Makzimia, post: 458024, member: 48344 wrote: No longer care what SC does, finished with them, you know why, never EVER again!.

why?

audiokid, post: 458025, member: 1 wrote: why?

Ok, so, you've had a busy hectic life recently... I am sure I mentioned way back about my songs being stolen and sold in 100s of thousands in brazil etc and me not being able to even see that on SC or claim, when they were being sold on third party sites as ring tones etc.. SO SC can go and get F'''D.

is SC really responsible for that? couldn't the same thing happen on any other site? the only protection for this kind of thing is legal copyright. save a hundred bucks, get ripped off. one of the problems with self publishing. once you put something up on a free site, you've essentially given it away.

Kurt Foster, post: 458027, member: 7836 wrote: is SC really responsible for that? couldn't the same thing happen on any other site? the only protection for this kind of thing is legal copyright. save a hundred bucks, get ripped off. one of the problems with self publishing. once you put something up on a free site, you've essentially given it away.

Their response was they said they had in place security to stop downloads but not something back end. I was told updates to security may come along. Basically, they wouldn't own it. I was paying for a pro account, and I got nothing really out of it, along with that issue, and it was hasta la vista baby.

ok i understand now.

these services all provide free access until they build market share and they have a load of users hooked. once people build a business model around a "free service" they have you on the hook. then they can charge up the yang and the only choice you have is to pay through the nose or to go out of business. all media works that way.

Kurt Foster, post: 458027, member: 7836 wrote: once you put something up on a free site, you've essentially given it away.

It doesn't matter if it's a free site or not, you're still mostly relying on real music fans to do the right thing - because if there's anything else you CAN rely on, it's pirates doing what pirates do. Best of luck getting any satisfaction out of overseas copyright infringement unless you're a major player.

dvdhawk Exactly!. I was a member of ASCAP ... also a waste of money for me!!.

audiokid Sorry Chris for derailing your topic.. ;-/

if your songs are published by a ligit publisher, they have the resources to litigate. otherwise you're on your own. i always thought that 25% of something was worth more than 100% of nothing.

i have to admit i am guilty of downloading or streaming free stuff all the time. haven't bought music or a movie for years. as i write, i am downloading "Gotti" and don't feel bad about it seeing as i'm paying over $200 for internet / cable. the difference is i only do it for self viewing / listening. i never redistribute anything.

Kurt Foster, post: 458032, member: 7836 wrote: i am downloading "_____" and don't feel bad about it seeing as i'm paying over $200 for internet / cable.

I'm sure none of them have legit publishers, so you should be cool.

dvdhawk, post: 458034, member: 36047 wrote: I'm sure none of them have legit publishers, so you should be cool.

well i d load off a ligit site. Putlocker. and i also stream off of PLEX. again at 200 bucks a month for internet and cable, i'm sure someones getting paid none the less.

Just because your cable and internet provider are screwing you does not mean the creators of the work see a dime.

Yes, it reads like a fairytale of business ethics.

dvdhawk, post: 458036, member: 36047 wrote: Just because your cable and internet provider are screwing you does not mean the creators of the work see a dime.

yeah, it really breaks my heart that Harvey Weinstein, John Travolta and the Scientologists are getting screwed :rolleyes: . it keeps me up at night. lol.

Who produced or starred in the content you choose to watch is irrelevant to the conversation.

The fact is, whether you're uploading or downloading copyrighted material to or from a torrent site you've stepped from borderline "ligit" (sic) gray-market to black-market product. End of discussion. The rest is just rationalization.

I think I have lost the plot - I don't understand what is going on - is the rest of the story elsewhere.

All I can assume is music has been put on SoundCloud for people to listen to and they have stolen it? Is that right? Or is the music supposed to be private and somehow people have found it and downloaded it secretly?

I cant' work it out?

Me - I never put anything on Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud or anywhere else that is precious or something I want to sell myself. People steal things that are not secure - but if you need exposure, you have to risk it.

I believe you've caught up, Paul. You're right this discussion did start in a thread about Soundcloud mp3 quality, but soon warranted a thread of its own. Tony's post #3 in this thread is where you can jump in.

paulears, post: 458042, member: 47782 wrote: Me - I never put anything on Youtube, Vimeo, Soundcloud or anywhere else that is precious or something I want to sell myself. People steal things that are not secure - but if you need exposure, you have to risk it.

So where can you sell music in 2018 that you feel is secure?

Well - I sell quite a lot of specialist music from my own site, and let people download samples, but the full track is a time limited download. Considering the music is not remotely mass market, we do quite well out of it. Idiot customers takes a lot of time to sort - as in you can buy each track for £1.50 or the entire CD for £15, and you get people download each track ands pay for them, then they download the complete thing and complain, saying they thought the complete CD would be different? All are MP3s, and nobody has ever asked for an uncompressed one. The files are downloaded with server generated false names, so is pretty steal proof my end, although of course nothing would stop them giving the entire thing away to friends. Server costs are modest, the software to do it wasn't that expensive - and apart from time, it's simple to run.

I guess I'm less interested in the server-side than I am what measures you can take to prevent them from taking their download and "sharing" on a torrent site.

The band I was in in the early '90s only ever sold physical product and yet we've been available for download on all manner of sites for 10-15 years. (Certainly not by our doing, or to our benefit in any way)

I suspect that the people who enjoy the music are the problem. There his a feeling I get that makes me think that genuinely many people think sharing music is innocent, useful, friendly and even beneficial to the actual band? Could it be education, or just ethics and morals being lower in some groups. I know the US have never got the hang of our class structure, which we now pretend doesn't exist, but sharing music is an activity carried out by one of our classes - properly now named socio-economic groups. We had these classes
Upper Class - the 'posh' people, these people still exist, and pretty much don't source anything themselves, they have other people to do that for them.
Middle Class - people with money, usually well educated, and envious of the Upper class, which is a club they can never enter
Working Class - the people who get up, go to work, and do this until they retire
We now have a new under class - the people who have never worked, neither have their parents or grandparents. They survive on state benefits, work the system, have low ethics and few morals. These people treat everything as theirs - they have technology, but won't pay for it, they use it because their lives are empty, and are only interested in themselves - never giving anything back.

While all class groups might 'steal' the occasional music product, chances are that if they like it, they just click on iTunes and buy it - even if a friend has it, simply because the money doesn't matter, and immediacy is the expectation.

Rant over - the suck society will take what they want without a qualm, and be amazed the poor musician gets cross!

Right, lots of people here do it without the slightest regard for class.

I’ve been involved in discussions with people recently who feel that waiters should always get tipped. They don’t care if they suck, they get underpaid in the US because that’s what society there has allowed, I get it, it sucks, but if you’re a unfriendly douche or you’re just doing your job, why do I need to pay you again for one?.

Bear with me :), I’ll get to the point. The fact is music performance has now become something people expect for free too. I think there are a lot of people who think perhaps we come out of the womb carrying our instruments. Or, we got them and everything else we do for free. And let’s not forget, my personal favourite, and spoken even by my father recently who definitely should know better after 48 years and my modest pockets of success.,. It’s just a hobby isn’t it????...

Add all this up with a technology that allows easy dispersion of our recorded work, people video you at gigs, put that on social media so that someone can copy you because they like it... and on and on it goes. We have lost control almost completely.

So why bother??. It’s when I perform my songs only live these days, and people start to tap their feet or try to sing along with my songs because they now know them... go figure hey.

Frustratingly yours in the fight,

Tony

I belong to a UK business forum and there are so many business owners who constantly complain about having to pay to play music in their offices and shops. Just a few of us know how the system works, but these are quite sensible and business minded people and they simply don't get it. They read the wording on every CD they have bought since they were invented and ignore it - they stream from net sources and feel that as somebody bought the music, then they should not have to pay twice. It's impossible to convince them. They know they are right. Paying for music is just putting money into money grabbing people's hands. Organisations who collect royalties are scum - they clearly keep it all for themselves and give the musicians nothing - it goes on and on. Music is not an owned product - it just exists. amazing really.

Makzimia, post: 458053, member: 48344 wrote: I’ve been involved in discussions with people recently who feel that waiters should always get tipped. They don’t care if they suck, they get underpaid in the US because that’s what society there has allowed, I get it, it sucks, but if you’re a unfriendly douche or you’re just doing your job, why do I need to pay you again for one?.

Bear with me :), I’ll get to the point. The fact is music performance has now become something people expect for free too. I think there are a lot of people who think perhaps we come out of the womb carrying our instruments. Or, we got them and everything else we do for free. And let’s not forget, my personal favourite, and spoken even by my father recently who definitely should know better after 48 years and my modest pockets of success.,. It’s just a hobby isn’t it????...

Add all this up with a technology that allows easy dispersion of our recorded work, people video you at gigs, put that on social media so that someone can copy you because they like it... and on and on it goes. We have lost control almost completely.

So why bother??. It’s when I perform my songs only live these days, and people start to tap their feet or try to sing along with my songs because they now know them... go figure hey.

Frustratingly yours in the fight,

Tony

Not only are the content creator you are now responsible for the distribution and protection of your copy-write. You basically have to be "all in" as far as the business side of things go, so that means finding and paying for services that not only distributes your work but secure it as well. People ALWAYS felt that the payment of a artist should be optional, that goes from the record companies down to the spotty little brat who downloads music for free.

vjf1968 Why I was a paid ASCAP member, and had a Pro account with SC. The whole thing is moot if people will treat us worse than ever before now. And they do!. Being a performer mostly for well over 40 years, and touring part of that, I have seen the decline and marginalisation of actual live music. Add to the insult of being replaced by c-rap and karaoke.

Makzimia, post: 458060, member: 48344 wrote: vjf1968 Why I was a paid ASCAP member, and had a Pro account with SC. The whole thing is moot if people will treat us worse than ever before now. And they do!. Being a performer mostly for well over 40 years, and touring part of that, I have seen the decline and marginalisation of actual live music. Add to the insult of being replaced by c-rap and karaoke.

BMI, ASCAP and SESAC distribute royalties. but they only pay the big fish. if they had to account and send every fish in the pond a check every quarter, they would go broke. if you sell enough, you get paid. don't hate on me for saying it, that's just how it's worked for years.

if you make a record and make a deal with an established record company, you might get paid and they take might care of enforcing copyright. without a record company you have no clout or standing.

these are changing times. i used to own a commercial studio that made records for people. i shopped the good ones to record companies and everyone got paid. now people don't want to pay me to make their record. they don't want to let me make a buck. they want it all. if a person wants to do it all by themselves, then they are on their own. if they make a record with an established commercial studio that has label contacts and distribute through a real record company that can afford to litigate any infringement, they might get paid.

the problem is the new phenomenon of "self publishing" and then being able to afford to litigate to protect your intellectual property. if you want to put your music on the internet for free exposer without the clout of an established publisher you run the risk of your music being used without your authorization.
i don't like it. i personally think everyone should be able to get legal representation at an affordable cost but that's a totally different discussion.

late to the party. that totally sucks. have you looked into bandcamp as a distribution means? ive just gotten into it over the last few months, and it seems ideal. you can offer free stuff, name your price, tons of formats, sell physical copies, let people share and embedd your stuff.

also have you tracked where your stolen material has ended up? maybe its a blessing in disguise by building a fan base for you. between free pandora, youtube premium, and now bandcamp, ive got my entertainment bases covered with decent quality, variety, and affordability. i dont need to even download a bunch of crap ill watch once, and the artists get money from the ads, which i never see, since i subscribe.

kmetal Kyle, I am at the point where anything related to posting my stuff online is a no no. I even left Facebook and Twitter about 5 months ago now. Quite content to play live. The full story of what happened included me providing both ASCAP and Sound Cloud links to the offending sites.. The only way to stop them was to can my SC account, which I did, and the songs dissappeared immediately. So, I'm done. Can't and don't want to deal with any of this BS anymore.

Hi Mak

My soundcloud has 50K plays and most of those are plays of one song (spread out over several versions and mixes that I posted there). Like you - at some point some service or webapp was both downloading and allowing others to play/stream my stuff and it was explained to me at the time by soundcloud when I queried what was going on (because I didn't believe the stats and i thought they were purposefully eating up my available downloads to try to sell me more) that some 3rd party software was responsible for the downloads and plays. I never got to the bottom of where and who was doing this and who was listening to my stuff but I can only imagine how many plays and downloads occurred off-site as well. They implied it was some sort of streaming service. I wasn't trying to monetize the song at the time (it was a cover that I had purchased a physical mechanical license for, but not one for downloads) but it really made me curious as to what I'd do in the future with something like that. Nothing has caught fire like that since - I had already chewed through the available free downloads from soundcloud, and I usually no longer enable that function.

I do post on bandcamp though - my own completed songs (all registered wth SOCAN and BMI) - So far so good -- a few (unpromoted) plays but nothing like what happened on Soundcloud.

I just looked back into my correspondence with soundcloud from 2014 and the offending app was something called "Tinglabs Ultimate Music Downloader". Apparently it was/is an android app that used the soundcloud API to datamine for downloadable tracks, and to download them to play and also stream from users phones. The app also seemed to stream content later from their "cloud" after they populated it. Soundcloud were looking into it as a violation of the terms of their API. It's still around so I don't know what came of it but I was pissed at the time - thinking that some other web-app was potentially generating revenue from my content while indiscriminately chewing up my available downloads. This accounted for 88% of the downloads.

If you put anything on the web on any host that's public, it can be stolen. They don't need to download it directly to steal it.

Royalties are only payed out from legit sources like tv, higher end movies and radio etc. In general only if there is paper work involved you'll get payed. Royalty companies don't look everywhere to find where your stuff is played they only take the money from sources they know and have relationships with. If you have an issue with someone stealing your stuff they wont sue the offender, you have to do that. They have records when you created the music and who of the sources that they know of used it but that's about it.