> It's difficult for me to respect a community that feels entitled to someone else's hard work (and without their permission).
Are you talking about pirates or the media lobby / "watchdog" organisations?
While I can't speak for the US based organisations--though it would surprise me if it were any different--the Dutch organisations such as BREIN and BUMA are well-known for being unaccountable money black holes, most of it not ending up at the producing artists, but .. well .. I can only guess that there must be quite a bunch of quasi-non-government-employees living very comfortably.
Other examples, the BUMA feels entitled to be compensated for the hard work of artists paid by Stichting Gastvrij ("Hospitality Foundation"), hotels and restaurant chains that commissioned uncopyrighted ambient/background music for use in hospitality settings (classical, italian, japanese, elevator, etc) free for use by all in the hospitality business. Normally they have to pay some monthly fee for the right to play any music, which, supposedly, in some mysterious sense finds it way back to the proper artists. But the restaurants, especially the smaller ones that could not afford lawyers, of course got threatening letters when they stopped paying this fee, because even though the music they were now playing was rights-free, the BUMA still felt entitled to be compensated for other people's hard work.
And then there's Stichting BREIN, the chairman of which feels entitled to other people's hard work in the form of police-confiscated laptops.
I'm pretty sure that the actual music industry and artists would be much better off without these criminal types ensuring their "protection".
Are you talking about pirates or the media lobby / "watchdog" organisations?
While I can't speak for the US based organisations--though it would surprise me if it were any different--the Dutch organisations such as BREIN and BUMA are well-known for being unaccountable money black holes, most of it not ending up at the producing artists, but .. well .. I can only guess that there must be quite a bunch of quasi-non-government-employees living very comfortably.
Other examples, the BUMA feels entitled to be compensated for the hard work of artists paid by Stichting Gastvrij ("Hospitality Foundation"), hotels and restaurant chains that commissioned uncopyrighted ambient/background music for use in hospitality settings (classical, italian, japanese, elevator, etc) free for use by all in the hospitality business. Normally they have to pay some monthly fee for the right to play any music, which, supposedly, in some mysterious sense finds it way back to the proper artists. But the restaurants, especially the smaller ones that could not afford lawyers, of course got threatening letters when they stopped paying this fee, because even though the music they were now playing was rights-free, the BUMA still felt entitled to be compensated for other people's hard work.
And then there's Stichting BREIN, the chairman of which feels entitled to other people's hard work in the form of police-confiscated laptops.
I'm pretty sure that the actual music industry and artists would be much better off without these criminal types ensuring their "protection".