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Weblog:   The Right Term is Copyright Infringement
Subject:   The bigger picture..
Date:   2005-01-24 09:55:35
From:   GinEric
Response to: The bigger picture..

I haven't answered this thread since I started the whole thing some time ago.

Since then, I have been pretty much trolled by some geeks on dslreports.com, like Chuck Norris [yes, him], who has a hard time believing that I worked for AT&T and Merril Lynch on their websites. I've done a lot more than that and I don't care if someone who is only going to end where we all are believes it or not.

But while I'm here, I want to make a difference and leave my mark.

I'm different. I don't follow the paths of others, I blaze my own. I also don't let others risk their lives by jumping out of an airplane for me in my movies. I do my own stunts. So I can say "Yes, I did that and no one else did it for me."

Especially when the poor guy jumping out of the airplane is getting paid maybe $50,000.00 while I'm getting $13,000.000.00 per movie.

It's the same thing in Copyright. I've learned that no one else is going to defend your works and your right to earn a living from them. Especially not the big stars and hotshot producers in Hollywood, Beverly Hills, and New York City. They are uncreatives who live off the blood of the creators. Leeches and parasites, often becoming Parisites.

As for the encoding, I stood firmly against it because it was yet another attempt by the R.I.A.A. to increase the costs to the artist and prevent many from pressing CD's and DVD's. The Cost of encoding and the fact that encoding secret keys will make your CD or DVD "not play," which is what the movie and music industry want of independent projects. Thank God the bimboes in Hollywood turned down the All Oscar Taker "The Lord Of The Rings." Which really shows just how stupid these uncreative producers and directors are. They turn down great music every day, opting instead for the showing of teenage girls with less and less clothing, aka, Brittany and co.

Why? Because they own her.

How many times have you heard some singer/performer cry about being ripped off? They don't have the brains to write a song, then they get mad when they don't get paid for it. Either that, or, like Patsy Cline, they just steal the copyright from someone like Willie Nelson.

And Elmer Berstein is no exception. "Ghostbusters" theme was stolen from Huey Lewis, twice!

What makes anyone think that people like ASCAP's lawyer Koenigsberg, is anything less than a Copyright Infringer and a common crook? He authored the clauses that allow ASCAP to steal writers' royalties and had the gall to put it in the Berne Convention. This is fact, not myth or conjecture. ASCAP's lame rules, Section 2.8.3 allow for ASCAP to steal from any author. And they do it everyday. To the benefit, always, of the publisher members, aka, the R.I.A.A. who are the publishers.

Meanwhile, ASCAP's employees are off on multimillion dollar Hollywood and New York City parties, at the writers' expense, to hand out lame awards to the rich and famous, like Neil Young who no more needs an award than Bill Gates needs money.

Neil, by the way, is rich, pissed off at the world, a complete recluse, and consequently a donothinger, like nearly all the rich and famous stars. Their latest fiasco is to have taken over the Sundance Film Festival and, once again, blackballed the up and coming indpendent film makers, actors, actresses, directors, songwriters, cast and crew. These are the egomaniacs who own and control the R.I.A.A. and these are the very people who have ordered the R.I.A.A. to lock up 13 year olds who innocently download a song. Then, they extort $50,000.00 from the child's parents. They are a disgrace to the world or art and the biggest of anti-creator ego-tripping uncreatives.

I do remember how Neil, and Steven, and Graham, David, were so out of tune at Woodstock that they should have been booed off the stage.

But they had Billy Graham's R.I.A.A. and the music industry behind them, didn't they? It took them four more years to learn to play in key. By then, everyone had forgotten how horrible they were at Woodstock.

As far as some comments, the guy who wants "commissioned" artwork is straight out of Leninist and Stalinist Russia - a completely stupid communist idea. He probably doesn't even know he's towing the sickle and hammer line.

To the comment on how long for a copyright, it's the life of the author plus 70 years. And that is barely fair. We have children and grandchildren too, we'd like to help them get ahead in life. You don't holler about millionaire doctors and lawyers, stop hollering about the few songwriters who actually make money from their music.

On the encoding, again, the ISRC had a good idea, to tag every song with its own unique code for tracking all broadcasts, on all mediums, everywhere. This is a good idea and will cramp ASCAP and BMI's style of crooked sample surveys which they can, and have, slanted for their friends and other pets that walk the streets of New York and Hollywood. But the ISRC made a mistake of allowing the R.I.A.A. to issue these numbers. They should be independently issued, or better yet, issued only by the authors.

Talking about the Air Force, as a performer, I was trained by the United States Air Force, and the other branches, in hand to hand combat, like karate, jiu-jitsu, kung fu, and the like. I had to use every bit of this self defencse in getting out of many bars because either the owner didn't want to pay and was going to stab one of the performers, or some redneck thought you were singing to his wife "toothless."

We've had guns, knives, all sorts of tire irons and baseball bats pulled on us, usually by someone waiting outside the bar or nightclub who wanted to steal our pay and/or our equipment.

And that's why I get paid for the songs I write, I'm a veteran of the American Wars.

You know the line, "Out here in the fields, I fought for my meals, . . ." or did you think Daltry was singing about some fairy tale? David Bowie was jumped in London, early on, because he was a performer and some bonehead was jealous.

Chuck may have done a lot of nice karate chops in his movies, but like I said, I do my own work. I did my karate chops on the real streets, here and abroad. Perhaps that's why I take an attitude about all of this. Everyone was not out to admire us, enough were there to try and kill one of us that we really felt we earned our pay. So Copyright is a right earned by battle and warfare, not simply because someone puts a few notes and some words on a paper or disk. We write and sing about our lives, which reflect many others' lives, toil, tragedy, love, hate, all of the things that others find hard to express. Because expressing oneself is politically uncorrect today. But the true artist says what he fells and damn the torpedoes. Fakirs, like some songsharks we know, only say what people want to hear. They know who they are, no need to point out the fakes in the music business. And if we're willing to war over a performance payment, how much more are we willing to declare war and fight one for the very right to control our music?

The root of all freedom is the Freedom of Expression. Without this first freedom, all others fall. And the right granted by many wars and much bloodshed is the right to say "The R.I.A.A. are thieves, crooks, and Copyright Infringers and need to be investigated by the U.S. Senate, the U.S. Congress, and the F.B.I.

After all, how much of the funding of terrorist activities has come from publishers at ASCAP and BMI?