Dear Ron, that is exactly the difference between our game & the big game. The big companies have to pay to Harry Fox or the corresponding companies just their share from actual salesw. Right, you heard it right, from actual sales. A marge of about 8% of the list price. But we the "niche producers", providing the most interesting things, we have to pay in advance for a minimum of 500 copies, no matter we sell it or not. We do sell them, but for a high price for us. Advertising eats up all the profit too easily, but we have something we can deduct from income. That´s it.
The single copies you take for yourself, are tolerated by most companies. Nobody can take you to court if you make a copy from a piece of music, when there is no publisher claiming it as part of his publications. Nobody will take you to court if you make a copy of such pieces to study it & to evaluate it. If it is no longer available, you might make a copy & rewrite it & destroy the copy, as it has been used as a working media only. Here in the E.U., law is different, giving you the freedom to copy that information for yourself, but they prohibit the professional use of it, except things have become public domain. But we are talking here about the personal rights of the individuals appearing as artists in the videos. Their rights have not expired. Public performances do not make the artistic performance public domain. Published video or audio material or unpublished audio or video media is covered either 25 or 50 years depending on the different law in different countries. But self published media on ones own home page is covered by copyright & artistic rights as long as no other use is granted. If there is a clear statement regarding this media, that it is copyrighted, nobody is allowed to steal it & republish it somewhere else without severe consequences. We do our work & expect it be respected. If one needs that (so with my homepage) , one should write a short letter & ask for permission, which is granted mostly. But it is more a matter of courtesy than of money. I never charged for the use of pictures or text from my homepage. I give you an example, a true one: Years ago I gave a free copy of Freibergs "Naturhornschule" to a young American colleague, playing at a smaller theatre. He asked me then, if I could give him another copy of the same work, so he could take it apart for easier copying for his students ! - rrrring-rrring---rrring ! ============================================================ ================================================= _______________________________________________ post: horn@music.memphis.edu unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
