Bloody Hell!

Copyright collectives!

Ya' need 'em in this the 'biz of music. But their time in the sun has been too long. Most of them have turned more than a bit rum, if you get my drift, which you would if you snift. An unrefrigerated carcass is a devil-made thing to lure our guild's buzzards and vultures to hell.

Big Reform is the order of the day. And another day, when my man Bix is around to top my glass, I'll expound.

(Damme, I gave Bix the week to bask at Clacton-on-Sea -- a stretch of Essex sand set aside for calloused classes -- forgetting I gave him a week last March for a legover at the Union of British Gentlemen's Gentlemen do in Blackpool. Two weeks holiday in one year! I shall remember come Boxing Day. His old mum down Ealing way shall have to be content with a phone call this year.)

Where was I?

Yes, copyright collectives. I refer to MCPS / PRS / BMI / ASCAP/ SESAC / PPL / VPL / JLO (and so on through the alphabet ad infinitum) - the lot that levies royalties (e.g. taxes on the little people) o/b/o those of us touched by the creative muse.

Admittedly, I'm provincial. Oh, staunchly pro-Empire, don't get me wrong. But a Little Englander when it comes to fretting about fuss and feathers flying beyond my own bailiwick, Hamsammich Castle and environs. Hence, doings in lesser colonies, like Canada, sometime elude.

Parenthetically, I am awake to copyright matters in America. One must be awake to what happens there, for the self-styled USA is our noisiest colony.

(As my peers of long standing know and applaud, I DO NOT accept the legality of rebellion against the Crown, and therefore view America's claim to independence as a childish fantasy we must tolerate 'til they outgrow it.)

Where am I? Ah.

So, Bix-lessly I browse my reading matter today, turning pages myself, and stumble across dear Michael Geist's blog. (He's that bright young Canadian solicitor who dabbles in thinking, unlike most of his breed.)

In his most excellent post (in which I was horrified to learn the Canadian Copyright Board thinks to defy a contrary ruling from the Court of Appeal and levy a C$75 tax on the sale of every I-Pod to benefit so few to the detriment of so many), he says the following:

The copyright collective system was designed to pave the way for paying creators and facilitating access to copyrighted works. With 34 Canadian copyright collectives, a prohibitively expensive litigation process that excludes many interested parties, price-distorting fees such as the private copying levy, questions about the fairness of royalty distribution, and a Copyright Board that seemingly places its views above the courts, changes to the system appear to be long overdue

Source: Michael Geist - Ipod Levy May Yet Face The Music

Thirty-four copyright collectives? !!! !!! ??? !!!

Are they daft? Are there that many Creative Canadians?

What is this vast but barely populated hodge-podge of amusingly named provinces doing with 34 bloody copyright collectives?

Where is Mrs. Thatcher when we need her?

I'd go on, dear reader, but I'm drained. You know how tiresome it is when the servants are below (or at Clacton!) having their crust, those hallowed times when manners and custom dictate we daren't disturb them.

So, 'til next I stir, toodles.

Lord Lunch

Hamsammich Castle

Worcestershiresauce, England