Dance Recital Question

[Mark Suszko]

Another example of that, I’m into RC model airplanes. This one guy really liked the aerobatic team that used to fly at airshows sponsored by Holiday Inn, in their trademark green color and with their logos. Guy made a quarter-scale Pitts Special that was the spitting image of one of those planes, won contests with it. Sent a proud papa pic to Holiday inn… and got a C&D letter from their lawyers.

A particularly odious one to me is, there are a number of small one-man manufacturers in the RC plane making business, making little models out of styrofoam profiles. From the side, they look real, from the front they look flat like pancakes, not dimensional. One such, Roadkill RC, got leaned on heavily by Lockheed Martin, who told them they could not make models of WWII fighters like Lightnings and Mustangs and bombers like the B-17 because the plane’s designs were copyrighted by Lockmart, hurting sales of the product, (they still make B-17’s?!?!) as well as “revealing trade secrets” (on 1940’s technology?) and RoadKill needed to pay huge licensing fees that would bankrupt the small shop.

After a lot of negotiating and soul-searching, the company decided to pay up, because Lockmart promised them if they did, as “official licensees” of the designs, they could have access to actual Lockmart files, blueprints, art, documentation, and marketing help, which could in theory make their product way more popular with modelers and lucrative. And other makers would be prevented from competing with similar designs.

Except Lockmart never gave them any of that stuff, took their money and never called back… The company eventually just dropped making any WWII American planes, just Axis “bad guy” planes. Protests to Lockmart reached a guy in the upper management who was appalled by this and checked it out. The lawyers that started this were not lockmart company lawyers at all, but an outside firm contracted to help police any and all copyright violations on a fee per case discovered and prosecuted basis. Basically bounty hunting. The legal mess is still in process, Lockmart refuses to make exceptions for kids flying models of planes originally built with US tax dollars in 1947, even stuff they never made at their company, but was once made by a company Lockheed bought up or merged with.

THAT’s how crazy the situation is; We’re still fighting WWII apparently. We really need to go back and tweak the DMCA and all trademark and copyright laws under the next president, whoever that is. Make your feelings known. Write your congressman and representatives and favorite candidates.

[Bob Cole]

[Mark Suszko] “Make your feelings known. Write your congressman and representatives and favorite candidates.”

A major flaw of our system is that large lobbyists have access and we don’t. So flawed legislation, affecting copyright, health care insurance, etc., keeps getting enacted.

Check out the “draft Lessig” movement if you want to have a real impact on this situation. He has “moved on” (pun intended) from focusing on copyright/Internet freedom issues, to lobby reform. Unfortunately, we’re unlikely to have the one without the other.

Bob C

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[Jeff Bach]

Not meaning to hijack an old thread but…..I was reading Mark Suszko’s all start posting and stumbled across this one.

My first thought was “what about all of the wedding videographers who capture that first dance and all the subsequent dances, INCLUDING the music being played in the background?”

Seems to be to be the same issue in play.

Jeff

Jeff Bach
2WheelFilms / Quietwater Films
Madison, WI.

[Bob Cole]

Maybe the music industry doesn’t want to fight true love. Or, maybe they’re just too smart. Think of the negative publicity: greedy international conglomerate sues to deny newlyweds “their song.”

Bob C

[Randy Wheeler]

What happens when someone in the music industry gets married and has a video done with music?

Randy

[Ron Lindeboom]

[Bob Cole] “Maybe the music industry doesn’t want to fight true love. Or, maybe they’re just too smart. Think of the negative publicity: greedy international conglomerate sues to deny newlyweds “their song.””

You are kidding, right, Bob?

When the RIAA has sued kids and their parents (the legally responsible party), do you honestly think that they care one twit about romance or that the couple considers this “their song”?

I know lots of famous musicians and nearly all but the A-List ones are broke, cheated, been screwed out of royalties and publishing rights, and would tell you that the industry has no such conscience as that which you have ascribed here.

Before the Net, I think it was harder to “catch and corral” those who were breaking the law. Today, I suspect that as event vidographers grow and become more and more public, the RIAA will come down on some people to set examples.

It is one of the reasons that I always turned down wedding video work when I was asked. I did one and spent more time explaining why I wouldn’t do what the bride wanted that it was something I never wanted to do again. Besides, she wouldn’t even write me a letter of referral, imagine that. ;o)

Ron Lindeboom

[Bob Cole]

[Ron Lindeboom] “You are kidding, right, Bob?”

Thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt! But I was serious. Naive, perhaps, but serious.

I don’t do weddings either, so I may be ignorant as well as naive. I was just curious as to why I haven’t heard of wedding videographers getting sued for featuring “the song” from “the dance.”

As far as the morals of the music industry are concerned, your information might also provide the answer to Randy’s question about what happens when people from the music industry get married and want to use “their song”:

“It’ll never happen. People from the music industry love themselves too much to settle for getting married to someone else.”

[David Roth weiss]

[Bob Cole] “People from the music industry love themselves too much to settle for getting married to someone else”

Bob,

I think you’re confused. That’s people the movie industry you’re talking about.

David

David Roth Weiss
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Los Angeles

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[Ron Lindeboom]

[Bob Cole] “People from the music industry love themselves too much to settle for getting married to someone else.”

Too funny, Bob — funny, but mostly true.

:o)

Ron Lindeboom