midi conspiracy

[hearts]

ok.. PLEASE allow me to vent .. and I promise not to say one cuss word.. and you will know i mean it cuz you won't see a bunch of asterisks (sp?)

One of my little passions on the net is collecting various midi files to include in my personal pages.. and now my email greetings site.

I went to go to one of my best hangouts to see what is new. (I haven't been in a LONG while so I figured there would be a lot of new stuff to discover)

http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif

well.. today.. my heart breaks. It seems like this is all wrong?
http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif

GOSH GOSH GOSH.. (still not yet cussing)
how did this all get so crazy? I never thought this was stealing? I always viewed it as sharing. Just another way to add a bit of feeling or personality to a web site.

here.. look.
http://shouthouse.com/midi_conspiracy.cfm

The man at this site, has a disclaimer at his site. Does this really offer him any protection? Would it offer any of us any kind of protection?

Gee, try to spread a little happiness, extend a small pleasure to someone's hearts, and ya get knocked around by your own US government? I wonder, how does some RICH JERK get to sue a poor person for 6.6 million and actually collect? I guess this would make him/them a bully? I suppose the richer you are, the more stupider ya get huh? *sorry to offend anyone..but i am trying to refrain from cussing.. ya know how hard that is?

It ain't like these people were charging for the use of the midi files. I understand legalities that make sense. BUT I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS.

what can I do to protect myself.. use midi files, and still keep my kids, as I don't wanna lose them to a lawsuit. (all i got in my life.. ) Like the site said, the files are renamed... things are removed. (too upset to remember technicalities. http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif

I gotta go.. I need to say a few hundred cusswords to get that outta my system.........

*broken* heart

[Charles Capps]

That's just... wrong.

I understand wanting to protect your properties, but this is going WAY overboard.

*sigh*

------------------
"Okay, so I'm not "SANE" so to speak, but uh... I'm the lovable kind of psycho"
http://solareclipse.net/

[hearts]

well.. I view it like this.. if these midi files were so precious to mr big pockets.. then he shoulda kept them off the net.

I guess he/them likes the attention they are getting from ruining people. *sigh* they can proudly smile sitting in front of their monitor.. and say.. "I did that" .. and feed their falsified egos.

Hum? Seems that since the internet is a worldly thing.. a global hangout.. seems the FEDERAL GOV'T needs to go hang with the corporate NO GOODS somewhere else.. but not the net.

[This message has been edited by hearts (edited 03-15-99).]

[Justin]

You are designing a site. You spend many, many hours in PhotoShop working on this kick-butt graphic. It looks awesome! WOO HOO, so to speak. Much time went into it. You are very proud of yourself.

A month later, while surfing the net, you find this "free graphics" site. You decide, out of boredom, to see what they have. Ooh, look, they even show how many downloads each one has! Kewl! Then you come accross one... Um, hey, that looks like.... it is! THAT'S MY GRAPHIC AND IT'S AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD!! NOO!!! I'M SUEING THEM!!!

I am not stating that I am on anyone's side here, but technically, no matter where you found it, if you don't have permission from the copyright holder to use / give away something, be it a midi, gif, mp3, serial number, or whatever, it is illegal.

Again, I don't mean to take sides, but law is law. And when you are running a huge site full of other people's work, then you can expect trouble out of it.

Sorry to sound opinionated here - I just see that as an obvious wrongdoing. It is similar to a warez site - only harder to prove I guess (but easier to take legal action). Either way, it's wrong.

*These are my own opinions*

[Deb]

I have to agree with Justin on this one.

I've watched some of the graphics I have created and *not* given permission for others to use, be used. When I see things that I had made on other people's site I tend to take it as a compliment... "Hey look Terra, they must have liked that one!" ... but I have also found one of my graphics on a free graphics site..this one did not make me feel the same way. First I was a bit miffed then I became ANGRY... the reason I became angry was because the owner of the site also claimed he was the creator of all of the graphics on the site! grrrrrr for him I sent an email and luckily (probably because of lawsuits like the one above) he quickly corrected his error -- at least as far as my graphics were concerned.

I've also paid someone to create midi's specifically for sites that I designed... so in a way it angers me when I (and/or the composer) finds these midis on other sites with no credit nor permission. The composer spent hours/weeks creating these midis to the clients specifications, we then charged the client so that they would have something orginal for there site ... the client, myself, and the composer are obviously upset when we find this work being used freely and without regard to the ones who worked on them and paid for them.

I am ALL FOR FREE STUFF!!!!! I know of very few artists of any kind that do work on the net, that aren't all too happy to give some of their work away. Whether it be scripts, music, graphics, hosting or whatever else... but we also have to hold onto what allows us to take the time to create these things... this is usually done by what we can sell. When those items are stolen (whether inocently or not) it hurts our ability to offer more freely and even makes us scared to offer anything at all.

How big or small the lawsuit is and whom gets blamed for these things isn't what I am speaking about (millions is a lot and I'm sure is devestating to an innocent party cought in the middle of the illegal action) but the reality of who is right and who isn't. If these guys did in fact do the work to create the midis and furthermore took the time to copywrite them... then why are they wrong for wanting to utilize their rights to make sure that no one is stealing them? They found a site that was illegally (whether they knew or not) distributing their copyrighted material w/o permission and to top if off the copyrights had been removed http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif

FutureQuest's site (and all of my other sites) went grey on Oct 1st 98 and will go grey again on Oct 1st 99. Our reasons are simple and explained best on this site http://greyday.org/ . Check it out http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif

Deb

[hearts]

okay.. so basically, these sites that have free stuff, are not really free then.

there are notices at these sites.. do not link to our server.. please download and upload to your own server. It ain't like I went to some big league's site and stole their special music.

my QUESTION is.. is there a way to put a notice up like that man did, to protect himself. He confessed they were midi files collected from around the net and the copyright belongs to the orignal owners.

Not really looking to open a debate .. really needing to know what is the best approach?

[Deb]

The best way to stay out of trouble is to make sure you have permission from the true owner of any item.

Example: Let's say you design for one of your clients. You're quite proud of it and you show off this site to your friends. I go have a look and say "wow... your buttons would work great on my site!" Now, I don't ask you.... and I put them on my site. I also do not give you credit for them. Considering the fact that you spent the time making these for your client... there is a good chance they were not meant to show up on MY site and you may not be happy about it. To make matters worse... let's say someone is kind enough to ask ME if they can use these images that they found on MY site for their site. I say "Sure go for it!" cuz I'm just nice that way http://www.aota.net/ubb/wink.gif Somewhere along the line your client then finds the images you charged them for on some free site somewhere.... Then one day you get a hostile email from the client "How could you charge me for these things and act like you worked so hard on them, did you honestly think that I wouldn't find out you got them from that free site?!?!?!"

UhOh -- Hearts is ready to sue http://www.aota.net/ubb/wink.gif

No one in the above scenerio probably had bad intentions... but the result was icky:/

When you go to a free site... find out if the images were created by the site owner or are they collections from the Internet at large? If they are just collections from unknown sources... odds are you are now downloading 'stolen property'.

The only way to really know if the owner is ok with you using their items is to ask the owner themselves. Saying something like "If you don't want it used, don't put it on the net" is not the way it works. We put books in the library and expect people to read them freely. By doing this the authors are *not* giving all of these people the right to re-print the books or any text within them at all! The same goes for every other medium. Heck, we pay money for books to... but we still have no rights to those either. Free or not free unless the owner specifically states "I release this item as public domain" it's not public domain.

We like to share our stuff with others... we only expect others to ask permission before taking our stuff and giving it away. It's easy to 'assume' things on the net..but big huge lawsuits are going to force people to think a lil harder about it as time goes on. The Internet is no different the real world. The same rules apply -- enforcing those rules is another story. The more people that take the time to try to follow them of their own doing.. the less lawsuits like the one above we'll have to deal with.

I am too verbose in this area... sorry:/

Simply put -- If the actual creator/owner didn't give you permission -- then you do not have permission to use whatever it is.

Deb

[hearts]

i ain't so worried about graphics, i make my own now. or use royalty free graphics.

how do ya know what to do about midi files? They say you can check by the name, but the names are easily changed.. so that is no good. I don't sequence them, so I wouldn't know how to see a copyright in the file itself?

I don't like stealing in the least. I just didn't realize this midi thing was so outta hand.. and I don't wanna have to stop using midi's. http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif

[Justin]

I have to say that does not protect him in the least. I've seen many warez sites with that same disclaimer posted. It just doesn't work.

I must state that I HATE BMI / Ascap for various other reasons. They think that everyone in the world who plays mp3's is doing something wrong. Not true at all. I have a measly 70 songs in mp3 format on my computer. They are all copied from my own CD's and as long as I do own the CD, the mp3's are perfectly legal. It's no different than making a tape to listen to in the car.

Once you decide to give someone a copy, or otherwise use more than one copy at a time, then you have broken the law.

But BMI / Ascap hate people like me - I write software for playing mp3's http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif And I've already heard from them once and expect to hear from them again with my next release... They want to ban all mp3 players / encoders, and CD burners as well. That is not going to happen as long as I'm alive!

But this just shows how a few people can cause trouble for the rest of us. If things like this keep happening, the internet is going to end up being restricted by Big Brother Bill, and mp3 software will probably be taxed or something. These are things I do not like. I don't need a babysitter to tell me when I'm doing wrong, and I certainly don't need people telling me that my software contributes to copyright infringement and helps to condone it.

Another thing that people do not realize is that ignorance of the law is no excuse. The law doesn't care that you didn't know it was a law - you still broke it and that's all that matters. Also, as in the case of possessing stolen property, just because you didn't know it was stolen, or I understood it to be public domain, as some say, that doesn't mean it is any less wrong than if you plain out stole it.

I really hate that people who are either stealing outright or unknowingly are going to ruin the internet as we know it. As the internet is still in its infancy, the government and other big corporations do not like the direction it has taken toward total freedom. Freedom is one thing, but property rights are another, and one is no excuse for violating the other.

I agree with Deb - free is great! http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif But I also hate to give something away for free if it is only going to be abused and not respected. I will never give up freedom, however, I also will never give up my other rights. Tis a fine line between freedom and anarchy (funny, only a few short years ago I would have loved anarchy - but I've grown up a little since then).

Well, there we go. Rambling. I hate when I get going on a topic that affects myself, because I never stop until my point has been made http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif Sad thing is it's hard to know where to stand on this one. I hate BMI / Ascap / Microsoft / Big Brother, but I also hate warez / plaguerism(sp?) / theft. Big grey area.

And I will be participating in grey day this year too http://www.aota.net/ubb/smile.gif All my graphics (as cheesy as they are) are my own origional work, and even though I doubt anyone would steal them, I would be ticked (and flattered) if anyone did.

Justin

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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Tech Support

[Deb]

A good way to start would be to right click on the file while it's still on your own system (from explorer or whatever file manager you use) and click PROPERTIES then click the DETAILS tab. Not near all (sadly many don't) but on some doing that will give you the copyright info.

For a good example of one that did not forget to add it in... go to your Windows directory (most likely c:/windows) and then into the MEDIA directory... find "The Microsoft Sound.wav" right click and hit properties then details... You'll find their copyright info neatly intact http://www.aota.net/ubb/wink.gif "1998 Microsoft Corporation"

Deb
p.s. I myself get hit with this fine line many times too... it's all touch and go... but something else that needs to be considered, especially with sound files. Let's say you create a midi all by yourself but the song was not your creation. It is your favorite song on the radio... owned by someone else... if you distribute this midi creation without having permission from the orginal writer of the music... ahem... guess what http://www.aota.net/ubb/frown.gif

[This message has been edited by Deb (edited 03-16-99).]

[Armand]

I read that article about two weeks ago and was miffed about it too. I really hate the notion that we will never be safe to use music on a site unless we have personally create it.

But I do realize the validity of the copyright issue which is why a month after adding optional midi's to my site that I removed them of my own volution. I realized that despite the epidemic use of popular radio song midi's on just about every personal site out there it was fundementally wrong. So to the upset cries of my regulars who loved it I pulled it complete off the server.

I have created all my own graphics from scratch or made sure I had fully checked that the person creating the work did so from scratch. And I always made sure to get full copyright of those graphics from the creator so their were no legal issues and that I could go after anyone using them.

So where am I going with this? Simply you have to make sure every aspect of your site is your property explicitly so you don't have to worry even if it's "just a personal site."

Tis the nature of the corporate and legal beast.

[auteur]

You know I see both sides of this. I wouldn't want my work used without permission. But it happens. For example the poem "Footprints" was used without permission for years. The author, Margaret Fishback Powers, had to fight for authorship without receiving any funds.

BUT, I do know that most of these sites will remove an item in question if notified before hand. The fact that this company had her under FBI watch and sued for $6.6 million and not notifying her to begin with...tells me they were out for the recognition and money. Not for getting their midi's cleared from the site...

And does anyone else get the 1984 feeling here???...feels like Big Brother is closer than we anticipated.

My two cents...



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Elizabeth M. Miller
Getting You the Attention You Deserve!
www.123marketing.com (http://www.123marketing.com)

[hearts]

hum? in 1984 .. what happened? *confused* I gave birth to my first child that year.. i guess when you are 18 ya don't pay attention to much huh? http://www.aota.net/ubb/wink.gif

Anyways, there seems to be a lot of midi sites that have gone down. However, I have also noticed that some of the midi sites, have only removed the midi's that were asked due to copyright reasons. Little Bro and I talked about this last night, and he feels like these people were given fair opportunity to remove the midi's in question. And those that wouldn't were shut down.

Little Bro is right in the idea that we don't know both sides to this story.

I ain't looking to cut no one down for their talents and saying that they don't deserve recognition.

A very personal thanks to little bro for listening to me cuss and whine over this last night.. I luv ya man! *hugs Justin*