Shafted ARTist -know your enemy

We need fans like these. Brad Sucks gets some lovin’

Matt — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:42:23 +0000

BradSucks, a popular musician from amongst other sites www.ccmixter.org has had a fan offer to pay BradSucks for the first 50 people to download his album for free. Wouldn’t I love fans like this. It seems that this might be a cool way to add some value and exposure to other sites. Maybe a website owner can use the music download as an opportunity for exposure, sort of like advertising links. The band page can list the link as the ‘official’ download site for the page and provide the webmaster with some more traffic.

click here for the full story

What do you know, someone else has done the hard work for me…

Matt — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 02:39:45 +0000

Here is an amusing story from an author wanting to make digital copies of his works.

via techdirt

American songwriting collection agency joins the list of twits… ASCAP away

Matt — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:31:41 +0000

It seems ASCAP, the American Society of Composers, Arrangers and Publishers has weighed in against the ‘crime’ of embedding Youtube videos in your webpage. Why oh why oh why do they continue to hurt us? Personally, I would much prefer to have people hear my music, like it, and talk about it and thus find more people who are willing to buy… then try and charge everyone to hear it.

Ascap, you twits

via Techdirt

Success without labels -the Amanda Palmer story

Matt — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 02:31:06 +0000

Amanda Palmer had some great success recently with the spontaneous twitter concerts organised in local parks with hundreds of fans showing up to hear her perform.
The success of these shows raised up many critics of the potential for others to repeat these results with some excellent discussion taking place because of it.
Follow this link for more of the story

Cher sues for loss of royalties

Matt — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 07:16:46 +0000

Another example of famous artists who are realising how labels short change them of royalties and are making some noise about it.
This type of case is notoriously difficult to prove even though many musicians at least have an inkling that it is taking place.
Best of luck to Cher as she attacks this.
Visit this link for more of the story.

via Techdirt

Support Shafted ARTist

Matt — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 02:36:00 +0000

ShaftedArtist artist.victim. cap

ShaftedArtist is a collection of views from the perspective of the artist in our current world. Slightly one-sided yes... but rather amusing.

shaftedartist

$19.95

iLose, DRM hurts artists. -postcard

sarcastic lines from disgruntled artists.

shaftedartist

$0.95

iLose, DRM hurts artists. -bumper sticker

satirical sayings from disgruntled artists.

shaftedartist

$3.95

Inspiration…

Matt — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 12:30:45 +0000

If only songwriting was this easy… Lets see what he can do with another line…

Diesel Sweeties sings the artist’s tune

Matt — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:22:06 +0000

Heres one for a laugh.

see more hipster robot webcomics and pixel t-shirts

And another thing to say about Royalty agencies

Matt — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 06:16:37 +0000

Royalty agencies have been having their way for years. And now it seems that we’re seeing more stories coming out about the shady tactics and underhanded systems put in place to maximise their profits and limit the money sent to artists.

Here’s another example this time from Germany of a collection agency interfering with royalty payments and stopping musicians from do what they want with their music.

Seems like all the love musicians have for composing is all we have left. The rest is just an incredible uphill battle.

via techdirt

Jon Engle billed $18,000 for his own art work

Matt — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 07:10:31 +0000

This is ridiculous.

Kind of scares you from posting any graphics online. And what nasty tactics from the lawyers… I guess we shouldn’t expect anything less from them.

In brief, Jon Engle has been accused by a stock photo website of illegally using their stock images within his client’s logos and brands. The problem is, he designed the logos himself.

The stock photography site then billed him $18000 for the copyright ‘infringment’ and sent some nasty lawyer types after him. here’s to hoping he hangs in there.

post this to your twitter to get the word out:

Logo designer is accused of stealing his own work. Could you pls RT/Blog? – http://www.jonengle.com/2009/04/accused/ (contract) #savejon

Via Slashdot

Editor: This story seems to be swinging back the other way… Seems the ‘hero’ here might actually be guilty as charged.

Check out these links and make up your own mind…

http://www.thelogofactory.com.nyud.net/logo_blog/index.php/stock-logos-copyright-twitter/
http://www.thelogofactory.com/logo_blog/stock.html