations on a theme of Hinton" - or on a theme of Boulez for that matter - does the question of copyright arise in such a case?


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: Gauk on June 09, 2013, 05:37:09 pm
Suppose for the sake of argument I wanted to write a set of "Variations on a theme of Hinton" - or on a theme of Boulez for that matter - does the question of copyright arise in such a case?

Yes it does - you would need to get permission. Famously, in Petrushka Stravinsky unwittingly quoted a popular song and had to pay a small royalty for every time the ballet score was performed. It might be an arguable case in the case of a tone row. I'm not sure that the words "theme of Boulez" have ever appeared together like that before.  :)


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on June 10, 2013, 07:45:58 am
Suppose for the sake of argument I wanted to write a set of "Variations on a theme of Hinton" - or on a theme of Boulez for that matter - does the question of copyright arise in such a case?
That would in the former case largely depend upon whether the subject matter of your variations would originally have been composed by Arthur Hinton or by some other Hinton who is either alive today or died within the past 70 years; what would happen in the latter case would at the very least be fascinating to the extent of being able to discover the nature and content of any response to a written request for such permission that Maître Boulez might provide...

But permission there needs nevertheless to be when the material upon which you might choose to compose variations remains in copyright. Whilst the case that I'm about to cite is not quite the same kind of situation, it does have some parallels. One of The Sorabji Archive's distinguished score editors - an internationally renowned Sorabji and Busoni scholar who has made typeset critical editions of most of Sorabji's songs for voice and piano - has wisely chosen to refrain from making such an edition of a song that is in fact the earliest known work by Sorabji (dating from the first half of 1915) on the grounds of his having been unable to locate all of the correct sources to which to apply for permission for its publication in respect of the English translation of the poem that Sorabji set in it; the translator in question died only in 1970 so his work will remain in copyright until the end 2040 and the poet himself only goes out of copyright at the end of this year; it might be argued that, in the absence of written evidence that Sorabji had sought the permission of the poet and the translator to use the material concerned in that setting, he should himself not have composed that song, but since he never published it and it was not performed in public until 2002, no obvious problem appears to have arisen as a consequence.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: Gauk on June 10, 2013, 07:26:42 pm
There is also a legal ruling as to how many consecutive notes define a quotation - oh, this has been gone into.

Reverting to the topic of the thread, I see Sterling have been going after channels that have posted their recordings on YT and getting them pulled.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: relm1 on July 16, 2013, 05:16:42 am
Some might find this article written by Rachmaninov in 1931 somewhat related.  Rachmaninov was referring to radio but just replace radio with YouTube:
http://www.gramophone.co.uk/features/focus/rachmaninov-on-radio


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: Jolly Roger on July 21, 2013, 10:45:06 pm
. . . not a single word in the title or description that she is playing! . . .

That is as it should be. Compositions are the property of their composers. The executants are mere executants and as I see it have no rights at all. Far too much attention is accorded to performers these days. All glory should go to composers.

Unless they are dead and the copyright belongs to the BEETLES!!


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: Jolly Roger on September 27, 2013, 03:10:43 am
It seems ironic that the Guardian (of all publications) should be able to lecture the rest of us on free enterprise, which they abhor.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: Neil McGowan on September 27, 2013, 10:43:47 am
I suspect this may be an unpopular view around here, but i believe that the already-flawed concept of "intellectual property" should not be appropriated by agencies other than the creator for profit.

Does it bother you that the performers of these works are left unpaid for the use you've had?


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on September 27, 2013, 10:59:25 am
I suspect this may be an unpopular view around here, but i believe that the already-flawed concept of "intellectual property" should not be appropriated by agencies other than the creator for profit.

Does it bother you that the performers of these works are left unpaid for the use you've had?
I do not seek to speak for dyn, but it would seem clear from his stance on what he regards as an 'already-flawed concept of "intellectual property"' that it does nothing of the kind; if I have misunderstood this, perhaps dyn will say so and explain how and why.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: dyn on September 27, 2013, 11:23:19 am
I suspect this may be an unpopular view around here, but i believe that the already-flawed concept of "intellectual property" should not be appropriated by agencies other than the creator for profit.

Does it bother you that the performers of these works are left unpaid for the use you've had?

It bothers me more that the performer receives almost none of the money even when i do pay for the use as it were. For a given CD or download which is sold for $10 for instance, and costs almost nothing to reproduce, it seems there is no reason the distributor/publisher/etc should get more than one or two dollars while the rest goes to the people who actually created the music represented (composer and performer). In reality the situation is almost the exact opposite of that, except that ten percent would be a very generous artist's share and a more usual amount would be a fraction of one percent.

Conversely, if performers undertook their own recording projects rather than entrusting them to labels, dividing the profits among themselves, the composers (where necessary) and the sound engineers, there would be more recorded music (since it would no longer be such a risk to devote a period of time to learning and recording a composition, as the time and money invested could be repaid with a few hundred sales instead of tens of thousands), distributed through channels that already exist or could easily be created, and both creators and audiences would gain. The only people who would lose out would be the people who control the current record market and methods of distribution, who are in large part the people whom copyright law was created to protect artists from. I don't think the world would miss them much if they disappeared.

I suppose i'm young so i can afford not to believe in perpetuating broken systems just because they're "the best we have", maybe age & maturity will make me a cynic like Mr Hinton


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: Neil McGowan on September 27, 2013, 11:31:58 am
distributed through channels that already exist or could easily be created

Do tell us more, pray?


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: guest2 on September 27, 2013, 12:41:36 pm
I do not seek to speak for dyn, but it would seem clear from his stance . . .
Just by the way and apropos of nothing in particular, Mr. H., she's a she it should be said.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on September 27, 2013, 12:47:44 pm
I suspect this may be an unpopular view around here, but i believe that the already-flawed concept of "intellectual property" should not be appropriated by agencies other than the creator for profit.

Does it bother you that the performers of these works are left unpaid for the use you've had?

It bothers me more that the performer receives almost none of the money even when i do pay for the use as it were. For a given CD or download which is sold for $10 for instance, and costs almost nothing to reproduce, it seems there is no reason the distributor/publisher/etc should get more than one or two dollars while the rest goes to the people who actually created the music represented (composer and performer). In reality the situation is almost the exact opposite of that, except that ten percent would be a very generous artist's share and a more usual amount would be a fraction of one percent.

Conversely, if performers undertook their own recording projects rather than entrusting them to labels, dividing the profits among themselves, the composers (where necessary) and the sound engineers, there would be more recorded music (since it would no longer be such a risk to devote a period of time to learning and recording a composition, as the time and money invested could be repaid with a few hundred sales instead of tens of thousands), distributed through channels that already exist or could easily be created, and both creators and audiences would gain. The only people who would lose out would be the people who control the current record market and methods of distribution, who are in large part the people whom copyright law was created to protect artists from. I don't think the world would miss them much if they disappeared.

I suppose i'm young so i can afford not to believe in perpetuating broken systems just because they're "the best we have", maybe age & maturity will make me a cynic like Mr Hinton
Even assuming that age will indeed bring maturity with it in your case, I still doubt that very much, not least because I am a practical realist rather than a cynic. When a record label makes a recording, it has to fund the artist/s, venue hire, occasionally instrument hire (in the case of pianos), production / transportation / administrative / equipment costs and, once the recording is edited and made, it has to fund manufacture and production costs including liner notes, artwork and the like; the distributors to which that company supplies the finished product (again, at its expense) takes a cut out of the amount that it pays to the company to purchase the stock and the retailers take another, so the record company may end up with less than half of the retail price of each unit sold by the retailers. Add to that the fact that royalties are payable on any recorded music that's in copyright and factor in all the above costs and it will be clear that the record company will in many cases see very little of its investment back unless the music and/or its performers and/or its composers are superstars that can generate sales running into tens of thousands.

In cases where artists and composers collaborate to make recordings rather than entrusting them to record companies, few shortcuts are likely to be possible and most of the above costs will still have to be met. If such recordings are made and supplied as download only, many of the middleman costs might well be removed from the equation but most of the costs of making the recording will remain broadly the same. Not only that, it by no means falls to all such people to have the ability to do all of this kind of work as a good record company can, so the product quality might be compromised.

That said, you were earlier referring specifically to what you believe to be a "broken" system governing intellectual property. Whilst laws on this certainly still differ from one country to the next, there has been a good deal of harmonisation of copyright terms over recent years and the current situation is less confusing than once it was.

There are those who consider that technological developments have alone reduced the entire concept of intellectual property to redundant anachronism, as though the fact that recorded and sheet music can be transmitted electronically with such comparative ease today itself means that those who produce it no loner merit being paid for their work; quite how such people nevertheless manage to assume that such work can and will continue to be done in such a climate is unclear to me. The notion of producing muscial art purely for the love of so doing is a specious argument on the basis of which some thieves seek to justify their zillions of copyright breaches; that is not a cynical view but a bald statement of fact supported by personal experience.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on September 27, 2013, 12:48:45 pm
I do not seek to speak for dyn, but it would seem clear from his stance . . .
Just by the way and apropos of nothing in particular, Mr. H., she's a she it should be said.
Then I beg her pardon for this error and extend my thanks to you for drawing my attention to it!


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on November 11, 2013, 10:09:15 am
I was hoping this thread was dead.it has served no useful purpose.it started with the leftist "Guardian" and should end there..
It's taken you quite a few weeks to bump it and, given with what words you've done so, it's hard to see why you have! Mr Zimerman behaved as he did and others behave similarly or do nothing about it when people who think that they have a divine right to anything and everything without having either to pay for it or to request the permission of those involved go recording live concerts, uploading copyright material to YouTube and many other places and the rest of it. If you think tht this is OK, then so be it, but presumably you are neither a composer nor a performer nor a record company owner. I am not a "leftist" but I have to make a living like everyone else and that's not helped by thieves. Your remark seems to have little if any substance beyond that of your personal view of the British newspapaer in which this event was reported; had the Zimerman case been an entrely isolated and exceptional instance, your statement above might attract some credence but, in reality, this kind of thing is very widespared indeed and many people are adversely affected by it.

Gerard's earlier comment about artists (be they composers or performers or both) not needing to be involved in "selling" their work is all very well, but someone has to sell it and someone has to pay for it otherwise those artists will receive no income and therefore be unable to do any work; in reality, the situation is no so very different from the taxi driver whose income is removed from him because someone's stolen his cab (at least until his/her insurance stumps up).


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: Albion on November 11, 2013, 06:27:55 pm
Youtube and other sites which permit (or actively condone by their inaction) the upload of clearly-copyright audio and/ or video recordings by members of the public are a disgraceful symptom of our 'get it for nothing' culture - I include Spotify in this, by the way. It is inconceivable that of the hundreds, thousands or millions of people who listen to a recording on these formats, a large proportion pay for the actual properly-licensed product. The argument that these are lo-fi files and therefore anybody really interested in the music will then go on to purchase said product is a load of bunkum - most listeners will listen, download or record these 'free' files and leave it at that. No wonder the recording industry is on its knees.

 :o ::)


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: guest2 on November 13, 2013, 11:48:51 am
. . . it is the Socialist Welfare State mentality of unmerited rewards which dominates our cultures today..hopefully it will soon pass.
This has prompted me to start a thread in support of Socialism and all the fine composers with Socialist views, of whom there have been many thousands!


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: ahinton on November 13, 2013, 12:21:53 pm
Youtube and other sites which permit (or actively condone by their inaction) the upload of clearly-copyright audio and/ or video recordings by members of the public are a disgraceful symptom of our 'get it for nothing' culture - I include Spotify in this, by the way. It is inconceivable that of the hundreds, thousands or millions of people who listen to a recording on these formats, a large proportion pay for the actual properly-licensed product. The argument that these are lo-fi files and therefore anybody really interested in the music will then go on to purchase said product is a load of bunkum - most listeners will listen, download or record these 'free' files and leave it at that. No wonder the recording industry is on its knees.

 :o ::)
I agree completely, it is the Socialist Welfare State mentality of unmerited rewards which dominates our cultures today..hopefull it will soon pass.
What is? Sorry, I don't quite understand to whose unmerited rewards you refer here. I have personally had removed from YouTube hundreds of files, mainly of complete CDs of copyright material, that had been uploaded there years earlier and I do know for a fact that the effect of their long-term presence on sales of the real thing had been adverse.


Title: Re: the dark side of YT "grandness"
Post by: Dundonnell on November 13, 2013, 12:55:21 pm
As I have remarked on a previous occasion, Simon Perry of Hyperion recently told a friend of mine in discussion of a possible future recording project that YT was killing his company :(