On 17 Feb 2006 at 1:06, Johannes Gebauer wrote: > On 16.02.2006 David W. Fenton wrote: > > I'm not calling for editors to not be paid, or to be paid less. I'm > > simply calling for them to not be paid *more* than they have been in > > the past, especially when it's justified by a claim that amounts to > > stealing the compositional work of dead composers. > > And all I said was the law grants royalties, and Hyperion should have > known that. . . .
It seems to me that you are simply wrong on this. The law until *this* lawsuit reached its conclusion in the appeals court categorically did *not* grant royalties to the kind of work Sawkins did in editing. The law in the UK is now altered (it's now more like Germany's law, if I understand what you've said about it). > . . . Whether you like it or not, Hyperion played with the fire > and got badly burned. . . . Hyperion was acting in accordance with how the applicable law in the UK had been interpreted up to that point. Sawkins was asking for what amounted to a change in the law. > . . . I repeat what I said in my very first post on > the subject: I am not taking sides on this whole issue (especially as > I am actually part of all sides, musician, editor, and record > company), but I do see this decision as being in line with the law, > and actually not at all surprising. I totally agree that the amount > granted by the court is well over the top, . . I've read both decisions, but I don't know that I recall any numbers for the royalties awarded. The large numbers I *have* read (£1 million) were describing Hyperion's likely legal expenses in fighting the Sawkins suit. > . . . but Hyperion simply should > have known better. . . . I don't see how they could have known better, as they were operating under the to-then-standard interpretation of the applicable UK copyright law. The results of this lawsuit break new ground and give rights to editors that were not there before this lawsuit reached judgment in the appeals court. > . . . I see absolutely no reason for them to consider > themselves as the victim in this case. Then, I don't know many of the > details, but so far I have not heard a single argument in this whole > discussion that would make me believe that the court ruling was wrong, > or out of line. And I don't actually see any impact (other than for > Hyperion). Since you have not read either of the decisions, I think your opinions on these matters do not carry much weight. Likewise, you have repeatedly argued from a position (the one you reiterate in the passages quoted above) that is at odds with the facts, that being that Hyperion was trying to avoid a royalty it was legally required to pay. That is 100% contrafactual, and was the entire issue in dispute in this lawsuit -- before Sawkins vs. Hyperion was concluded in the appeals court, UK record companies were not legally obligated to pay performance/recording royalties to editors. That has now changed, and it means a change in the structuring and financing of all early music recording projects by adding more people to the list of those who receive royalties. Secondly, by refusing to read the decisions, you are missing out on how musically and musicologically (and purely logically) unsound the reasoning of the original trial judge happened to be. While the law can be read in any way that courts choose to read it, the law is more respected when those decisions are based on reasoning that is logical and consistent in the subject areas involved. In this case, the reasoning is pretty much nonsensical, and leads to results that are completely at odds with plain readings of the facts. While it is never wise to think about law as being based in "common sense," it *does* need to be rational in its bases, or it becomes merely arbitrary and capricious. This is a decision that puts the law in a poor light because the judges have repeatedly chosen the less logical readings of almost every aspect of musical fact that they were asked to consider in making their decision. You may not have a problem with the result, and, frankly, I'm not sure I am bothered as a matter of copyright law, but the law in the UK has been changed by this decision on the basis of specious and erroneous interpretation of the musical and musicological evidence that was examined. I think that's a bad thing, especially since a correct and more logical consideration of the evidence would likely have reached the opposite conclusion. And, in fact, Sawkins could have lost this suit and still have changed the law. It's possible for a court to find that there are cases where an editor's contribution is sufficiently original to engender independent copyright in the edition while also finding that Sawkins's work was not sufficient to meet that standard (the first judge did find that only 3 of the 4 pieces Sawkins editing qualified for copyright protection, because the 4th lacked sufficient original contributions by Sawkins). So, the change of law could have happened without being based on specious and erroneous interpretations of the specific case that motivated the lawsuit. But you wouldn't know any of that because you refuse to read the court decisions. -- David W. Fenton http://dfenton.com David Fenton Associates http://dfenton.com/DFA/ _______________________________________________ Finale mailing list Finale@shsu.edu http://lists.shsu.edu/mailman/listinfo/finale
