Licensed Music better that copyright lawsuits?

Now this may be just my ignorance of how the music industry works showing, but bare with me.

I just watched a video which told me that Tom Waits employs sixty (60) or more people to search YouTube for channels that had uploaded videos using the sound tracks of any of his songs. When found, they immediately file a copyright claim and or a take down notice of the offending video. And he is not alone. For the vast majority of video creators, a copy lawsuit is a waist of time as there is no money there to recover.

Is it me or does this seem counter productive to anybody (everybody) else?

If you have ever looked into licensing a song through BMI, ASCAP, Marmoset, SESAC, SOCAN or any other media licensing company, you will have found the cost can run into the hundreds or even thousands of dollars. There are a confusing medley of different licensees for variable circumstances. And the complex fee schedule varies as well, which obviously puts the music out of the reach of all but a few tip of the top YouTubers, who only want to share their favorite music.

With approximately 86000 new videos added per day and 60 people searching? I would say that your group are trying to stop an army of ants with a magnifying glass on a partly cloudy day. And I'm not suggesting let it all go free. After all, music has value. What I am suggesting is making it cheap and easy for video content makers to get a one time license for a video. It could go as easy as this.

Users create a social media account on, lets say, a special BMI website (this does not exist, its just an example). The account might contain the users personal information and contact info. Click on a new license form and fill it out, click pay and the site would spit out a one-use license in a PDF for print or email. The license contains the license number (an encoded version of the video description provided by the applicant) and the composer credit text that must appear in the video (end credits) and/or in any extended text description section available on the particular platform.

In order to make and keep this non-transferable social media license valid, the following information would be entered for registration: The date of application, the single upload web site (ie YouTube, Vemo, twitter, whatever), the account or channel name, the name of the video, the song you are licensing, if its the original track or a cover performance, your current follower/friend/subscriber count (more on this later), if your video will be monetized, and your expected publishing date. The License would permanently cover THAT one song on THAT video uploaded on THAT site on THAT channel. Additional uploads or songs would require their own license. IE one (1) song on one (1) video uploaded to YouTube and Twitter = 2 uploads = 2 licenses. Or five (5) songs on one (1) video on one (1) upload on YouTube = five (5) licenses.

License costs would be on a sliding scale (below based on one (1) song, one (1) video, one (1) upload);

$5.00 US - all non-monetized videos regardless of subscriber count.

$10.00 US - monetized video with less than 100,000 subscribers/followers

$25.00 US - monetized video with more than 100,000 subscribers/followers

Seems pretty cheap. But is it? YouTube alone gets about 80,000 hours of new uploads a day. According to Quora.com, the average length of a video on YouTube is less than 5 minutes. That comes out to about 86400 videos a day. If you low ball the figure and say only 10 percent of those bought a $5.00 license, that comes to $43,200 a day. That's per DAY and that only includes the $5.00, non-monetized, video license.

How much are your artists making on those uploads now? Oh, that's right your paying 60 people at 40 hours a week to police just YouTube. And I'm sure there are lawyer costs mixed up in there somewhere (there always are).

The cheap price is the key. Affordable by everyone. The license code makes checking against a database easy. The text credits make publicity for the music that is being paid for by the licensee, and its easy to check the video license validity. Now for a few bucks content creators can avoid video take downs, copyright strikes, all the bad stuff. Who wouldn't do that?

With proper announcements the site would be flooded with applicants. At the very least it would pay for its own operation, policing, and royalties. And since take downs don't make money, instead point creators to the licensing site where they could buy a license and get their video creation restored.

This is not an original idea. There are already sites on the internet that license music for uses like YouTube. But at $14-150 dollars a pop for unknown artists, their percentage of uses on videos is limited. To my thinking, the value here is volume. Getting a great rep and building that 10 percent to 40-50-60 percent licensed with a large and happy repeat user base.

So as I said at the start, I'm not a professional musician. I'm not an executive responsible for collecting royalties. I'm not paying 60 people a day to make me no money and spread animosity about my brand by doing take downs on YouTube. But even I would stop using free Creative Commons music in my videos if for five or ten bucks each a I could use popular music.

Be Well.

Good-bye to a not-so-old friend

 

Not so very long ago, I was presented with a gift of a computer tablet.  But this was not just any tablet it was a new Microsoft "SURFACE".  More than just a tablet, it ran WINDOWS RT, had a removable keyboard (of sorts), a magnificent screen in a similar aspect ratio as a laptop monitor, and 16 gigabytes of RAM.

Windows RT was a new and experimental version of the Windows operating system. It had the look and "feel" of a Windows platform, it had a touch-me screen, but also a rubber coated keyboard covered with little squares with letters and numbers silk screened on them. Imagine the joy of opening the box and seeing the safety film coated screen. The charger was connected with a magnetic (cant buy one of these anywhere) coupler, that fell off anytime you brushed against it or one of the dogs walked past wagging their tails.

But it was new, experimental, and most important... it was a gift.

I had no idea what to do with it.

You see Windows RT looked like Windows, but it came with a few restrictions.  You needed a Microsoft account to turn it on.  It came with abridged, albeit free, versions of MS Office and Internet Explorer. And your Microsoft account got you into the Microsoft store where you could download approved software. Some for free, some cost money which they made easy by constantly asking you for a credit card to keep safely on file for your convenience.

But there was a hook.  If the software you wanted to run was not not approved or not specifically designed for the new ARM chip-set, you would politely be told that it would not run on this computer.  I'm sure it was Microsoft ecstasy.  NO Firefox, no Google Chrome, Opera, no professional photo editing programs, drawing programs, CAD, no major games, no competition.  Your only bidirectional window to the outside world was Internet Explorer and the store.

Imagine Microsoft's surprise when it didn't sell well. 

Then hope came on the horizon.  Microsoft was going to port Windows 8 to the Surface computers. But it was all dashed as the Windows 8 version was crippled the same as RT had been.  No unauthorized software and no incentive for companies to port their programs to operate with the ARM chip-set. Even the eventual upgrade to Windows 8.1 changed nothing.

Imagine Microsoft's surprise when it still didn't sell well. 

So NOW what do I do with it?

Perhaps it was too slow?  MS came out with a version 2, but it was just the same.  Although thousands of us now owned versions one and two of this experimental device, Microsoft decided to cut and run.  So for the past few years we have gotten just the legally required security updates.

There are a lot of smart people on the internet.  As time went by, some of them found ways to crack or bypass the lock that held our poor Surface tablets in chains. But one by one, update by update the vindictive minds at Microsoft changed the keys to the locks and shut them down.

While all this was going on, I paid little attention.  My personal animosity toward Microsoft goes way, way back.  All the way to Windows with Work Groups. I was not "afraid" that they (Microsoft) were going to screw us... I was sure of it.  (That history is for another blog)

Once the keyboard stopped working, and what few programs I was using loaded its storage with so much crap that I eventually reset the whole machine back to factory once or twice, I just gave up.  But I didn't stop using my little tablet. I found its niche.  I took it into my work shop. Because it had no fans, it was more or less impervious to the sawdust and dirt that woodworking creates and spreads all over regardless of the amount of dust collection you install. I set it up on my workbench and clicked on Internet Explorer (IE) and found my way to YouTube.

At YouTube and searching the internet, the Surface excelled.  Over time the WiFi connection became a little slow. But then they gave us an upgrade from IE 10 to IE 11 and that helped for a bit.

But Surface worked fine to help me find parts I needed, keeping me abreast of my favorite YouTubers, and that marvelous screen gave me a wide angle, full-screen view that I didn't need my glasses to watch.

And then it started.  YouTube and other web sites started warning me that I needed to upgrade my web browser. They would stop supporting it "soon".  For the past six months I scoured the Microsoft web site about possible updates.  For a while there was a rumor of a special version of Windows 10 in the offing to save my little tablet.  But the word officially finally came out:

"Microsoft has officially abandoned any plans for further upgrades for the Surface 1 and 2. "

As I expected. They finally got me.  It took 5 years... I'm Microsoft screwed again.

On July 1st 2020, Internet Explorer 11 finally effectively ceased to function on YouTube and most everywhere else.  If I wanted to wait for 15 to 20 minutes for each video to load, I can still see them.  The "upgrade your browser" warnings are gone. My little tablet is finally a paper weight.

So NOW what do I do with it?

It was a good little computer, betrayed by it's creators. For want of a browser, it could have lived on for years.  I'll pack it up in a box and stuff it in some crevice in the house for my children to find after I'm gone.  They can open the box and look at the little Surface and its wide screen and tape covered power connector and marvel;

"What the hell did he keep this for?"

Can you make a Thanksgiving at a restaurant?

It may be a silly thought. I’m sure that people do make a happy Thanksgiving at restaurants every year. And probably have for as long as there have been restaurants and Thanksgiving.

In my case, I have been luckier.  Ever since before I was born, my family has held Thanksgiving dinner at home.  For the past 59 years, at my mothers home. Sometimes it was just a few of us, other times there were tables set up all over the house. But it was always at my mother’s house.

And although this delighted me, it was not always a hit with my former wives.  But still it was tradition that reached back into my past much farther than they did. And I was inflexible.

Other holidays have fallen.  Mother’s day, Easter, and last year even Christmas, all home cooked meals that were outsourced, not to carry in, but to dine out. I didn’t complain.  I realized that if I was in my late 50’s that put my mother in her early 80’s.  Cleaning and cooking for holidays is hard work.  It doesn’t matter if it’s for five or thirty family and a dozen or so strays and their families that my mother would befriend and, for a day, make them feel as at home and as much a part of the family as I did. 

We all pitched in to help cook and prepare. But it just got to be too much. So one at a time the holidays fell.  But no matter what happened I still had Thanksgiving.

Until today.

Now I realize that thanksgiving is celebrated across the United States.  And everybody SAYS that it is a day to reflect on friends and family and the few or many gifts life had bestowed on you. People SAY that, but I felt it.  I didn’t realize just how much I felt it until my Mother told me about two weeks ago that she and my youngest brother were looking for a restaurant to make thanksgiving reservations.

I smiled.  I don’t know why I smiled. I certainly didn’t feel like smiling, I felt like running around the room like a spoiled three year old, smashing thing indiscriminately and screaming “No, no, no, no, no!!! “ 

But I smiled.  I offered other alternative and the discussion was long, but in the end fruitless.  Today my mother, my brothers, our sons, and even a new great grandson ate thanksgiving dinner… out.

It took me a while to wrap my head around it.  And I am not a good enough actor to hide my displeasure in the entire affair.  We had eaten many meals at this particular restaurant before and the food had always been good. 

Today I didn’t like a bite of it. However, I couldn’t tell you if it was any good.  I didn’t taste it. I did my best to make light of everything that I was hating, but I’m not sure I fooled anyone.  It wasn’t a tantrum, It wasn’t moping. My thanksgiving was broken and I was realizing that it wasn’t the food.

Since I was nine or so, my brothers and I had been living in a true matriarchy.  My mother was the head of the family.  You just didn’t say no, because you never wanted to disappoint her.  My middle brother traveled from across country to see her.  His eldest son and my eldest son brought their families from states away to see her too.  And my mother was now eighty-three. 

The three hundred pound gorilla sitting in my lap was not about loosing a home cooked meal.  It was about loosing my mother and perhaps my family. Would we still gather in years to come after my mother was gone. Or would we, like so many other families be relegated to seeing each other only during some five or ten year reunion. 

These are questions to which I have no answer. I cannot answer. It’s not just up to me.

So the next gathering is Christmas.  And we will be eating out.  But my attitude will be different. I won’t be secretly grousing about the food.  Because the food won’t matter.  The place will not matter.  Only holding my family close for as long as I can will matter.  And marking every moment we share together.

And that will matter most.

Be Well.

Haunting Halloweens

The 2002 entrance to the haunted tent

When I was younger, about 1973- 75, I devoted months of my life to a Haunted House in Willowick Ohio.  It was put on by the JC organization and staffed by volunteers.  Admission was $1, half that if you were under 12.  

Times have changed. Now to enter haunted houses can be as much as $20.

Halloween was always a big thing for me.  Later it was dressing up my own house with all kinds of figures and lights, spiders, webs, skulls, and carved pumpkins everywhere.

When my youngest son was in grade school, they had a fund raiser 
Halloween party. Every year I did something for them. Usually some kind of entrance to the tent they used, just to set the mood.  (see the photo above)

Now my participation is simpler.  I put out a few decorations and pass out treats to whomever comes to the door.  Part of me misses the "big deal" of it all,  but then I see the little face of a first time trick-or-treater. The awe and wonder of getting all dressed up and going house to house, seeing all the strangers and getting sweet treats...

..and I'm young and happy again.

May the Great Pumpkin bestow happiness upon your little pumpkin patch.

Be Well.